A Megachurch in Canada Makes Demands on its Assembly

The issue of Liturgy dealing with “Liturgy and Identity,” guest-edited by Matthew Lawrence Pierce, looks at how liturgical practices form the identities of individuals and communities. What follows is an excerpt from a study by Peter Schuurman of an extraordinary and controversial megachurch led by Bruxy Cavey who at least twice a year during Sunday worship overtly demands people who attend for a period of time to make a commitment to join and live as the church expects Christians to live or to leave for another church. –– Melinda Quivik

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Megachurches are often defamed not only for being conservative and evangelical, but also for their large size and an accompanying ideology of expansion. They have no shortage of critics who emphasize this as their key vice—commercialized self-aggrandizement at the expense of true faith, driven by a “gospel of growth.”

. . . Megachurches are “the cruise ships” of congregational life, McDonaldized churches, the religious equivalents of Home Depot, Walmart, and the family theme park Disneyland.

So any strategic identity labor that a megachurch seeks has to address not only the stigma of being evangelical, but also the charge of being consumeristic and what Louis Coser called a “greedy institution.” In this light, what follows is an investigation of a Meeting House ritual internally referred to (with ironic tones) as “Purge Sunday.” This occasional Sunday ritual, a sort of “anxious bench” counter-performance or reverse altar call, demonstrates clearly the ambivalence of the church toward consumer culture and megachurch growth pressures while at the same time reinforcing aspects of it. It is a signal to their audience that communicates the congregation’s distance from high-pressure evangelical churches and so-called “cults.” This particular ritual celebrates one of the paradoxical dimensions of their identity—that they are “a megachurch for people not into megachurches.”

On Purge Sunday, which typically happened unannounced in September (sometimes in January as well), Cavey issued a challenge to his audience just before his teaching time. In September 2008, he said:

If you feel this church is not where you can serve your best, we’ll help you find another place. We’re not a cult. If it’s not a good fit—if you need something more liturgical, expressive, conservative, emotional, charismatic, etc., you may move onwards. If you left TMH and got more passionately involved in another church, that would be a success story for the broader kingdom of Christ. That’s better than a limbo half-commitment here.

. . . This purging ritual accomplished many things at once. As Goffman suggests, Cavey was offering attendees a code that instructs them on how to manage stigmatization and pass for a normal person. Purge Sunday clearly distinguishes TMH from consumer religion, possessive cults, and “sheep stealers” (churches that draw transfer growth from other congregations).

. . . Cavey’s Purge Sunday has become a more broadly discussed identifier of this church. The ritual was briefly featured in an article in the evangelical magazine Leadership Journal that critiqued passive “Magic Kingdom” amusement culture in the North American church. It was also the focus of an article in the Canadian news magazine Christian Week in which Cavey describes the ritual as a way to tell those who won’t “get in” to church volunteering to “get out” of the church. The Leadership Journal article quotes Cavey as saying that 10–15 percent of the church leave after Purge Sunday, only to have the loss regained over the months that follow. The percentage seemed remarkably steep to me; yet it certainly adds to the performance of “radical church.”

The full article and issue of Liturgy 35, no. 2 is available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

Peter Schuurman, the executive director of Global Scholars, Canada, is adjunct professor in religion and theology at Redeemer University and teaches research methods for doctoral students at Tyndale University in Ontario.

Peer Schuurman, “Redeeming a Spoiled Identity: Purge Sunday at the Anabaptist Megachurch,” Liturgy 35, no. 2 (2020): 3-10.