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According to a new study, if you attend a Protestant megachurch, chances are that you're young, and that you don't volunteer to help out as much and donate less money than other churchgoers:

Despite their reputation as symbols of baby boomer America, Protestant megachurches attract a younger crowd and more singles than the average Protestant church, according to a large study released Tuesday.

The survey also found distressing news for a movement that took off in the 1980s and remains influential in evangelical Christianity: Megachurch attendees volunteer less and give less money than other churchgoers.

Conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary and Leadership Network, the survey of nearly 25,000 people who attend 12 U.S. megachurches was conducted from January through August 2008. It is billed as the largest representative national study of that religious demographic to date.

I have to wonder: is the problem that younger people, especially families with young children or singles, don't traditionally volunteer or contribute as much as older people, people whose children are at least school-age, retirees and so on? In other words, is the demographic makeup of the megachurch part of the problem?

Or is it something more--perhaps a perception that the high "production value" so to speak of the worship offered means, in the mind of young churchgoers, that the church is financially well off and that it hires professionals instead of recruiting volunteers to help out?

More:

Rod's post below about the Baptist preacher's experience of Orthodoxy, and the interesting discussion which follows it, have got me thinking a bit about prayer, worship, and man's need to encounter God.

Every religion worthy of the name has had some sort of worship ceremonies, rituals which were supposed to get the deity's or deities' attention, or honor him/her/them/it in some way. The impulse to offer worship is a recurring feature of most cultures throughout the ages; Christians tend to explain this as man's natural yearning for the true God, while atheists tend to explain it as some sort of shared psychological impulse which was waiting, not for God, but for science to come along, explain it all, and thus free man from such apparently irrational and primitive behavior.

As a Christian, I, of course, take the first explanation as the true one. As St. Augustine put it, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O God." We are always searching, always seeking a deeper knowledge, a more intimate encounter, a more perfect love, and a more holy service of our wills to the Divine Will.

In our quest to do those things, we seek to communicate with God; we seek prayer. Prayer can be both private and public, both our personal daily habits and devotions, and our daily or weekly attendance at a liturgical or worship service. It can't be said often enough that for a Christian, both of these things are necessary--to pray daily while never joining in with the community in prayer can stunt your spiritual growth, while to pray on Sundays surrounded by others and then never really think of God or seek to experience His presence during the week can be an indication that one's spiritual growth is already stunted, or deficient in some way.

As a Catholic, my liturgical life is centered around the Mass, which itself is centered around the Holy Eucharist. There can be no closer union with God on this earth than receiving Him in the Blessed Sacrament; it is the greatest mystery and the greatest gift we have, for the fostering of our spiritual well-being and the strengthening of our souls. Every act, prayer, song, reading, and posture at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ought to be geared toward this ultimate act of intimate communion with God; anything which distracts or detracts from the proper focus on this sacred mystery ought to be removed.

What I have come to understand, as I've read preconciliar documents and writings about the Mass, is that this is exactly what those who proposed reforming the Catholic liturgy had in mind. Writing about these times later, in the book The Spirit of the Liturgy, the then Cardinal Ratzinger said the following:

"We might say that ... the liturgy was rather like a fresco [in the early 20th century]. It had been preserved from damage, but it had been almost completely overlaid with whitewash by later generations. In the Missal from which the priest celebrated, the form of the liturgy that had grown from its earliest beginnings was still present, but, as far as the faithful were concerned, it was largely concealed beneath instructions for and forms of private prayer. The fresco was laid bare by the Liturgical Movement and, in a definitive way, by the Second Vatican Council. For a moment its colors and figures fascinated us. But since then the fresco has been endangered by climatic conditions as well as by various restorations and reconstructions. In fact, it is threatened with destruction, if the necessary steps are not taken to stop these damaging influences. Of course, there must be no question of its being covered with whitewash again, but what is imperative is a new reverence in the way we treat it, a new understanding of its message and its reality, so that rediscovery does not become the first stage of irreparable loss."

It is easy to blame the Second Vatican Council, or the Novus Ordo itself, for diminishing the Mass, or making it invariably irreverent or a less worthy form of worship than the Mass which preceded it. But it's less easy to admit that there were problems before this time, or that the reforms were intended for good, even if the way they were carried out became an occasion for liturgical experimenters to push an agenda which really did view the Mass from a standpoint of deficient theology and heterodox practice.

Keep reading below:

Woke up this morning to a beautiful cold, gray, rainy day. I'm not kidding: this is beautiful to me. I love melancholy weather, and melancholy moods. Walked to liturgy this morning, and found an oasis of warmth, both spiritual and physical, behind the stone walls of the chapel. I must confess that I struggled mightily to pay attention to the liturgy, because of a totally obnoxious kid who mistook the church for a romper room. It was absolutely extraordinary. This kid, "Junior," looked to be about five years old, and he carried on like the church was his playroom. He never stood still, he played loudly with his cars throughout the entire service, so rambunctiously and obnoxiously at times that I strained to hear the service. And there stood his mother, serenely untroubled by it all -- and, to my mind, displaying complete disregard not only for the liturgy, but for all the rest of us there.

There were other children present, but they were all well behaved -- and when they weren't, their parents disciplined them. At one point, Junior briefly enlisted another small boy in his games. That lasted about one minute, when the boy's mother stepped over and said in a forceful whisper, "This is a church! Behave yourself, or remove yourself." That ended that, at least for that boy. But not for Junior. The little twerp's mother stuck a pacifier into his mouth -- this big, lummoxy boy was either five years old, or close to it -- but he managed to whine and complain and whizz his cars along the stone floor despite that.

I have to confess that I never know how to handle bad kids in church. As you know, I have three small children of my own, so I know how hard it is to keep kids well behaved in church -- especially if you're in a long Orthodox liturgy. We parents know how and why to extend grace to other parents. But for parents who don't even try to control their children, and whose children seem bound and determined to make focused prayer and worship impossible for everyone else, I really do have to work not to feel hot anger for. Several times I almost said something to Junior's mother, like, "I can't hear or focus on the service, would you please control your child," but then I thought, you know, this isn't my country, and I don't know these people. I might be resented for it. On the other hand, there were other children and parents in this small chapel, and Junior was the only one behaving that way. if the English aren't going to ask Junior's mother to discipline her brat, what place is it of mine to do?

On the other hand, I can't think of a single occasion when I've had the courage to ask another parent to control his or her child in church services, no matter how badly the child is behaving. In the culture in which I was raised, any parent would have had the right to tell a child not his own to behave himself -- and the misbehaving child's own parents would not only have been grateful that someone else had delivered a proper correction to his child, but he himself would have been embarrassed by his child's behavior, and would have redoubled efforts to teach the child self-control, and a decent respect for God, for occasion, and for others.

Would that mother have let Junior behave so obnoxiously at a pop concert? I doubt it. But at church, anything goes for some people, who presume on the grace of their parishioners. Anyway, if you've got a good strategy for dealing with bad kids in church, let's hear it. I could use some advice. When do you decide to work on controlling your own reaction, and working through your frustration, and when are you justified, and perhaps required, to say something to the parent or parents?

It started out of necessity: some churches, feeling the pinch in tight economic times, had to forgo their usual church buildings, sell property or give up leases, and start meeting in private homes. But what began out of economic need has spread to other churches:

Newburyport, Mass. - When Barry Diamond first told fellow ministers that his Las Vegas church was preparing to leave its 12,000-square-foot rental space in April and worship instead in members' homes, they warned him he was "committing ministry suicide."

But Pastor Diamond and The Village, as his nondenominational church is known, have survived. Fifteen homes now hold intimate services twice a month. On other Sundays, they dip into funds previously earmarked for rent and use them for special events and outreach, such as a May block party for local African refugees. Now other church leaders want to know how they might follow suit.

"I don't know if we uncovered a model that people are longing for or what," Diamond says. "But I have six appointments over the next three or four weeks with [church leaders] who are flying into Las Vegas just to meet and talk about it." [...]

Leaving a building with no plans for a new one used to be a hallmark of a failed congregation. In this recession, however, a growing number of hard-hit churches are struggling to pay rents and mortgages. That has some thinking about the formerly unthinkable: being a church without a building - and they are getting encouragement from building-free congregations who wouldn't have it any other way.

It's an interesting piece--some churches are still motivated by necessity, others by choice; there are comparisons to the early Christians, but also acknowledgments that some services, like youth ministries, are harder to offer in a home-church or occasional space environment.

And it's absolutely true that Christians of any denomination can worship without a physical building; the church building is not a requirement for worship. But I do wonder if a movement like this--economic hardship, which is a separate case, aside--forgets why Christians built churches, from grand, soaring cathedrals to smaller, more humble village centers of worship, in the first place.

More:

A friend and reader of this blog is jobless and on the brink of losing her home to foreclosure. She went to mass at her Catholic parish this past weekend, and walked out after the deacon's homily. With her permission, I'm posting her e-mail, with a few deletions to protect her privacy:

This year's drive for the [local Catholic community chest] has been protracted, and Deacon N, after concluding his homily, directed us to the contribution forms that were in each pew. Fair enough. But then, he went through it line by line, slowly so that people would have time to fill it out as he went through the form. That process broke the peace and the feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit that had been building in me during the service. I went to my car and cried. I really needed that peace and presence of the Holy Spirit. That was just a bad day to bring salesmanship into the sanctuary...

I get irritated when I hear people whom I know don't go often to church, and whom I suspect give very little to the church, complain that preachers are always asking for money. As Cardinal Egan, I think it was, once said about the financial problems of the New York Archdiocese, it's not like there's a pot of gold under the high altar of St. Patrick's that he can go to to balance the budget. Churches need money to stay open and run their ministries. Money comes from the people. It's easy for the people to forget that, and to think that the church is like a public utility. That said, I have in the past been in parishes where the priest just banged on and on and on about giving money for this or that building project of the church. Once I wrote on the donation card, "No dogma, no dollars" - and signed it. I feel pretty strongly about tithing between eight and 10 percent of my income as an obligation, but I'm not giving a penny more if there is no attempt actually to give solid teaching regularly from the pulpit. I wonder if deacons and pastors would have to beg like this for money if they were giving meaty, solid sermons most of the year? Maybe they would, I dunno. Perhaps you pastors among the readership could let us know.

Anyway, it seems particularly insensitive in this time of great economic stress, to spend an entire sermon ragging on people to give money.

Here's something weird I just ran across: a story from January reporting that the Parliamentary bill to disestablish the Church of England was randomly assigned the number 666. Excerpt: Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester and one of the...

My friend N., the former Catholic priest, and I have continued our conversation via e-mail. From a letter I received from him today, blogged here with his permission: I've been giving this some thought all weekend. Clericalism is not the...

Ain't you glad you weren't at coffee hour at Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church in McComb, Miss. today? Here's the e-mail I got from yesterday from my pal David Varnado, of Camp Topisaw soap fame: Ce soir, je fais la...

Time for the semi-regular Sunday thread, "What'd you hear today?" We had a guest homilist today, Father Ambrose, from Tulsa. He preached on Lent, and how it was a season for us to take stock of our spiritual lives, and...

Amy Welborn used to have a regular Sunday feature on her blog in which she asked churchgoers to discuss what their priest, pastor or other clergy preached on that day. I liked it so much that I'd like to revive...