They need 500 volunteers for 8000 people? Uh, for what?
At my parish, even at the biggest mass, we can fit about 800-900 in, and we get by with far less than 20 "volunteers" to do various things.
Do these churches "close" on Easter too? This is such a foreign concept to me.
It really is a "foreign concept" to a Catholic because Mass is a sacred ritual, a bloodless re-enactment of Christ's sacrifice, with the grace-bestowing, miraculous mystery of transubstantiation. We are receiving a Sacrament instituted by God. It's also been going on for approximately the last 2000 Christmases in a row.
Compare that to the megachurches. I was shocked by the few I've visited with an evangelical friend. They seem to be more about entertainment and emotion than worshipping or knowing God. They look like assembly halls, not churches; the last one I was in had no windows and not a single Christian symbol, not even a plain cross anywhere. But they had a loud band complete with drums, huge video presentations flashing on three walls, colored lights, clapping, chatting, plenty of laughing. No doctrine, very little prayer (and the prayers that were said were just the pastor speaking very casually), no sense of reverence, at least at the one I visited. It was sort of a combination of John Bradshaw and Jimmy Swaggert.
I credit these folks with having strong values, but a sense of the sacred, quiet devotion, the power of the real Presence of God, the things that are inherent in the Mass, were definitely missing in the megachurch I went to. It was a big pep rally for people to "get their spiritual needs met." Contrary to the Catholic sense of obligation to meet God on his terms (we even call in a "holy day of obligation"), the mega-service is there for them, not they for God. It's an entirely different concept of the meaning of Sunday or a Holy Day.
Well, since it's a Baptist church probably 100 people are divided amongst greeters, ushers, people who collect money. The other 400 are requried to swarm any visitor and exert great pressure on them to join the church.