“Come for the Spirit, stay for the coffee”

I could say that convenience dictated my choice of Mariner’s as the first station in The OC Pilgrimage. It is very close. On my pitifully short morning runs, I can look down behind UC Irvine and see the Mariner���s complex. It���s also within a 20-minute walk of my own church, so there was the possibility that I could still catch one of my own meetings. Ultimately, however, curiosity drove me to visit Mariner���s. What was the allure of the megachurch?

For those of you not familiar with the term, megachurch refers to a (non-Catholic) church that has a regular weekly attendance of 2,000 or more. There���s about 750 of these in the U.S., and about 20 of these welcome 10,000 worshippers or more each week (at least two of the top twenty are in the OC). Mariner���s brings in a modest but respectable four to five thousand each weekend.

So Jana dropped me off on her way to church (the fellow Mormons who were driving behind us couldn���t understand our sudden detour). I hiked across the Mariner���s campus, past buildings for offices, for teen worship, children���s worship and across parking lots filled with late model SUVs and BMWs and Lexi. If it weren���t for the simple cross on the main worship building and the Sunday morning traffic jam, the campus could be mistaken for another suburban office park.

After maneuvering past kiosks soliciting time and money for worthy causes and friendly greeters, I was in. To my left was the big auditorium, and to my right���whoa! To my right was a bookstore and coffee shop. Jesus��� confrontation with the moneychangers flashed across my mind, but I quickly suppressed it. The Christian bookstore was mid-sized, but the deli and seating area for the caf?� were very well done (I���ve gone back a couple of times in the past week just to study in the caf?����it���s the best coffee house seating in a five mile radius). I saw that they ���Proudly Brewed Starbucks Coffee,��� but decided not to hold it against them when I found that they offered free wireless.

The meeting was starting���I crossed back over to the auditorium, to find that the lights were dimmed and the band was grooving. The highlight was the sax player, who looked to me like Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo, in his black shirt and Buddy Holly glasses. After this jazzy intro, we all stood up and sang bland Christian rock songs together with all the embarrassed enthusiasm a crowd full of conservative white Orange Countians could muster. We were relieved on occasion by the lovely trill of the saxophone. The band, the lighting, the big screens, the camera persons moving around the stage made me feel I was watching a music number on Leno or Letterman. The production values were top notch, even if the music was lacking the grungy guitar or hard punk beat I preferred.

About this time I realized part of the appeal of Mariner���s. You could worship in complete anonymity, especially if you were a Caucasian with some means. Nobody was going to notice you unless you stood out in some way. I felt pretty comfortable there���my hair was a bit longish, but my untucked black oxford shirt and dockers didn���t stand out in the way they would when I entered my Mormon Elder���s Quorum meeting a couple of hours later.

Through the rest of the meeting we greeted our neighbors, watched a video interview, prayed, and sang more Christian rock. The latter grew on me. I decided that these were 21st century love songs to the Lord: ���Blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be Your name,��� etc. These songs felt more worshipful (and less entertaining) than the opening numbers and moved me more.

The sermon was team-taught by two thirty-something pastors. The message was resisting the pull of money and was designed to fit into a month-long campaign complete with professionally-designed logos and the catchy slogan: ���Defy gravity���break the world���s hold.��� What interested me most about the pastors was that they presented themselves as having the same monetary worries and temptations as the rest of the congregation: the allure of big-screen TVs, failed real-estate investments and stretched budgets (victims to home improvements and Christmas presents for the kids). I appreciated their candor, but couldn���t help thinking that they seemed to make a lot of money for ���men of the cloth��� and that their approach might not work in an inner city congregation.

After the meeting, I went into the Global Bookstore/Caf?� and filled out my experience by buying a One Year Bible (New Living Translation) and a Chai Tea Latt?� (breaking two Mormon commandments in the process, one against Sabbath-buying and one against drinking tea). I noted that the only really native-looking Latinas I saw that morning were two women working behind the caf?� counter and the drummer in the band. Sipping my chai, I thought and decided that the allure of the megachurch, at least from my limited experience, was four-fold:

1) There was little in the music and services to offend anyone. Instead there was plenty to entertain and make the middle-class suburbanite feel at ease.
2) It was a low-pressure operation. Members seem to be able to choose their own level of commitment. This is in contrast to my experience with the LDS Church, where everyone is expected to participate in varying capacities.
3) There are the spiritual benefits of communal prayer, song and worship and gentle reminders, exhortations and encouragement to live the Gospel and to believe in Christ.
4) There is a great coffee shop (in which to continue the spiritual reflection and fellowship, under the influence of caffeine).

I finished off my tea and hiked up the road to join my own congregation.