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Megachurches in New England

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(page 4 of 7)

"Amen," said a woman, to a chorus of echoes.

People laughed and then grew somber as the man described his childhood. "It was a house of anger," he told them, a place with deadbolts on the doors to every room. By 13, he was breaking into homes, targeting those he knew because he couldn't stand their happiness. There was an accident and a lengthy hospitalization. The man glanced at his watch. "I'm running out of time, and I'm barely getting started."

The group murmured support, and he pressed on. He married, the couple had a child, no one was happy: "It was everything that I didn't want for my son coming true." He spoke rapidly--another injury, illness, then one Easter a turn to God. He looked up and paused. The following week, he told them, would mark a year without drugs. The group broke into applause. Several people stood in ovation. "That's all right, I've still got other problems," the man said. He smiled, wept. The message was simple, he said: "You want to get to heaven?" He wiped away tears. "Love each other."

Grace Chapel, as it turns out, has had a lot of collective experience with recovery and redemption. In 1987, former senior pastor Gordon MacDonald publicly admitted an adulterous affair. Although MacDonald was not in a pastoral position at the time of the affair or his admission, he returned to Grace in March 1993 for a time--a move that prompted dozens of members to leave. Those who remained drew closer. Elizabeth Clark joined Grace the same year MacDonald came back. "He was open and humble," recalls Clark. "As a new Christian, I found that amazing." Clark was equally struck by the reaction of the congregation: "There was so much forgiveness. It spoke to me on a personal level."

That sense of acceptance and communal embrace propelled Clark deeper into Grace, so much so that it's now the hub of her life. Her husband participates in "Celebrate Recovery," and she leads a women's Bible study. The couple co-leads one of the small worship groups that meet in individual homes, and most of their friends attend Grace.

Not everyone finds the same easy fit. Karen Tokmakoff, who began going to Grace in 1999, left after several years because it started to feel restrictive. "There's so much mystery involved in faith and in the working of the Holy Spirit," she says. "I believe my job is to love my neighbors the way Jesus would, but I wasn't comfortable with the notion that I was supposed to go out and save them." Of her new church in a nearby town, Tokmakoff says, "I feel more freedom to be who I am," even though the scope of what it offers is more limited.

Megachurches, in particular, do tend to provide ready community in a welcoming, if supersized, environment. Cafés are customary, as are bookstores, gyms, and common areas furnished with overstuffed chairs and couches, where members gather long after the service has ended. Throughout the week, in addition to self-help groups and Bible studies, there are classes in art, drama, music, or household and fiscal management. Some churches have funds to help members through financial crises. The message is implicit: If you're one of us, we'll take care of you.

Ready-made community may be one reason why immigrants figure prominently in many evangelical congregations. Those with established religious ties in their countries of origin tend to build their own churches. According to Boston's Emmanuel Gospel Center, recent counts, for instance, showed some 400 evangelical Brazilian churches in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, along with 15 Cambodian ones. Immigrants have also been drawn into existing churches: St. Matthew Trinity Lutheran Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, has reached out to the thousands of Liberians who live in the Ocean State, for example, and Faith has a sizable first-generation Latino population.