In This Issue: "“Worship in the Experience Economy”

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Revival,” guest-edited by Melanie Ross, explores the meaning of revival in the Christian experience in all the forms we have seen or heard about. Some of the revivals described by the contributors give the history of important movements of the Holy Spirit; others are mysterious and spontaneous contemporary events that touch the lives even of people who had no prior yearning to be revived or for whom revival meant a fusion of faith and political life. This excerpt is from Melanie Ross’s essay “Worship in the Experience Economy.” –– Melinda Quivik

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At the beginning of the new millennium, the authors Joseph Pine and James Gilmore put for-
ward a book titled The Experience Economy. Their premise was simple: people crave and will
pay for an “experience.”1 To unpack their thesis, Pine and Gilmore explain that there have been
four distinct stages of the US economy—Agrarian (based on commodities), Industrial (based on
goods), Service (based on services), and Experience (based on experiences)—and that each stage
has unseated its predecessor.

Consider the example of the coffee bean. It is a commodity that costs only two or three
cents per cup. When a manufacturer grinds and roasts the coffee, turning it into a good, it sells
for more money: say, five or ten cents per cup. When that coffee is brewed and poured into a
cup behind a counter at a diner, the service increases to a few dollars. . .

While churches don’t typically use the language of “experience economy,” they do under-
stand that experience is a draw, especially if congregations hope to be relevant in their
communities and to attract unchurched and de-churched people. One of the great challenges
Protestant evangelical megachurches face is that of making a Sunday morning worship expe-
rience engaging—even entertaining—for thousands of churchgoers without watering down
the theological message. James K. Wellman Jr., Katie E. Corcoran, and Kate J. Stockly address
this dilemma in their seminal work, High on God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of
America. Integral to their argument is the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim, who posits
a fundamental paradox: as homo duplex, humans desire to be unique autonomous beings,
but we can only accomplish this in and through community. Megachurches “work” not because
they help people reason their way out of the tension between individuality and community,
but because they meet their “emotional needs.” . . .

Specifically, the authors detail their theory of . . . megachurch practices linked to six core emotional desires: 1) belonging and acceptance are provided by inviting websites, familiar architecture, and an “ultra-friendly welcome team,” 2) a “wow” factor is achieved through the music and lighting of worship services, 3) a reliable leader is established by the charismatic pastor in the talk or sermon, 4) deliverance is obtained through the altar call, 5) purpose is met through service groups, and 6) a recharge of emotional energy is attained through mid-week small groups. Megachurches succeed because they understand how to create, motivate, and charge their congregations with emotional energy that stimulates intense loyalty and visceral desire to keep returning for a recharge.

For many participants, part of the appeal of megachurches is that they are surrounded by
many people in a vast space. Kevin McElmurry calls this mode of worship “Alone/Together.”
People may be alone, but they experience the emotions of those who are around them. . . and [the] emotion create[s] a sense that something is happening here that happens nowhere else. . .

In what follows, I explore the twin dangers of de-emphasizing divine agency and de-emphasizing
human agency, offering theological correctives to both. I conclude with a different framework
for thinking about the notion of “experience” in worship.

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Melanie C. Ross is associate professor of liturgical studies at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Worship, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Ross, M. C. “Worship in the Experience Economy,” Liturgy 40, nos. 3–4 (2025): 1–3.