Open Wide

"You're talking about, you know, 80 million people. You're talking about a good 350,000 churches," Johnston told TV viewers across America. "And I can tell you, these people did not stop talking about it. We all know this [gay marriage] was a cause. It was a hill worth dying for. And it was that kind of spirit, I believe, that delivered a significant impact on this election. And I think even more than that, it sent a message to the American people that we're going to be able to build on."

He could barely contain himself.

"And now the great glee we have of appointing Supreme Court justices that would share the version of America of a conservative viewpoint, I mean, I can't tell you how happy of a day this is."

Conservatives were having a ball accusing the media of not getting it, so I felt it was my professional obligation to try to understand the values voters. Actually, as a born liberal and a Midwesterner by choice, I understand them all too well. But this was no time to underestimate them. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps the conservatives understood something about the greater good that we liberals had failed to see. So I thought I'd challenge the people at First Family Church to save my soul.

Admittedly, I was skeptical. Though I hate it when people start blabbing about their religion in public, I will disclose that I believe in God. I went to church every Sunday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I sang in the choir, until I graduated from high school. Sometimes Saturday night's alcohol was still seeping out of my pores; I was a troubled teen, and things only went downhill during my twenties. These days, every week I attend at least a couple of hourlong gatherings that begin and end with a prayer. Often, I pray all damn day. But when it comes to churches, I subscribe to the theory that religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, whereas spirituality is for people who've already been there. I once was lost, but now I'm found. So I didn't particularly think I needed saving.

Friends tried to talk me out of it. "These people are scary," said one, who'd been brought up in a strict fundamentalist home. (What does it say about a church when a person is afraid to go there?) My girlfriend brooded about the idea all week, as if there were really a chance that going to Johnston's church might turn me straight, therefore breaking up the happy home where we live in an unsanctified yet sufficiently blissful facsimile of marriage.

Truthfully, the assignment I'd given myself sounded like hell on earth. So I revised my strategy: I would attend a service and tell anyone who asked that it was my first time, that I was a gay liberal who was trying to understand the values voter. And I made a rule, like Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me, who determined that if the server at McDonald's asked if he wanted to supersize his order, he had to say yes. If, after hearing why I was there, anyone at First Family Church invited me back, I'd have to keep going.

November 14 was a cold, gray Sunday. The modern church sits on 51 acres atop a hill at 143rd Street and Metcalf, looking like a heavenly strip mall out on the newly subdivided prairie. Inside, a concourse is lined by storefront amenities, including the Dinky & Coco's snack shop (stocked with Snapples, sodas, bottled water, muffins, cookies, candy bars and coffee) and a Waldenbooks knockoff. ("The Entire Bookstore is on Sale!! Prices have never been so LOW!") The congregation gathers in a giant, white-cinder-block room with removable metal chairs and basketball hoops retracted to the ceilings. (Three hundred "incredible kids" are registered in the church's basketball ministry.)

The church claims 3,000 members, which is still far behind Johnson County's signature megachurch, Adam Hamilton's Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, which boasts an astounding 13,000 souls. But Johnston's $15 million campus has outgrown its current 54,000 square feet; the church has announced a 70,000-square-foot, $8.5 million expansion. Once that's done, First Family plans to set up satellite churches, first throughout the metro, then the country, then the world.

Already Johnston is overseeing a massive operation with ten other ministers. (His son Jeremy's official title is executive pastor and COO of media; there's also a media ministries director, an Internet ministries director and a minister just for married couples.) His wife, Christie Jo Johnston, who credits God for helping her heal after years of panic disorder, now directs the women's ministry, overseeing the 22 groups that meet every Monday night to provide support for folks suffering from traumas such as eating disorders, abandonment issues, single parenting, divorce, alcoholism, pornography addiction and, yes, homosexuality.

With its lite-rock entertainment, the 9:15 service is one of three every Sunday morning. (There's a "traditional" version with a choir and orchestra at 8 a.m., a "blended" service at 10:45 and another on Wednesday evenings.)

When Johnston asks first-timers to identify themselves, I raise my hand.