It's partly my sense of aesthetics, and partly my memories of childhood I'm sure, and growing up in a land of beautiful churches, but these large, barn like structures, devoid of ornament, with huge windows of clear glass which were built in the U.S. over the last decades leave me absolutely cold.
There are all kinds of "religious" people, I think: some like the order, the rules, the authority; some like the feeling that here are the answers, and life now has ultimate meaning; some like the social aspects, the sense of community. None of those things were first or even very important to me. I didn't think God cared about nitpicking rules, I didn't and don't like functioning in groups of people, and I always had my doubts about some of the answers, but there are those of us who like the mysticism of it, the sense of communion with what lies beyond the veil. That's why I've always said that were I to become a "practicing" religious person again, the various Protestant churches, no offense meant, hold absolutely no appeal. It would be Catholicism, whether Roman or perhaps even better, eastern rite. All those old rituals like rosaries, chants, novenas, with candles flickering, and the smell of incense, make it easier, for those who have the desire and the ability to do it, to transport elsewhere, to enter into a trancelike state. Asian religious rituals provide that avenue for those so inclined as well.
The tiny church where I was baptized.
The church that we and our children attended, where I even taught theology, all the while being a secret agnostic. I no longer practice. Not like my birth church but not bad.
I would really find it difficult to enter into the right frame of mind in these kinds of churches. The failure may very well be in me, but I could as easily meditate in a meeting room.