DO YOU WANT TO SUPERSIZE THAT?

Americans like to go big with whatever they do, and that trend has hit religion with the megachurch movement:

There are currently 842 megachurches -- non-Catholic churches with at least 2,000 weekly attendants -- that host an excess of three million people on any given Sunday, according to the research group Church Growth Today.

These massive holy houses attract churchgoers by the thousands with celebratory services that tout contemporary music, television screens and sermons that aren't "churchy," according to the pastor of the nation's largest church. But critics say the sin-free pep rallies don't encourage personal transformation and reflection, keystones of religion.

I know a lot of folks who immediately equate 'big church' with 'liberal church'. We tend to forget that the church in Jerusalem was thousands strong. That church defined church.

The problem with the megachurches isn't that they're big, it's that they're not really much church. No, you don't need to have rock hard narrow pews and ninety minute sermons to be real church. But when your focus is on all of your exciting programs instead of worshiping God, and when you start having rehearsals for your services, you've moved well into the questionable realm:

"They are so large you can select the activity that you like," said Ken Woodward, Newsweek's contributing editor who covers religion. "If you want to lose weight Jesus' way, you can join the weight-loss program or join a basketball team ... These churches have so many people they don't just sponsor a team, they sponsor a league.

But while the megachurches tend to get the press, they're still a (very) small slice of religious life in the US:

While the number of megachurches has doubled since 1998, they still only represent 1 percent of all churches in America, said John Vaughan, founder of Church Growth Today and author of "Megachurches & America's Cities."

There's always an element who want to say they go to church when what they really want is Chuck-E-Cheeze. But despite who's biggest, the life of churches interested in actually worshiping God is still strong.