Web site offers place for rating churches

NEW YORK -- No careful consumer would buy a car without first looking up its reliability ratings, or book a vacation without consulting a tour guide for the best hotels and restaurants.

So why should a church be exempt?

A new service, started in September, believes it shouldn't. ChurchRater.com allows anyone to log on, write a review of a local congregation and give it a one- to five-star rating, with five being the best.

"We really believe in the democratization of information," said Tyler Mahoney, one of four co-founders of ChurchRater.com and a Duke Divinity School student. "The more information we put in the hands of people, the more power we give them."

So far, the site has logged a few hundred reviews nationally. At last count, there were 17reviews of North Carolina churches, including 12 in the Triangle.

But the Web site's founders hope that once people know about the site, it will become a tool for people new to an area and shopping for a church.

Crossroads Fellowship, an evangelical, nondenominational church in North Raleigh, got a four-star rating from one reviewer and a two-star rating from another.

"The teaching was amazing!" wrote the first reviewer. "Real, relevant, and honest."

"It was way too big and it seemed fake," wrote the second.

Chuck Milian, Crossroads' pastor, said he appreciated the experience of being rated. People are already rating churches - by word-of-mouth, he pointed out. This Web site can help people narrow the field.

"Time is difficult for people," Milian said. "Everybody's busy."

Still, the idea of rating a church seems crass to some, a trivialization of a sacred experience or an incitement to make church worship a spectacle.

"It evaluates a church by its worship service," said the Rev. David Hailey, pastor of Raleigh's Hayes Barton Baptist Church. "But the worship service is just one element of church."

A rating system cannot begin to quantify the love and care a congregation extends its members or the many intangible ways it contributes to the community, Hailey said.

But Mahoney said no one is prevented from sharing his or her opinions, so long as they do so politely.

"We provide a platform," Mahoney said. "If people say something - that's what they say."

An eBay proposition

The idea for ChurchRater. com began with a bid to save a man's soul.

In 2006, Chicago atheist Hemant Mehta posted an ad on the online auction site eBay promising the highest bidder an opportunity to convert him.

Seattle pastor Jim Henderson, who was willing to pay $504 for the experience, won but wasn't really interested in saving Mehta's soul. Instead, Henderson wanted Mehta's honest opinion about church.

For 25 years, Henderson had led nondenominational charismatic churches. But the pastor, 62, was never successful in drawing large numbers. At most, 125 people showed up for his church services. In an era of thousand-member megachurches, he wanted to know what he was doing wrong.

The deal they brokered called for Henderson to donate the $504 to the Secular Student Alliance, an educational nonprofit organization. In exchange, Mehta would attend 10 to 15 church services and write about them.

The experience set Henderson on a path of discovering what outsiders think of church and of Christians. Mehta did not become a regular churchgoer.

"Church is not designed to handle outsiders very well," Henderson said. "They don't give them a voice."

Yet without outsiders, Henderson believed, churches would eventually die out. In 2008, he introduced ChurchRater .com.

The effort was a flop.

People used the site to get even, settle scores and curse. The comments were so caustic, Henderson didn't even want to read them. He took down the Web site.

Later, he met Mahoney.

A Roman Catholic from Alaska with a passion for church, Mahoney was an undergraduate at Seattle University when he heard Henderson talk at a conference for young Christian leaders. Intrigued, he called Henderson and talked him into giving him a summer internship.

Within a few months, the two recruited online entrepreneur Julian Zegelman of San Francisco who was willing to fund the venture, and atheist Matt Casper of San Diego, with whom Henderson had written a popular book, "Jim and Casper Go to Church."

By September 2009, the four were ready to reintroduce the site, with plans to earn a profit. In addition to the free consumer ratings, the site also provideschurches an opportunity for an online and more thorough written critique of their worship services for a fee. The cost ranges from $250 to $3,000.

Mahoney, 22, now a first-year student at Duke Divinity School, helps moderate the site and filter out offensive remarks.

The conversation

So far, the reviews of ChurchRater .com have been mixed.

A columnist for the evangelical magazine Christianity Today wrote, in the end, "I'm not sure how helpful ChurchRater .com will be for those seeking a church. It may simply provide another forum for people to debate theology, vent their anger, and praise or pummel well-known church leaders."

Mahoney thinks the conversation can only help the church.

"My goal is to have an open conversation about how we do church," Mahoney said. "Here's your voice. Go talk about it."