Crest of the Wave

Pastor anniversaries are notorious within the evangelical tradition for their tendency to provoke grandiose displays of self-congratulatory affection between pastor and members. Anniversary services are known to extend the typical, forecasted time-lengths of worship as presentation after presentation is made on behalf of every associated ministry and church auxiliary to the pastor and his first lady.

So this was my expectation upon stepping into the Wave Church’s expansive first floor lobby, which is only part of the Virginia Beach-based suburban megachurch’s newly designed multimillion dollar worship center.

On this mid-Jan. Sunday, the Wave congregation was rejoicing in the 10-year anniversary marking the arrival of senior pastors Steve and Sharon Kelly—from Australia of all places. When they arrived, the house of worship was named Church of the Redeemer and had a 400-member congregation. A decade later, some 4,000 worshipers attend services spread among five Wave locations across Hampton Roads and Richmond.

The Kellys have led their flock into the modern aesthetics of new era churchifying.

Having arrived a half-hour before the start of the 11 a.m. edition of the Sunday morning service at Wave’s main Great Neck campus, I was shown around by a patient member of the church staff, who meticulously pointed out the ground floor coffee bar, a well appointed guest lounge, a nursing mothers’ room, a broadcast control room, a check-in computer station stocked with sleekly gorgeous iMacs, the Starbucks-rivaling top floor coffee house, a smallish but serviceable book store, a neatly arranged sitting area distinguished by large leather lounge chairs, and more. By the time I’m pondering whether or not to purchase a Wave-symbol keychain, notepad or even baseball cap before the start of worship service, the cynic in me is yelling, "Stop the corporate branding madness."

Then I run into WTKR’s news anchor Kurt Williams, whom I haven’t seen in years. Who knew he attended Wave? I’ve always liked Kurt, so his obvious affection for this megachurch, which became quite clear in conversation, hushes some of the "this is too much" reverb in my head, as I enter a literal concert hall which serves as Wave’s sanctuary. It looks to easily hold a couple thousand worshippers.

As this was the senior pastors’ anniversary, after a few minutes of the initial praise and worship section of the service, a short but sincere moment of gratitude occurred for their success in growing the church. The kudos were prompted solely by associate members of Wave’s leadership team. The quick, low-key nature of it surprised me, as did the charming, spirited presentation of their morning service, which must have lasted all of about 90 minutes.

After the service, members converged on the lobby to secure some personal time with Pastor Kelly, as well as to congregate and socialize for a spell, before departing for the rest of their day.

It was after the service that I first met the Rev. Steve Kelly—he with the disarmingly sincere lack of pretense—whose sermons I had only seen on television. It was also after the service that Kurt Williams and I really caught up. Turns out Kurt goes "way back" as a member of the previous incarnations of what is now known as Wave Church.

"He’s out of the box," Williams simply noted of Kelly, referencing the traditional modes of Christ worship followed by many churches, as well as the typical manner in which larger churches engage the wider community. "I miss it when I don’t come. I get recharged."

Looking around at an appreciably diverse mix of gender, race and age among the congregants, it’s clear that Williams is not the only one who is "charged up" by the Wave experience. One of the most striking aspects of the parishioner class is their encouraged informality. Business casual appears to err on the fancy side within this group of hundreds. There are kids wearing football jerseys and caps. I even spot a few men confidently wearing sandals. Having grown up in a traditional Protestant-based church denomination, I’m amused at how such attire within "the house of God" would certainly have been frowned upon in the church of my childhood.

It’s this rejection of rigid ceremony that clearly drives the large under-30 membership base of the church. Well, that and the music—a professionally staged, booming Christian spectacle of saintly rock and pop, augmented by smoke machines and high-tech lighting, with a sound system that rivals many local concert venues. A giant video screen flashes images of the pastor, musicians and those in the congregation as if the service is a concert or sporting event at an amphitheater. The audio and visual presentation is mesmerizing.

"It’s a huge part of what we do," acknowledged Carl Lentz, a senior associate pastor who heads up the youth ministry at Wave. "Music is a reflection of who we believe our God is. So if you believe your God is stoic, far off and very impersonal, than your music will be stiff and cold. But if you believe that your God is vibrant and fun and big and real and deep—then that’s what your music reflects."

Lentz, a 30-year-old native of Hampton Roads, believes there is no "formula" to successfully attracting young parishioners.

"I think that if you actually preach the Gospel for what it is, it’s incredibly attractive, and I think that’s all Steve has ever done," Lentz opined.

Lentz is but one member of a large staff of ministers and Christian professionals who help run Wave Church ministries. As with most megachurches, the senior pastor is only one part of a typical team of clergy who run cell groups and specific ministries that are far too numerous for one person to effectively manage. It’s that trait of the mega-church aesthetic, which clearly challenges the institutionalized notion that a lead pastor must be readily available to his entire congregation, that often draws criticism from people within and outside of the evangelical community.

"The key to that is that it’s not about me. It’s about building a team," noted Rev. Kelly. "Megachurches are often about a personality, about an individual and that person’s preaching gift. With me, I feel like it’s more about a leadership gift and raising up leaders. So I feel like that’s the difference for us."

Last Aug., Slate published a now infamous article titled "The Chick-fil-A Church," in which the author, Andrew Park, examined the growing popularity of video-based branches of megachurches, and the outrage in some circles that such video venues, as they’re often called, cheapen the church experience.

Park wrote, "To many Christians, though, the sermon is the main event. It’s when all eyes are on the pulpit. It’s when the leader of the church teaches. It’s when the messages in the Bible are distilled for the faithful. Filling that job with piped-in pixels only feeds the celebrity pastor’s star power while creating competition for less-gifted communicators."

Yet perhaps in an effort to avoid that, Wave church for a time last year, prior to moving into their 80,000 square-foot "convention center," chartered a helicopter to transport Pastor Steve Kelly between church services held at two different locations. The Virginian-Pilot reported on it last year, once it was revealed that the city of Virginia Beach’s zoning department issued a cease-and-desist notice due to the existing residential zoning laws, which the church immediately adhered to.

The chartering of helicopters and such by this non-denominational megachurch certainly invites a significant amount of chatter about uses of the church’s prosperity, as evidenced by user-generated posts to the article online. Yet in conversation with Pastor Kelly, such concerns appear unwarranted given the massiveness of outreach that Wave is committed to.

"We give $10,000 every week to missions, every week," he said. "Now you couldn’t do that if you were a small church."

It’s also true that the Wave Church supports orphanages in parts of Africa and Russia. Additionally, the church has provided a quarter of a million dollars in overall support to locally based Dreamkeepers Academy. Sharon Kelly, the pastor’s wife, heads the women’s ministry and through that sponsors an annual Wave Women’s conference, which provides charitable help to women in need and crisis.

"There are some community efforts, like when you mentor at schools or deal with specific communities like public housing, that are better served by a church that is large enough to handle it," noted Rev. Ted Lewis, Jr., pastor of the much smaller Mt. Nebo RZUA (Reformed Zion Union Apostolic) in Portsmouth.

"You could have megachurches that are more focused on finances than they should be, but you also have storefront churches that are the same way," he said.

Amen to that. Inner city communities are rife with such "churches" that prey on naive parishioners. Plus, sometimes as a church attendee you simply don’t desire to draw attention to yourself, which most often happens in small congregations.

"Some people like to come and just be invisible," said Pastor Kelly.