Church, the Mega-Church and the Hype. My CCV experience.

I grew up in Church. I’m the product of a pretty devout Latino Southern Baptist upbringing. As many would know, Southern Baptists are a particularly charismatic and you could say, episodic group. Make those Southern Baptists Latino… and you have an entirely new level of episodic. I’m talking next-level revival, prayer and even more enthusiastic “Amen!” from the congregation. I’m talking Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Wednesday night prayer meetings, and a breakneck visitation program. I’m talking spiritual whiplash! Now, I can poke fun about the “Baptist stereotype” and even exaggerate it all a bit. (Just a bit.) But, to the credit of that upbringing spurred by my parents, I think I turned out alright.

I’ve long stepped away from they ‘every Sunday’ church life. And to either my benefit or detriment, I’ve experienced my share of spiritual and conscience-crushing events in my life that caused me to step back and evaluate the validity of Church attendance or be it, Religion. I do, and will always hold close the moral teachings and preachings that helped guide my life. I will forever hold close those Pastors and teachers that held my beliefs accountable and lifted me when I faltered. I will forever miss the “personal touch” of the Church home i.e., the smaller personal church.

This past Mother’s Day, my wife and I attended CCV (Christ’s Church of The Valley). For those who don’t know about CCV, CCV is a non-denominational Phoenix-based mega-Church that has 14 locations in the greater Phoenix metro area. CCV is a “is a non-denominational Christian church where faith and real life intersect.” (Straight off their website.) That, in and of itself, is quite impressive for an organization that is only 41 years in operation that started in their “founding pastor’s living room” (also straight off their website.) CCV has a myriad of programs that attract the ‘regular folks’ to want to attend and partake of their various ministries, youth and kids programs. Now, I’ll be honest in saying that my knowledge of CCV is limited to my Mother’s Day experience, what I’ve gleaned from their webpage and an outsider’s look ‘from the cheap seats.’

It’s true I’m impressed with the growth of CCV’s ministry. And my religious curiosity begs me to delve deeper and learn why CCV has become such a religious force in the Valley. It’s equally true that I have misgivings about how ‘Church’ CCV is. Or is it really a place of true worship? I live fairly close to the main CCV campus set on a 105 acres with an auditorium that seats 3500+ (Also from their webpage.)

Now, regardless of CCV’s impressive growth and following, I write this to discuss my misgivings about CCV. I have always been critical of the network TV and mega-churches. Especially the likes of Joel O’Steen, Jerry Falwell, etc. But CCV is different that they don’t appear to rely on one public figure. They seem to be very organized in their flair for making church ‘an experience’. On Mother’s Day, my wife and I went to a CCV campus. We arrived to the campus and followed the signs looking for a parking spot being directed by a volunteer in a yellow traffic vest. We finally managed to get a parking spot and my initial impression of the grounds was that it seemed more like a shopping mall. There were a few covered seating areas, some scattered ‘greeters’, and then before going into the main of three different buildings, I could see inside of what appeared to be retail Kiosk. I wasn’t wrong, it was a self-service souvenir shop for t-shirts, etc. We went inside and the earlier service was letting out almost like a wave of theater goers.

Our service wasn’t scheduled for about 30 minutes still and we decided to venture past the auditorium entrance. As we kept walking in the main building, I could see a door that was labeled “Kids Corral” for 1st through 3rd graders. I looked inside to see the smiling faces of the children and young parents. Directly across I saw what I could only describe as a Food Court. On one side was a Coffee/Barista stand equipped with a complete menu, and cooler of assorted juices, yogurts, etc. (Very Starbucks-esque.) Across from the coffee stand, was a counter taking breakfast orders of a combo plate, or burrito's of some kind.

My mood by now has turned from inquisitive to an uncomfortable skepticism. I didn’t see what I knew or perceived a Church. Rather, with all noise of the food court, children running around bumping into adults and the adult bobbing and weaving traffic… it all seemed very, commercial. I began to see CCV as a corporate feel-good machine instead of a church by any tradition. I did not see people greet each other as though they were glad to see a church family member they hadn’t seen since the week prior. I saw a uniformed Police officer standing post in standard mall-watch mode. Then I noticed some volunteer patrons standing a post with a “Security” name tag pasted on their shirts. I didn’t find it odd that a Church would need a security team, but until now, I’d never seen a uniformed Police officer as a fixture in one. Although, with today’s climate of gun violence, I sort of understand. At this point, my senses were a bit heightened and comfort level was pretty low. And the Church service had not even started yet.

As I mentioned earlier, our service would not start for another 30 minutes. The auditorium was letting out, and as the congregation walked out, there were the usual smiles and happy chatter one would associate with a post-church high. Of course between the prior service exit and entrance for the next scheduled service was the auditorium re-set. By our service time, we started to make our way to the auditorium. We could here the clapping and very loud music from the food court. In the auditorium was the high-decibel-concert-style Praise and Worship session that would be the precursor to the actual church service. We tried to get 4 seats together (I failed to mention we met our daughter & son-in-law there), however, the seats were limited and the usher yelled; “I think we have 4 together up front!” I politely declined and turned around back to the foyer/lobby. We were then informed there was an “overflow” area upstairs the would be streaming what was happening downstairs. So, upstairs we went.

We arrived into the overflow room and streaming loudly on the screen was a Praise & Worship band. As I sat and watched the screen, I began to notice the picture on the screen, sound and music wasn’t the same as what was coming thru the walls or had seen from the auditorium. Then I noticed when the picture on the screen showed the audience, it wasn’t the same auditorium. I questioned where that stream was originating and the audio/video tech said that particular stream was from the Main CCV campus in N. Peoria. I thought to myself, “I could have just gone up the road for this!”

It was only after speaking with the a/v tech that this all started to make sense. Today was Mother’s Day and CCV scheduled a guest speaker for that Sunday’s message. That being said, I realized that all the CCV campuses were ‘on their own’ for the Praise and Worship pre-service music, but the “Sermon” or Guest Speaker was to be live streamed from the main campus with all the campuses and throughout their many services that day. I should say, however, the guest speaker was very good and did give a very good message about motherhood and life's’ priorities. (I did truly enjoy it.)

However, CCV and it’s operation still had not won me over. To me, CCV gave more of a ‘corporate’ feeling than that of a ‘Church home’. There was no ‘personal touch’, there was a myriad of greeters to say hello, welcome and goodbye. And for the sake of “sounding old” or just “set in my ways”, there was no sense of “the regulars” actually knowing if you’d been there before or your first time, that’s what I remember from “Back when I used to regularly attend church.” The personal touch seems to have been replaced by flair, a coffee shop, a food court, and a pop band.

I cannot opine as to CCV’s devotion to faith, God, or their religious practices. That is personal and between them and God, (By ‘them’, I mean their pastoral staff and leadership.), just as my profession of faith is mine and mine alone. But my experience got me to thinking. The goal of a Christian church (or be it any Church) is to win souls over to serving God. So, is this a case of the ‘ends justifying the means?’ If point A is the Church and point C is souls for God, does it really matter how point B is mapped out as long as point C is achieved? I guess that’s a question to further ponder. Or is there a more fiscal reason for CCV’s popularity and existence?

The fact is, real estate is not cheap. CCV campuses aren’t small by any means. I looked at six(6) different campuses and they are 3–4 buildings on average. Their North Surprise Campus, for example, which will be operational this fall sits on 15 acres which had a realtor.com price of $841K. That’s not the typical ‘small town church’. Now, that’s either pretty arrogant thinking to believe you’ll be able to finance such an operation, or could it be faith? But let’s be realistic, faith alone does not buy much more than good thoughts, not six-figure desert properties. There is definitely a positive cash flow I suppose through Tithing, the coffee shop and food court. But there’s also costs and revenues associated through their sports leagues and activities. I don’t boast to know from where ALL of CCV’s funding comes. (I’m pretty arrogant, but come on!) But I find it difficult to believe that attendance tithing brings in enough to generate such ambitious expansion. Hey, I may be wrong, but I may also not be far off. I do think CCV has to properly invest their giving revenue in order to pay their full time staff. And I’m certain that with 14 valley campuses, each campus conducting an average of 4 Sunday services, and each service netting let’s say 1200 attending the service. If each of the 1200 adults in all 4 services gives $20, that math totals $24000 in giving for each Sunday. Multiply that times the 52 weeks in a year and that comes up to $1.2M a year. And for 14 campuses, that’s upwards of $17.5M a year for the CCV organizational structure. (Which in fact, is not far off from their reported revenue of $11.8M.) (Source: https://www.zippia.com/christ-s-church-of-the-valley-careers-640775/revenue/ )

Maybe the ‘Boomer’ in me can’t grasp the concept of CCV. I have a hard time transitioning from what I expect to be a very personal relationship with a Church or Pastor, to an almost fast-food delivery of The Gospel or path to Spiritual redemption. And maybe, just maybe, this old dog can’t learn this new Church trick. I guess I’ll stick to what I’ve learned when it comes to worship. And that is, my relationship with God is personal. It’s between me and God. I don’t have to attend the meeting of the masses. I certainly don’t want to go to the drive thru of CCV and order a Super-sized Salvation meal and add the Communion desert for the value price of my spiritual comfort. I don’t eat a lot of fast food. So why should I eat a Sunday of fast Faith? Good luck CCV. Keep doing what works for you.

I’ll stick to basing my faith as such:

Matthew 6: 5–7 NIV
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

Matthew 18:20 NIV
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Joshua 24:15 NIV
“… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”