I noted a comment this week on a 2003 post on megachurches; a guy named Bruce Morrow was stating that one of my old churches from my Kent State days, the Chapel in Akron "persecutes the poor and less fortunate." Mr. Morrow has made the rounds of the web dissing former Chapel pastor Knute Larson.
Does he deserve such treatment. Here's my rebuttal to Mr. Morrow earlier today
Bruce, I can, as a FPOTUS would say, feel your pain. However, I don't recall Larson or the Chapel being anti-poor, unless things changed drastically after I left there.
They may well be guilty of being insufficiently pro-poor. They did lean upscale and I don't recall outreach to the poor being a big part of their ministry. They did a good job of reaching out to the University of Akron campus next-door (literally; they use UA parking lots on Sunday), but were rather lily-white and didn't stress things like food pantries or clothing give-aways to the poor.
Also, as an evangelical church, they may not have participated in some of the poverty-fighting programs of an "inter-faith" bent. I recall Larson got into some trouble with that inter-faith crowd by pointing out the differences between Christianity and Islam when those on the religious left wanted to focus on the "we're all praying to the same God" meme that was front and center post 9/11.
However, I don't recall them being anti-poor from a Word-of-Faith-style if-you're-poor-you-don't-have-enough-faith perspective. They tended to be more small-b Baptist in their theology, having grown out of a Baptist church.
Bruce, if you could give more details, I'd be willing to a more serious critique, but it would seem to be more errors of omission than of commission.
For instance, the Vineyard church I got married in was getting a bit Yuppie, and some more missional folks in the church left to start a church that did a better job of ministering to "the least of these." The Vineyard folks weren't anti-poor, but just not enough pro-poor for quite a few people's tastes. I think The Chapel may suffer from some of the same issues.
Thinking a bit deeper, I think there may have been some errors of commission as well. Here's a passage from my 2003 post
Let's look at this roster for a moment. I was in a "Young Professionals" class, but I was a doctoral student at Kent State at the time. What if you were a Young Nurse's Aide or a Young Factory Worker or Young Restaurant Cook? Do you fit in a Young Professionals class where your cohorts are computer programmers and medical equipment manufacture field reps and doctoral students in finance?
Mr. Morrow's MySpace page has him down as 42 years old and with an income south of $30K; he's now working in Wisconsin for the state DNR. He's five years younger than I and would have been a potential classmate in the early 90s when I was in my early 30s and he was in his late 20s.
Could that class title have scared him off? Could the yuppified nature of the church scared him off? Even if the Gospel was being preached (and it was, else I wouldn't have gone their as long as I did), was it being lived out by the thousands of stealth congregants who came, got a good evangelical show/service with a good preacher and good choir with a solid mix of modern praise and some traditional hymns, hopped the shuttle bus back out to their car (the place was so big, they borrowed a few Akron city busses for the day to shuttle people from some of the UA lots that were a good hike from the church) and went about the other 6.9 days of the week with little fruit to show for their faith.
I can't say that they didn't do any outreach to the poor, but I don't recall it being their strong suit. Most of the churches I have attended since have done better. The folks there may well care about the poor in theory but may more often than not fail to do so in practice.
That sounds a bit harsh at the Chapel, but you could probabaly look at half the churches in a typical town and come up with the same critique. We may take about caring for the least of these, but have you done something to help recently?
Also, do we have a church where Joe Sixpack is welcome? Often, Joseph Accountant, Esq., is welcome, but the guy in the faded shirt and jeans will get looked at funny by the better-off folks in the pew. If we got the snob out of us, or at least kept it under a tight leash, we might be expanding the kingdom a lot better.
Thanks for the follow-up post/reply.
Allow me to clarify a few things: I don't hate former Pastor Knute Larson. Yes, I am very critical of the man, being in the head position at The Chapel. To me personally, he is the personification of The Chapel. This is my thinking just to make this somewhat more easy to explain.
My story involves how The Chapel treated me personally over the years and other people I know. I'm not on some "crusade" to "diss" (whatever that means) Knute Larson.
I was the guy that come to church in jeans and T-shirts. I rode a bicycle to The Chapel. I did not even own a car at the time. Plus my mother and step-father opposed me attending The Chapel. I faced much persecution at home for attending a "Protestant" church.
Over the years I noticed (all to my great horror) that I was excluded from fellowship and other activities while attending The Chapel. I did attend Doug Clark's Young Professionals Class too. Those Chapelites made the point "my type" was not welcome in THEIR class, or ABF as Knute coined the phrase. This really happened. Plus I noticed I was harrassed by The Chapel's security. These people would quite literally follow me around and surround me and ask me some rather embarassing questions all the while the fourth service was letting out. All men were witnessing this event as it was taking place. I faced much shame and humilation by such actions taken by The Chapel.
This happened for many years-all the while I was attending The Chapel.
Btw, I did contact Knute Larson about all what happened. He could of cared less.
Posted by: Bruce Morrow | June 01, 2009 at 07:25 PM