ACRE Blog

I confess to periodically watching certain evangelical preachers on Sunday morning. They are charismatic and speak before thousands of parishioners in stadium-like seats. Their message is hopeful, individualistic, mixed with text and pop psychology. They play upbeat music and keep the service short: what could be better! These are the preachers who make the headlines because they are incredibly astute at using media. These megachurches have been portrayed over the years as the successful model of a church, while the media tell a story of decline of mainstream Protestant churches.

I remain even more unconvinced that they offer a viable model for synagogues because:

1. Megachurches are not a new phenomenon and they have been widely studied and highly publicized. If they were a good model for the Jewish community, why haven't they proliferated?
2. There are over 159 million Christians in the United States. Using a very generous count of the U.S. Jewish population, there are perhaps over six million Jews. We don't have the critical mass to sustain this model in most Jewish communities.
3. The people who fill the pews in megachurches at least have to profess a faith in God. You can't be a secular Christian, because faith is at the heart of Christianity. But, you can be a secular or a cultural Jew. In fact, the majority of Jews identify as secular or cultural. Therefore, the potential audience for a megachurch or mega-synagogue is even significantly smaller than our already small population.
4. Megachurches are centered on charismatic leaders. Have you looked lately at the track record of charismatic leaders in the corporate, non-profit and religious worlds? Not only do they often crash and burn, but when they do, they take others down with them.
5. The one Jewish movement which is experiencing significant growth, Chabad, operates more often out of strip malls than mega malls. They are successful, in part, because they create intimate micro-communities.

True, the positive values of welcoming, joy, responsiveness to individual needs and back-end administrative functions of megachurches merit study and adaptation. However, the fact that they have not taken root in any real way in the Jewish community despite the widespread knowledge of these institutions confirms that this model is a nonstarter for us. In fact, giving credence to it distracts us from the real story of spiritual transformation and change happening in many synagogues across the country.

I recently read a book entitled The Practicing Congregation. Imagining a New Old Church, by Diana Butler Bass. This highly regarded scholar of the contemporary church claims that the real story of transformation within Protestantism typically goes unreported. She makes the case that many mainline Protestant churches are experiencing new vitality by forming intentional spiritual communities. They are flexibly recovering traditional practice and in many cases "re- traditioning" or renewing ancient practices with more contemporary meaning. Thus, the true story of some Protestant mainline churches is not one of decline but one of renewal, relevance and revitalization.

Based on my ongoing contact with synagogues across the country, Bass's research also rings true for the Jewish community. Some mainstream synagogues are undergoing this process with success. Like their Protestant counterparts, they don't usually make the headlines. But, along with newer, emergent spiritual communities, they are making a growing difference in the lives of many Jews across the country.

One of the values of having a Conference on Continuing Rabbinic Education, and perhaps an organization that emerges from it, is that it can help providers of continuing rabbinic education separate fact from fiction and reality from hype when it comes to what those in the pews, and those not in the pews, are really seeking. The Conference can help providers develop programs for rabbis that look at deeper spiritual trends in the community then we read about in the press.

Rabbi Hayim Herring
Executive Director
STAR (Synagogues: Transformation And Renewal)