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Friday December 21, 2007

Church model may not be right for Jews

An airplane hangar-sized sanctuary fills with thousands of swaying worshippers. Onstage a rocking band plays songs of praise, while the clergyman paces, his arms uplifted in prayer.

Sounds like Sunday morning in a typical Protestant mega-church. If some Jewish leaders have their way, it might soon be an equally apt description of Shabbat services in a Reform synagogue.

A story this week (page 12) describes the close relationship between Synagogue 3000 co-founder Ron Wolfson and Rick Warren, pastor of Orange County’s Saddleback Church, one of the largest and most successful mega-churches.

In an effort to attract and retain members Wolfson hopes Reform synagogues will adopt some of Warren’s strategies, from use of new technologies like jumbo projection screens to more contemporary live music. As one Toronto-based Reform rabbi said, “I’m open to anything.”

We urge caution before Reform congregations start mimicking the mega-church style.

While it’s natural to emulate success, we see few parallels between Christian and Jewish worship. Start with demographics: Size matters. Mega-churches are mega precisely because the U.S. Christian population is more than 200 million.

Protestants have the luxury to congregate in large numbers, generating the resources to build enormous houses of worship and the theatrical flair that goes with them.

The U.S. Jewish population stands at about 7 million, spread out across the country, with only a few big-city concentrations. We simply do not reach the critical mass required for the mega-church model.

But even if some rabbis and lay leaders still want to pursue the innovations Wolfson and Warren suggest, it’s worth remembering: Judaism changes slowly.

Even the Reform movement, born in the wake of the Enlightenment and dedicated to free choice, has steadily reintroduced long-standing religious traditions, from wrapping tefillin to adding more Hebrew to the prayer service.

This suggests adherents of even this progressive stream of Judaism still prefer a go-slow approach.

Not everything Wolfson and Warren suggest is radical in nature. Perhaps the most important recommendation: Synagogues should be more welcoming, something everything concerned with declining synagogue memberships can embrace.

We also want to see Jewish congregations attract and retain more members. Yet to pursue the mega-church model, to alter the culture of Jewish worship to that degree, seems precipitous.

While we agree with the Toronto rabbi when he says, “As long as Jews are praying, I’m happy,” we shouldn’t look first to the Christian world to make that happen. Can we get an Amen?

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