Dear Auditors:

The problem with welcoming doorways is how they work both ways—if it’s easy to get in, it’s easy to get out. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the seeker-sensitive megachurch offered a slow and gentle ramp extended to the unchurched. The goal was to make the church experience less churchy and more in line with an individual’s secular tastes. Narthexes became Welcome Centers, Sanctuaries became Worship Centers, and pastors traded clerical collars or suits and ties for waffle henleys and denim. Sunday School became Life Groups, and traditional liturgies were traded for motivational sing-alongs followed by self-improvement lectures.

On the one hand, it worked extremely well. The gathering crowds dwarfed the attendance at more traditional churches, and it appeared the megachurch, with its economy of scale and high production value, quickly outstripped the modest accouterments