September/October 2003

You Wanna Supersize That Church?

by Greg Hartman

It's 10 a.m. Sunday morning and the Wilsons are on their way to Overwhelming Shekinah Glory of the Lord's Throne World Outreach Center, along with 10,000 other families in their city. Dad's sipping a latte. He'll get another, and for cheaper than Starbucks, at one of the church's seven coffee bars when the service starts at 11, but finding a parking spot always takes so long the drive to church is more like a commute.

Mom's humming and finishing up her entry for the contest today in Quilting for Christ, one of 73 women's groups. Teenage son Rob's head- banging to Stavesacre on his MP3 player in the back seat, looking forward to the Christian heavy metal band's visit to the youth group this morning. Not to worry -- they won't disrupt the main service. They'll be playing in the youth group's 12,000-seat auditorium, about half a mile away on the church's campus of 14 buildings.

Is this what God had in mind for the Church when he founded it on the day of Pentecost?

In Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You About Church Growth, George Barna insists that we need to stop pretending ministry isn't business. Words like development and outreach are really synonyms for marketing, he says.1 A given church and its worship services are not the product being marketed -- the product is relationships, both with Christ and with his church. The worship service is a product feature, Barna says,2 a distinction that, if lost, leads to many of the problems in churches today.

Who's Evangelizing Whom?

The debate over church marketing vs. church growth underscores the uneasy tension between the church and the world it works in. How much should we let the world teach us about how to manage God's work? Where's the line between contextualizing the gospel so a given culture can hear it and corrupting the gospel to tickle itching ears?

For better or worse, churches tend to be flavored by the cultures they operate in -- not just in the music, worship style and architecture used, but also in more subtle, important areas, such as how success is defined. If ministry is business, as Barna says, then bigger is better. Hence, for better or worse, the explosion of megachurches in the last century.

This Ain't Your Dad's Megachurch

Recent studies have defined the megachurch not just by size -- a church that averages 2,000 or more attendees a week -- but by several other factors as well (see "What Does a Megachurch Look Like?").

Megachurches tend to be identified with the church's Pentecostal or charismatic branches, for instance. Yet only 12 percent of megachurches are charismatic and 11 percent are Pentecostal -- less than a fourth altogether.

Another common misconception is that megachurches are a recent phenomenon. Yet more than half of all megachurches were founded before 1961 -- 35 percent, in fact, were founded before 1946.

Finally, with the United States' love of big, loud and gaudy things, it's easy to assume the megachurch is as American as Disneyland, WWF and monster truck rallies. Not so. The biggest church in the world -- Yoido Full Gospel Church, with 700,000 members -- is in Seoul, South Korea, and it's almost four times as large as the 10 largest American churches combined.

Success Stories

Is bigger really better? Being human and finite, we tend to judge the success or failure of the church universal by our own local churches, and we tend to assume the more people we reach, the better the job we're doing.

The greatest danger in trying to judge our performance is the temptation to define success strictly by the number of people in attendance -- whereas the Bible has a broader definition.

The numbers are there, make no mistake. Consider passages such as Acts 2:41 or Acts 4:4, where Peter's dynamic preaching added thousands of converts at a time to the early church. Passages about the thousands who followed Jesus also seem to indicate success in numbers.

But it must also be noted that Jesus often avoided crowds or obscured his teaching to them (Matthew 8:18; 9:25; 13:34-36; 14:13; Mark 3:7; Luke 9:18; John 5:13, etc.). Another time, upon hearing he had offended some of his disciples, Jesus not only didn't try to mollify them, he deliberately increased the offense until many of them left (John 6:60-66).

By the time Jesus ascended into heaven, he had just 120 followers (Acts 1:15). Yet that small group turned the world on its ear. Later, when the church in Jerusalem got large in number, God allowed them to be scattered -- and the church began to grow geographically as well as numerically (Acts 8:1-4; 11:19). At the same time, the believers grew in their faith as well (Acts 9:31; 11:19).

That Was Then, This Is Now

It seems clear that when it comes to church growth, the Bible defines success as a combination of increasing numerical growth,3 increasing geographical influence and increasing spiritual depth -- with spiritual depth being the most important of the three. Megachurches undoubtedly meet the first two objectives. What of the latter?

The answer to that question depends on who's asked. Not all Christians agree with George Barna's take on church marketing. Chuck Colson, for instance, worries that some pastors have resorted to luring in congregants with name-it-and-claim-it-theology or assurances that Christianity equals untrammeled happiness -- promises that can do more harm than good.

"Therapy and the promise of material reward may lure people into our churches," Colson says, "but so might free reefers handed out in the sanctuary -- and it's debatable which would do more harm."4

Many megachurches seem to have grown large simply because they meet people's needs, not because they use enticing gimmicks. Yet there's no more guarantee of spiritual depth in a megachurch than anywhere else -- and unlike smaller churches, megachurches need far more people and money to survive.

Size Matters

If the distinguishing feature of a megachurch is its size, its greatest weakness can become the emphasis of numbers over depth, resulting in a church a mile wide but an inch deep.

Megachurches often use celebrity appearances to draw crowds, for instance. There's nothing wrong with a Christian being famous, of course, but it's unclear what deep scriptural insights we're expected to glean from Earl Wood (Tiger's dad), John Tesh or Oliver North -- all of whom have made the church celebrity rounds. Movie critic Michael Medved and talk radio host Laura Schlessinger are also popular pulpit guests, even though both are devout Jews. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral has even hosted former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev -- an avowed atheist.

Can we learn anything valuable from those with no formal theological training, much less those who do not share our faith at all? Of course. But do churches host celebrities to broaden their congregations' horizons -- or just to broaden their congregations?

The Christian celebrity trap is just one of the dangers facing mega- churches. Lowering standards, glossing over the gospel's demands and increasing "takeaway" is always a tempting way to get people to attend. Pursuing quality in production, music, lighting, sound and so on -- a laudable goal -- can backfire, turning a church service into a glitzy showbiz extravaganza.

Yet all churches face these risks and temptations. The megachurch simply faces them on a larger scale -- and is far more visible if it runs into trouble.

To be sure, size has its advantages and disadvantages (see "Pros and Cons of the Megachurch"). And the argument over whether mega- churches are a cultural byproduct or a natural stage in church history will probably never be settled this side of eternity.

The apostle Paul's ministry consisted not only of planting new churches, but also encouraging and strengthening previously planted churches -- often by correcting bad doctrine, sin or foolish practices (2 Corinthians 13:1-3 et al). Today's church has no analogous centralized spiritual authority, but the underlying principle is the same: Any given church's performance is no better or worse than the spiritual growth of the people who comprise it.

And when measured against that standard, the megachurch is no different from any other. 

1 George Barna. Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You About Church Growth (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1988), p. 33.

2 Ibid, p. 50.

3 Growth being new converts added to the church, that is -- not congregants who drift from church to church, which is the subject of another article entirely.

4 Church Colson with Ellie Santilli Vaughn. "Welcome to McChurch." Christianity Today, November 23, 1992.

10 Largest Churches in The United States, With Average Weekly Attendance: 1. Los Angeles International Church, Los Angeles, California: 35,000 2. Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas: 20,000 3. Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California: 20,000 4. Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Illinois: 18,000 5. Saddleback Valley Community Church, Lake Forest, California: 17,000 6. Crenshaw Christian Center, Los Angeles, California: 16,000 7. Harvest Christian Fellowship, Riverside, California: 15,000 8. Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky: 14,000 9. Calvary Chapel, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: 14,000 10. New Light Christian Center, Houston, Texas: 14,000

Megachurch Facts: ·Any church that averages 2,000 or more attendees weekly is a megachurch. ·There are about 700 in the U.S.. ·11 percent of megachurches are Pentecostal. ·51 percent of megachurches were founded before 1961. ·The biggest church in the world is Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, with 700,000 members.

What Does a Megachurch Look Like? If you think megachurches are uniquely American, mostly charismatic and a recent phenomenon, you are mistaken. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as one whose services average at least 2,000 attendees per week. A Hartford-coordinated research project released in March, 2001, paints a picture of the megachurch in America: Estimated number of U.S. mega- churches: About 700 of the estimated 325,000 churches in the U.S. States with the most megachurches: California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. 63 percent are in or near cities of 250,000 or more, 23 percent in cities between 50,000 and 250,000. Average size: 3,850 worshippers weekly. Only 6 percent of the churches in America have more than 1,000 attendees per week; the average church has about 100.* Average Sunday morning attendance: 2,913 Average number of paid pastoral staff: 13, plus an average of 25 more full-time employees in other capacities. Median seating capacity: 1,700 Average yearly income: $4.8 million Theological makeup: · Evangelical: 48 percent · Charismatic: 14 percent · Moderate: 12 percent · Pentecostal: 11 percent · Traditional: 8 percent · Seeker: 3 percent · Fundamentalist: 2 percent · Other: 3 percent Two-thirds of megachurches plant "daughter" churches; a fourth have regional or satellite worship locations. 44 percent of respondents said "God's love and care" was among their most frequent sermon subjects, followed by personal salvation (42 percent), spiritual growth (38 percent) and practical advice for daily living (34 percent). The least frequent subjects are the end times or Second Coming (1 percent), stewardship of time and money (5 percent) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (11 percent). 57 percent were founded before 1961, 35 percent before 1946 -- but nearly two-thirds moved to their current locations sometime after 1970. 50 percent of megachurch members say they feel part of a close-knit family. 50 percent of megachurches say small groups are crucial to their overall strategy; 44 percent say they have small groups but don't consider them a key strategy. A third are independent. Of those linked to denominations, 30 percent say denominational heritage is important, while 49 percent think denominational leadership is not important. About 40 percent have radio or TV ministries. 100 percent have Sunday morning services; 65 percent have Sunday evening services. About half have Saturday services, and 20 percent also have Friday services. 60 percent have altar calls on a regular basis. 92 percent use organs and/or pianos during worship; nearly 80 percent also use electronic keyboards, guitars or drums. 99 percent have a male senior pastor. * It's well worth noting, however, that half of all churches have 100 or fewer members, a quarter have 50 or fewer members, and just over half are located in small-town or rural areas. The 100-member average is created by the disparate number of people attending a relatively small number of megachurches. Check out the Hartford Institute's online megachurch database at www.hirr.hartsem.edu/org/faith_megachurches_database.html.

Chicken Coops for the Soul? Pros and Cons of the Megachurch The strengths of a megachurch are often the same as its weaknesses -- and vice-versa: Pros: ·Anonymity: Many megachurches, such as Willow Creek Community Church, promote the attractiveness of anonymity: "Our size has benefits," Willow Creek's website says. "We're big enough for you to blend in and investigate the claims of Jesus Christ anonymously, if you choose to." Thanks to today's aggressive marketing, many consumers view a chance to observe and evaluate anonymously as a breath of fresh air. Since most megachurches use small groups, a seeker can check out a church and gradually build relationships as he or she feels safer. ·Stability: A megachurch can weather storms that might destroy smaller churches. Financial crises, departing employees, legal problems and so on are far more easily absorbed by a large congregation. ·Community impact: A megachurch can transform a suburb or even an entire city. Every family that attends the church can be a positive influence in its own neighborhood; the church's size allows it to undertake outreaches and community service projects on a scale smaller churches or local governments can only dream of. ·Personality-driven pastorate: A megachurch is almost always headed up by a dynamic, driven senior pastor with infectious vision and energy. A good leader can accomplish much for the cause of Christ with the resources of a megachurch behind him. ·Independence: A megachurch tends to be loosely tied to its denomination if it answers to one at all. Denominational leadership has its advantages, but speed of response and sensitivity to local issues are usually not among them. ·Facilities: A megachurch may function as a community center as well. With auditoriums, gyms and other equipment and buildings to offer, the megachurch is often invaluable to its suburb or city. ·Lay leadership: Reliance on lay leaders in most megachurches allows parishioners to get involved and exercise their gifts more rapidly and without the education and training they might need at many smaller churches. Indeed, megachurches can often provide training and education -- even college credit. Cons: ·Anonymity: Anonymity can be antithetical to relationship-building. A visitor to a megachurch can get lost in the shuffle; church-hoppers or Christians struggling with destructive sin can find it too easy to drift in and out of fellowship without facing the accountability, interaction and growth that would be much harder to avoid in a smaller congregation. ·Stability: The sheer bulk of the Titanic was its undoing. Lookouts saw the iceberg that sank the ship more than a mile away, but the Titanic could not slow down or turn fast enough to avoid disaster. Similarly, a megachurch can become a government-style juggernaut, with wasteful programs that exist through inertia, and bureaucracies that choke innovation and accountability. The scale of a megachurch's operations can force it to pursue growth simply to meet its budget. Also, megachurches, with real or perceived deep pockets, can be litigation lightning rods. ·Community impact: Parking and traffic problems, noise, litter, zoning battles and fights over city resources are too often the legacy of a megachurch. They can gobble up space and resources or hurt property values to the resentment of local homeowners and businesses. ·Personality-driven pastorate: Televangelist downfalls and other religious scandals show the fine line between dynamic leadership and a cult of personality. A personal failure in a small denominational church affects far fewer lives than the destruction of a leader of dozens of employees and thousands of congregants. Even if a megachurch pastor leaves under good terms, he can be difficult or impossible to replace, as megachurches so often stem from one man's vision. ·Independence: Independence can easily become lack of accountability. Even those megachurches answering to a denomination often know the denomination gains more from the church's membership than the church does, which often means those churches can't be held to the same standards as smaller churches. ·Facilities: The huge scale of a megachurch, with its concomitant mortgages and maintenance, sometimes forces the church to consider its bills first and its congregation's needs second. Worse, a church may exist for no other reason than to serve and maintain its own property. ·Lay leadership: Incompetence is only one problem that can result from heavy use of untrained lay leadership. Personal agendas, cliques, hidden abuse, infighting and all the other petty politics of any contentious college faculty can often infect a large church that gets careless about choosing leaders, lay or professional.

Counting Sheep When a church defines success by numbers only, it's all too easy for it to resort to -- well, just about anything -- to get people to come in. Churches with TV ministries often give "faith-building" trinkets and other bric-a-brac to donors, promising miracles, healing and other blessings. Prayer cloths are a standard item, along with vials of anointing oil or holy water (more than one televangelist has been caught selling tap water as water from the river Jordan). More outlandish examples include "Miracle Cornmeal" packets (1 Kings 17:12-16), shoe inserts allegedly filled with dirt from Jerusalem, Shroud of Turin replicas and the "Critter Cross" -- a sign asking neighbors to care for pets after their owners have been raptured. Rick Sebastian, pastor of the New Life in Christ Church in Bryan, Texas, apparently decided to drop all pretense. Early on Sundays, he cruises Bryan's missions, motels and housing projects in a van boasting a banner that reads, "We will pay you $10 to come to church on our bus." Robin Gattis, youth pastor at Foursquare Church in Orangevale, California, hosted "Bambi Baseball" games for his youth group, using a frozen deer leg as a bat and a frozen cow's tongue as the ball. Gattis said he got the idea after searching youth magazines for something that would appeal to teens. Pick-Me Products, a church supply company in Levelland, Texas, offers the Fire Bible, which uses lighter fluid and batteries to burst into flames at the touch of a button. The company's catalog assures readers the Fire Bible is a perfectly valid teaching tool, noting that "Jesus was quick to point out things in nature or his surroundings to illustrate spiritual truths." (Don't believe me? See a Fire Bible in action at http://pickme.com/objectlessons/firebible.html.) Celebrities and gimmicks are nothing new. In 1847, Henry Ward Beecher took over Brooklyn's Plymouth Church, soon attracting 2,500 people on Sundays. Beecher was a radical in his time; he supported abolition, temperance and women's suffrage. The courage of his convictions was matched only by his showmanship. Celebrities he hosted included Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass. Once Beecher conducted an actual slave auction during a service, selling a young slave girl to the congregation so they could free her. Beecher also had modern-day problems. He was accused of adultery. The charge resulted in a hung jury and exoneration by a church council, but the scandal plagued him for the rest of his career.

On the lighter side... Megachurch explodes "I guess we got too big," pastor admits. ALBUQUERQUE -- A fountain of flames spewed from the sanctuary at Wooden Oaks Community Church when the mega-church apparently grew one person too large and spontaneously combusted. "One minute we were singing, and the next there was a huge explosion," said one witness. Miraculously, nobody in the 15,000-seat sanctuary was hurt. Nurseries and child-care rooms were evacuated immediately, and people ran for cover as the building was engulfed by fire. "I have never heard of rapid church growth resulting in spontaneous combustion, but we're talking about a church of 15,000 people," says fire marshal Bill Wilkins. "When you push the limit that far, you're inviting trouble." The church has recently tangled with the city government over plans to build a 2,000-acre theme park/shopping mall/air strip/professional baseball stadium/skating rink/water-ski lake and NASCAR race track just outside city limits. Those plans are on "indefinite hold," says pastor John Allen, 31, who started the church one year ago. © 2003 Joel Kilpatrick, LarkNews.com

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