Why are young people abandoning traditional mainstream churches for the less formal megachurches? Is this simply an extension of the country’s preoccupation with “self-help” that became so popular in the 1980s and 1990s? Or is there some deeper need we face as a culture? Are more Americans searching for a gentler spiritual message as an antidote to the fear, grimness, and loss of innocence that seemed to descend on the country after 9/11?

I had been thinking about those questions as I drove across Texas, talking to faith voters, and in Boston when I attended a service at a huge stone Episcopal church on Newbury Street last Sunday. Emmanuel Episcopal Church is a beautiful, soaring Gothic structure with an ethereal sounding choir. I had walked by the church many times and saw the advertisements for Bach cantatas and other concerts, always intending to stop in. A banner hanging in front of the church reached out to all regardless of their place in their own spiritual journeys. Still, the sidewalk was nearly empty. There were, of course, those who appeared to be hung over from Saturday night and heading for the coffee shops.

Occasionally, couples strolled by. A gray-haired man holding a stack of programs welcomed me inside the church. This was a venerable old urban church. Clean but worn pink velvet cushions covered dark wooden benches. High up on the walls, elaborate stained glass windows filtered sunlight. A window behind the altar had been replaced with clear glass. Paint and plaster appeared thin and worn in spots, exposing brickwork and other signs of wear.

During the service, the interim pastor talked about “coming out” and the need to reach out and bring people into the church. A black-robed choir sang Bach in Latin. Some 50 people occupied pews in a sanctuary I thought could probably hold 500. Many appeared to be older people, there alone or with spouses. Nearly all were gray-haired. A handful looked like they might be in their 20s or 30s. No screaming babies or fidgeting children interrupted the solemn occasion. The order of the service, the donning of the purple robes in this Lenten season, the polyphonic singing whose beauty seemed somehow ancient and distant, gave a feeling of being connected to some mysterious past, present and future through ancient ritual and symbolism.

Unlike the carpeted 16,000-seat sports stadium with its fancy lighting system and televised broadcast, here was a church delivering its progressive message in traditions more lasting than its peeling plaster. As with all churches struggling to re-define themselves, those empty pews and the enormity of running such a large old building were serious concerns, according to a lay man I talked with after the service. Coffee hours and an exceptional classical music program weren’t enough to draw enough people in to make the church financially secure. I thought it was a tough question, probably one that faces a lot of urban churches today, and not easily answered.

On the way to the subway, I passed the rough wooden cross of Common Cathedral, sticking up in the air above the crowd. Common Cathedral holds services for the homeless every Sunday on Boston Common. A cart on rollers provided a makeshift altar and held the sacraments. Ministers passed out plastic cups of grape juice and broke off pieces of cookie shaped communion bread. Clusters of homeless people, tourists and passersby gathered around or sat on nearby benches. A man sang an up-tempo version of Amazing Grace, accompanying himself on the banjo. And suddenly a week’s worth of traveling through America’s religious landscape struck me. I had seen a burgeoning megachurch, complete with TV cameras, an inspirational message and religious tunes sung like pop songs. I had seen a cavernous, mostly empty Gothic-type church filled with exquisite voices singing in Latin. And I was standing in the middle of a park in front of a crude cart listening to a man with a banjo and watching homeless people receive communion.

This was America's religious landscape in all its splendid variety. It was high-tech and low-tech, shiny and new and peeling and old, bursting at the seams and echoing with loneliness.