For the neo-churches of today, the word is not 'Christ" 'but 'big' bigger' and 'biggest'
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Sep 11, 2011, 8:22:54 PM9/11/11
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For the neo-churches of
today, the word is not 'Christ" 'but 'big' bigger' and 'biggest'
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston again leads the list of the nation's largest Protestant churches. About 43,000 people attend weekend worship services, according to the 2011 list by Outreach magazine.
Outreach Magazine is out today with its latest downloadable lists of the nation's top 100 largest Protestant churches and top 100 fastest-growing churches.
Leading large, as always, is Lakewood Church, Houston, with prolific author and TV broadcaster Joel Osteen at the helm. It's the size of some small towns.
But it also seems to have settled into the same grove of 43,500 people in weekend worship attendance for the past three years. Perhaps it's because overall growth is slowing for megachurches. Or perhaps that's because it's the one church at the top of the list that ignores the biggest trend of the last few years -- multi-site congregatons.
Next up:
* North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Ga., led by Andy Stanley (27,429)
* Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Ill., led by Bill Hybels (24,377)
* Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Ky., led by Dave Stone (20,801)
* Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif., led Rick Warren (19,742).
Saddleback is back in the top five with nine locations now.
Most multi-site churches make this work with a slew of "campus pastors" providing the kind of personalized touch of weddings and funerals while the founding pastor is the overall teaching voice, setting the doctrinal tone.
Of course, most of church-going Christian America still worships in congregations smaller than a few hundred with no fancy auditoriums or coffee bars in the loby to jazz up the experience.
Even so, the list comes packaged online with advice from experts such as a piece by sociologist Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute of Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, who offers 10 lessons to learn from megachurches with their high-profile pastors. No. 4 on that list seemed to sum up several points:
Make it appealing, then make it challenging. Most visitors want to slip in anonymously and experience worship in a user-friendly manner. But don't leave newcomers at the "spectator stage." Christianity is about maturing in the faith. The goal of pastors and teachers is to help the body of Christ "become mature." Many megachurches provide intentional paths for new persons to move into deeper levels of the faith.
Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research, which orchestrates the statistics for Outreach based on churches' self-reported numbers, observes that while big church pastors may have advice for start-up and smaller churches, they're out on the frontier themselves. Stetzer says:
The leadership territory for church leaders with attendance near or above 20,000 is such a small group that a lot of those folks have to figure out how to adapt with very little known or understood in "church" leadership circles. That used to be the case for churches over 5,000, now you have over 100 guys who could sit down with you and tell you how to do it.
Do you find the charm in a megachurch or prefer a more cozy setting for worship where you have a personal connection to the pastor?
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston again leads the list of the nation's largest Protestant churches. About 43,000 people attend weekend worship services, according to the 2011 list by Outreach magazine.
Outreach Magazine is out today with its latest downloadable lists of the nation's top 100 largest Protestant churches and top 100 fastest-growing churches.
Leading large, as always, is Lakewood Church, Houston, with prolific author and TV broadcaster Joel Osteen at the helm. It's the size of some small towns.
But it also seems to have settled into the same grove of 43,500 people in weekend worship attendance for the past three years. Perhaps it's because overall growth is slowing for megachurches. Or perhaps that's because it's the one church at the top of the list that ignores the biggest trend of the last few years -- multi-site congregatons.
Next up:
* North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Ga., led by Andy Stanley (27,429)
* Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Ill., led by Bill Hybels (24,377)
* Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Ky., led by Dave Stone (20,801)
* Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif., led Rick Warren (19,742).
Saddleback is back in the top five with nine locations now.
Most multi-site churches make this work with a slew of "campus pastors" providing the kind of personalized touch of weddings and funerals while the founding pastor is the overall teaching voice, setting the doctrinal tone.
Of course, most of church-going Christian America still worships in congregations smaller than a few hundred with no fancy auditoriums or coffee bars in the loby to jazz up the experience.
Even so, the list comes packaged online with advice from experts such as a piece by sociologist Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute of Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, who offers 10 lessons to learn from megachurches with their high-profile pastors. No. 4 on that list seemed to sum up several points:
Make it appealing, then make it challenging. Most visitors want to slip in anonymously and experience worship in a user-friendly manner. But don't leave newcomers at the "spectator stage." Christianity is about maturing in the faith. The goal of pastors and teachers is to help the body of Christ "become mature." Many megachurches provide intentional paths for new persons to move into deeper levels of the faith.
Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research, which orchestrates the statistics for Outreach based on churches' self-reported numbers, observes that while big church pastors may have advice for start-up and smaller churches, they're out on the frontier themselves. Stetzer says:
The leadership territory for church leaders with attendance near or above 20,000 is such a small group that a lot of those folks have to figure out how to adapt with very little known or understood in "church" leadership circles. That used to be the case for churches over 5,000, now you have over 100 guys who could sit down with you and tell you how to do it.
Do you find the charm in a megachurch or prefer a more cozy setting for worship where you have a personal connection to the pastor?
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