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Letter to the editor

Worship in a big way

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published June 29, 2007

The floor of the half-built church is raw red dirt. Simeon Nix, the worship pastor, puts blue protective slippers over his shoes to walk in it.

He climbs to the back row, still raw concrete, and surveys his future domain. From here, nearly 80 feet away, the piles of earth form a landscape: a pair of jagged dirt mountains rise just below the place where the giant TV screens will hang. Where the faithful will kneel for blessing, an electrical ditch full of cables flows like the River Jordan.

When it's finally finished, this $24-million sanctuary will seat more than 3, 000 worshipers, making it the largest church sanctuary in the Brandon area.

More than that, it will place Bell Shoals Baptist Church among the top 5 percent of churches nationwide in terms of seating capacity, according to a study by the Hartford Institute for Religious Research.

As churches bloom into megachurches, and megachurches expand to the size of small towns, how can churches preserve the intimacy of worship?

It's a question that Nix and other church officials have wrestled with as the construction of the new sanctuary moves forward.

"I want them to feel encouraged, to feel that it's a warm, loving environment, " Nix said. "When they leave there I want them to feel they've had an experience with God."

Bob Darden, the church's pastor of operations, agreed.

"People need to feel comfortable in the new sanctuary and not be intimidated by its size, " he said.

Bell Shoals, like other megachurches, started small. It was founded with only 17 people; for a while, they met and worshiped in a local funeral home.

By 1984, the church had hit the 1, 200 mark. And it never stopped growing. Today it has more than 6, 000 members.

Worship service is key

The campus, comprising the old sanctuary, administrative buildings, meeting rooms and classrooms, is already so big that the church owns a fleet of 12 eight-seat golf carts.

The current sanctuary seats a little more than a thousand - the same as most of the area's other big churches.

These days, Bell Shoals has to schedule three services and seat congregants in an overflow room to accommodate its burgeoning flock. Once the new sanctuary opens next year, the church will be able to cut back to two services.

Common wisdom has it that megachurches thrive because of the programs they offer. Megachurches, defined as churches with more than 2, 000 members, have the financial and personnel resources to offer classes, counseling, Bible study and more, things smaller churches can't afford.

But the Hartford Institute's 2005 study of megachurches across the country found that people chose churches for their dynamic, joyful services.

It is the worship service, the study found, that can really make or break a church.

Brad Hillier, worship pastor for Bay Life Church, said keeping worship vital is a challenge for megachurch pastors.

"A lot of people struggle with connecting with the congregation, the 'wall' at the edge of the stage, " Hillier said. "It's really important to us that we break that wall down."

Intimacy in big spaces

Back at Bell Shoals, Nix said he has seen churches get it wrong.

"There are big churches that you walk in, and if someone sneezed, it would be a surprise, " he said. "That's how cold they are."

But he's also had good experiences in big churches. Nix grew up with a "small country church, " he said, with only 150 members. The first time he prayed in a 3, 000-seat sanctuary, he said, he was "totally blown away."

"It engulfed me, " Nix said. "I felt like there was just a spirit of the Lord very present in what was taken place ... I worshiped like I had not worshiped before."

That's the experience Nix said he and other pastors strive for at Bell Shoals.

The new sanctuary is designed to minimize the distance of the furthest seats from pulpit. And Nix plans to have a small army of greeters to mitigate the shock of a 8, 000-square-foot lobby.

"The experience begins the moment a person gets out of their car, " he said. "They'll be greeted, encouraged. If it's raining, they get an umbrella."

The giant TV screens, a necessity and staple of the megachurch, will show individual worshipers in the crowd so as to lend a feeling of intimacy, he said.

"Tight shots, up close, so you're seeing faces, you're seeing expressions, " Nix said.

And then, there's always the advantage of a big church - the power that comes from thousands of people singing and praying together.

Nix said he's looking forward to the new sanctuary. And he hopes the church will someday outgrow this one, too.

"When you walk in, you go 'Oh, this is big, ' " he said, looking out at the unfinished building. From a beam, sparks showered down on the dirt floor.

"But then when people start worshiping, " he said, "it draws them in to the spirit of the Lord, so it won't feel as big."

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 28, 2007, 08:06:17]