I'm with you! We attend a mega church and their goal is to get anyone in the door, any way possible. The outside looks like a business park. The inside has no cross at the altar... just a dove. Not my thing.
For Christmas, we attended the nearest Presbyterian Church. The pastor used to be a really good speaker (when we attended years ago). The first words out of his mouth were something like, "Many think there is a war on Christianity. There is not. You should not react to what is being said" (it was a "turn the other cheek" approach I guess). That was enough for us..... our search for a church that fits us continues.
I wouldn't mind a band before services start and a choir during the service. I still want a small town church where you don't get lost in the massive congregation that needs 3 Sunday services to get everyone through the doors and no one knows who you are.
In my opinion, the anonymity of the megachurch defeats the purpose of the church. Fellowship gets diluted with sheer numbers because noboby knows anybody. I prefer churches with 400 or less members. There should be a social aspect to a church but it should be secondary to the spiritual message. Megachurches tend to focus on the social side to the point that the message tends to be secular to the point that God is almost an after thought. They tend to be like selfhelp gatherings where the message is believe in yourself because you are important and you can achieve and if you have trouble achieving come on back and we’ll tell you more about you because you need us and the power of positive thinking. They focus on the youth to make it become important to gather with their friends and have fun at the expense of any real message of salvation. Helicopter parents give in to their children and attend a church that does not serve their needs in order to make the kids happy. I guess if it shows a few people by accident the path to salvation it has done some good. But I’ll pass.
Our family has been with the same church since it was 250 people and everyone literally knew everyone else. All the faces were familiar week after week and the Pastor delivered Christ's message week, after week, after week.
Then our church grew to 500. Then 1,000. We got to the point one year (2003) that we had to rent a large banquet room so all our church members could attend service together. That was Easter Weekend 2003 and we had more than 2,500 people attend services.
Our "old" building built to accommodate about 300 people in our Worship Center could not accommodate our church's growth. So we started a capital campaign and built a new building.
Our new building, designed to hold 600 people per service was outgrown in less than a year. We'd moved to an area that was very "under-churched" and people started coming in droves.
Another capital campaign, an extension onto the church (which was planned for during our move, if growth required it) was constructed. We could now accommodate 1700 people per service. We quickly grew from 2 services (one Saturday evening, 1 Sunday morning) to 3 Services. Then to 4, then to 5.
This past Christmas we had 11 Christmas services starting on the Thursday before Christmas for those who were leaving town to be with families. We had another 4 services at our auxiliary campus two towns away. (We'd acquired that property when the church that occupied it simply "gave up" and handed us the keys to the property along with the deed.)
We had just over 19,000 people come through our services this Christmas. In our wildest dreams did we ever think we'd see that many people. One service alone packed just under 3,000 people in our building between the worship center (1700 seats) our youth center (another 400 seats) and our new chapel built for weddings and funerals, opened a week before Christmas, whch held another 500 people that were very crammed in.
I've been with this church since we started growing. This growth happened over the last decade. There are certainly aspects of a large church that I do not like. I often question how the money is spent for example. One might think our church building is very "opulent" ... it is not. We build to meet the Church's basic needs -- no more, no less.
There are also things about a large church that I do like. When our Pastor puts a call out to fill the local food pantries - it gets done. We make sure they over-flow with food and have to give excess to other food pantries. The weekend before Thanksgiving for example, our church gathered enough food to fill over 15 local food pantries - floor to ceiling. That's turkey's, hams, and everything that goes along with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Our church has a wonderful hospital ministry which is deeply connected with all the local hospitals. I still don't know how, but when I had my heart attack in April 2012 one of our Pastors was at my bedside within hours. My wife didn't call the church, yet they knew and they were there to help our family during our time of need.
Another person in our church has needed a new heart for 2 years and has been unable to work. Our church helped support that family (financially, emotionally, spiritually and with works) during that time. All the Church's ministries kicked in to help. When that person (named Ray) received his new heart, the church pulled together again to wipe out the hospital bill for his heart transplant -- just over $110,000 dollars. NO collection was taken, no diversion of church funds -- church members freely gave of themselves.
For all the things I genuinely do not like about large churches, there are some things that they can do in the name of Our Lord that smaller churches just can't. That's NOT a knock on smaller churches - which again is my prefernce - it's just a statement of fact. If I had my way, my family would be at a much smaller, much more personal church. My wife and kids however are very happy where we are and are deeply involved in the church.
Speaking of -- it's time for me to go to church!