“Many small churches either have disappeared around the megachurch … or they’ve created their own mission … and have figured out a way to offer alternatives to what the megachurch offers. [They’ve] made sort of their peace with the big kid on the block,” says Thumma. At the same time, megachurches that have adopted the multisite model “are essentially diversifying, fracturing into smaller pieces so that they can cover a whole city rather than make all of the people drive to one location,” he says.

Something clicked for Marlena Bhame when she first stepped into Liquid Church about four years ago. She’d been searching for something more spiritually dynamic and meaningful than the faith tradition she’d grown up in, or the various others she had tried out over the years.
When Bhame, who was raised in the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance tradition, arrived at the church in Parsippany, N.J., she was immediately struck by a feeling of belonging. The congregation mostly looked like her — a lot of millennials and Gen Z — and everyone seemed enthusiastic about being there.
“I was blown away by the amount of young people,” she says.
Liquid Church has helped Bhame, 28, and others like her find meaning even as many in her generation have turned away from organized religion. It is one of about 1,800 “megachurches” in the United States — defined as having 2,000 or more members. At a time when empty pews are forcing churches across the country to shutter, these mostly nondenominational houses of worship are largely bucking that trend — attracting younger, more vibrant and more diverse congregations.
The average Christian congregation in the U.S. is in precipitous decline, with just 65 members, about a third of whom are age 65 or older, according to a 2020 pre-pandemic survey. By contrast, a separate 2020 study found that three-quarters of megachurches were growing, many at a rapid clip.

Experts say these trends have continued since the start of the pandemic. Liquid Church claims 6,000 members, 84% of whom are under the age of 55, with most younger than 35. About a quarter of members are Hispanic/Latino, 13% Asian and 8% Black.
Like Bhame, David and Katherine Ramirez bounced around different churches before landing at Liquid. The couple both grew up in the Pentecostal tradition, but when they decided to marry, they went looking for a new church.
“I can say that for me, the deciding factor was just the fact that there were people in my age group,” David says.
The Liquid Church’s core beliefs, “Grace wins” and “Truth is relevant,” are capped by a less theological component: “Church is fun.”
“It’s one of the pillars,” says Katherine. “That’s just the culture in the church. So everyone’s kind of onboard with that.”
Church barbecues, pizza and movie nights are all part of the mix. On Sundays, “it’s loud. … it’s casual. People can wear flip-flops and drink coffee,” says Pastor Tim Lucas, who founded Liquid Church in 2007.
“We’re at the gates of Manhattan,” he says. “People can go in and see Hamilton or Billy Joel at [Madison Square] Garden. We’re not competing with the world. What we are trying to do is … put the timeless message of Jesus into new wineskins.”

Liquid Church also steers clear of politics, he says. That’s common in most megachurches because they are more diverse, according to Scott Thumma, a professor of sociology of religion at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. “The vast majority of them have nothing to do with politics,” he says.
“You need a building, we need a pastor”
For the last several years, Liquid Church has been one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation, and a big part of its success has come through assimilating smaller, more traditional congregations. Four of its seven campuses — all in New Jersey — have come through these mergers.
This “multisite” model has been adopted by about 70% of megachurches across the country, according to Lifeway Research, a church consultancy. In it, the main church beams its Sunday sermon to branch campuses, where it is projected onto huge LED screens. Each of the satellite churches has its own pastor, live music and worship services.
“It’s like a marriage,” explains Lucas. “An older congregation with a rich history but a declining population joins forces with a younger church like Liquid, with fresh energy and vision and volunteers. You basically bring them together and rebirth the church.”
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Christians are ready to die, for we know what awaits us on the other side. We know death is the doorway that leads to true, eternal life. Death is not the end, but only the beginning.

Readiness to die is the first step in learning to live.(J.I. Packer)
Are you ready to die? Perhaps this morbid question haunts you. Maybe it makes you anxious. Either way, it’s one of the most important questions you’ll ever answer; for we cannot truly live until we answer that question. Furthermore, we cannot authentically live until our answer is Yes.
Our culture is terribly afraid of death. We have seen this fear escalated exponentially due to Covid. We do everything within our power to not face death. As a result, what many end up doing is either avoiding the question or answering honestly with a No.
Society, for the most part, avoids the death question.
Millions of people walk through life with apathy regarding the prospect of death. They simply don’t care enough to ponder the question. They are concerned about the here and now—not eternity. It’s foolishness, and they have better things to do with their time. They push it away as much as they can.
What saddens me is the myriad of people who avoid the question because they don’t want to talk about the things in life that matter most. This is partly why it’s taboo to talk religion with people—to many, it’s awkward and uncomfortable. They either squirm or get offended when any disagreement takes place.
More than anything, however, it shows people don’t want to face the reality of death, so they ignore it. They know it‘s coming—as it comes for everybody—but to ponder if they’re ready, that means facing the big things in life head on. And, well, that’s just too serious.
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We should never glory in trials and persecutions, as though these were good things–they are not, especially when others commit acts of evil toward us, or belittle us because of our faith in Christ, or mock us because we refuse to indulge the sinful flesh as they do. Rather, in the midst of trials, we give glory to God, because Jesus has suffered for us and in our place to save us from our sins.

Peter’s Desire to Comfort His Readers
Peter’s purpose in writing this epistle is to comfort persecuted Christians in Asia Minor, many of whom who have been displaced from their homes because of a decree from the Roman emperor Claudius. Peter reminds them that despite their struggles, in God’s eyes, they are elect exiles, citizens of heaven, and when worshiping together they compose God’s spiritual house (the church), even as they sojourn upon the earth until the day of final judgment when God will dispense his covenant blessings and curses.
Through a lengthy series of imperatives (commands), Peter told these struggling Christians how they are to differentiate themselves from the Greco-Roman pagans around them–through their profession of faith in the Triune God who sent his Son to die for his people’s sins, and through their honorable conduct before the pagans. Christians are to think and live as God’s people. They must live a life of self control, in contrast to their pagan neighbors who live to indulge every urge of the sinful flesh.
But even if Christians do all of the things Peter exhorts them to do, they should not be surprised if their struggles continue and the persecution they face remains intense. As Peter has stated in verse 4 of chapter 4, the pagans “are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.” Evil-doers want nothing more than for professing Christians to join them in their self-indulgence. Having made this point in the first part of the chapter, Peter describes their troubles as a fiery trial, and a time of judgment. Yet, this is also a time in which God’s purposes will be realized, and through which these struggling Christians will grow in their faith.
We Should Not be Surprised by Trials
We conclude our time in chapter 4, as Peter acknowledges that his readers and hearers have been through very difficult times. So much so, that in verse 12, Peter writes, “beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Some commentators take Peter’s statement as a warning of an impending calamity, and that extending this warning is the reason why Peter sends this letter to Christians of the Diaspora in Asia Minor [1]. On this reading, for those hearing/reading Peter’s letter, things have been bad, but they are about to get a whole lot worse. Peter is understood to be writing to warn them in advance so that his readers and hearers can prepare themselves for what is about to come.
Most commentators take the view–I think correctly–that verse 12 of chapter 4 begins a new section of the letter in which Peter is not warning of an impending trial, but is instead making the point that Christians must realize that professing faith in Christ, as they have been doing in the midst of a pagan culture, is itself a fiery trial [2]. In fact, Peter made this point clear back in chapter 1 vv. 6-8 when he wrote, “for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”
The Christians to whom Peter is writing are being put to the test. They are undergoing a fiery trial–yet a trial with an important purpose. The time of trial is difficult in itself, but such trials are much worse if they are random with no discernible purpose to them. Peter’s point is to remind the Christians of Asia Minor that the fiery trial they are currently experiencing has a purpose, and that keeping this in mind will help them endure their trying circumstances.
Trials Are Part of God’s Purpose for His People
Peter knows that Christians who expect the Christian life to be a bed of roses, and one in which everyone will love them and think it wonderful that they are believers in Jesus Christ, are being utterly naive. Being a Christian while living among the pagans is a fiery trial in its own right. As Peter has already stated, God allows these trials to test us, so as to refine our faith like a metal worker uses a furnace to purify and strengthen the metals with which he works. Therefore the trials facing the Christians of the Diaspora are not random acts of a universe out of control. Rather, these trials are sent by God (in the sense of God allowing them), to test these Christian’s faith, and to refine them to even greater purity (holiness). Christians should keep in mind that all such trials have a purpose.
This is why Peter can tell his readers that Christians should “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” There is no prosperity gospel taught by the Apostle Peter. Peter is convinced of the reality that suffering and trials are often part of life in a fallen world. As our Savior endured his trial, so must we.
Although no one wants to suffer–and Peter is not teaching a form of masochism (finding joy in pain and suffering), or the Eastern Orthodox notion that we are saved from our sins to the degree we suffer and are purified from them in this life (as in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov)–suffering is one of the means God uses to strengthen our faith. Let me put it this way. Do you tend to seek God more when times are good, or when things go bad? Do you tend to pray more during times of trial or uncertainty, or in good times? God is not being mean to us, or punishing us, when he allows us to suffer and endure trials. Because God is with us in such trials, he uses them to draw us to himself, and so that we learn over the course of our lives to trust him more and more for those promises which we cannot see. The consequence from enduring these trials is that we will appreciate the good times and blessings and give thanks for them with the same fervor with which we seek God when things go wrong. This is how trials strengthen faith and draw us close to God.
Peter is not alone in using language of fiery trial. John warns of the fiery trials to come upon Babylon (Rome) in Revelation 18. There the image of a fiery trial is one of God’s judgment upon unbelievers. But Peter instead is using the metaphor as in Proverbs 27:21, where we read, “the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.” The refining fire draws out the dross and purifies us from the guilt and power of sin. This process increases our praise for God. The trials these Christians were experiencing were a refining process which reveals the genuineness of their faith and should not be seen as something unexpected. Christians know that such things will come because we live in a fallen world, and we should prepare for them well in advance.
Sharing in Christ’s Suffering
There is also another consequence of such trials. As Charles Cranfield reminds us, “those whose Christianity is not real vanish from the ranks at the approach of danger.”[3] This fact, no doubt, explains the decline in the vitality, numbers, and theological commitment among American evangelicals, now that American culture is increasingly secularized and Christians are losing some of our privileged status. Those who identify themselves as Christians, but who are truly not, will drop out quickly when they first encounter even a hint of persecution, or when someone criticizes them for their Christian beliefs.
But since Christians are believers in Jesus, who himself experienced suffering unto death upon the cross before being raised to glory on Easter Sunday, Christians cannot expect to follow a different path from that of their master. What is more, the degree to which we share in his suffering, is the degree to which he shares in ours [4]. This is why Peter can exhort his readers in verse 13, “but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Here, the critical question is, “what does it mean to share in Christ’s suffering?” Throughout the New Testament, the phrase the “sufferings of Christ” refers to Jesus’ entire life–from the moment of his miraculous conception in the womb of the virgin until the moment of his death upon the cross. Because it is Jesus’ suffering which saves us from the guilt and power of sin, his suffering is said to be once for all. This is what theologians mean when speaking of Christ’s state of humiliation. Of course, we do not share in Christ’s redemptive work, except in the sense that because we are in union with Christ through faith, we share in the sense of receiving all of his saving benefits.
But there is a profound sense then that we share in Christ’s suffering because we share in his humiliation. If Jesus was hated because he was without sin in a world of sinners, we can expect the same treatment when we profess Jesus as Lord and trust in his suffering to save us from our sins. The irony is that Jesus encountered far more opposition at first from the self-righteous Jewish religious leaders than he did from the Jewish people. Yet, many of the people too eventually turned on Jesus when they realized that he had not come to deliver them from their hated Roman occupiers, whose soldiers were billeted adjacent to the Jerusalem temple and were constantly seen throughout the city and the nation.
Caesar Is Not A God
In the situation in which Peter’s audience finds itself–Greco-Roman paganism of Asia Minor–Christians are distrusted by the political authorities because they would not worship Caesar as a god, nor would they participate in the worship of the pantheon of gods, which dominated Greco-Roman life.
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