Posted on 11/22/2005 7:11:21 AM PST by nckerr
'Megachurches' draw big U.S. crowds
By Joyce Kelly and Michael Conlon
CHICAGO (Reuters) - On a recent Sunday at Willow Creek Community Church, a Christian rock band joined by dancing children powered up in the cavernous main hall, their images ablaze on several gigantic screens.
Thousands of worshipers from the main floor to the balcony and mezzanine levels were on their feet rocking to a powerful sound system. Outside cars filled a parking lot fit for a shopping mall. Inside some people drifted into small Bible study groups or a bookstore and Internet cafe for lattes, cappuccinos and seats by a fireplace.
This church near Chicago and others like it number their congregations in the thousands on any given Sunday in stadium-size sanctuaries; but in the end a major appeal of America's megachurches may be the chance to get small.
Institutions like California's Saddleback Church, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois and Houston's Lakewood Church, each drawing 20,000 or more on a weekend, offer not just a vast, shared attraction but a path that tries to link individuals on a faith-sustaining one-to-one level beyond the crowd, observers and worshipers said.
Rick Warren, founder of California's Saddleback Church and author of the best-selling book "The Purpose-Driven Life," told a seminar held earlier this year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that about 20 churches in America have more than 10,000 in weekend attendance.
"These churches can do a ton of things that smaller churches can't," said Nancy Ammerman, professor of the sociology of religion at the Boston University School of Theology.
"They have the resources to produce a professional-quality production every weekend, with music (often specially composed for the occasion and backed by a professional ensemble) and video and lighting and computer graphics and a preacher who knows how to work a crowd," she said.
But they also support "dozens or even hundreds of specialized opportunities for people to get involved in doing things with a small group of others. If you want someone to talk to who really understands what it is like to parent an autistic child, you may find a whole support group in a megachurch," she added.
MORE CHOICE
"Or if you really love stock car racing, but hate being surrounded by drunken rowdies, you can go with a busload of your church friends. I wouldn't say that there are fewer rules in most of these churches. Most of them really expect people to get involved in ways that can have a profound impact on their lives. It's just that there are so many paths into involvement that a smaller church just can't match," Ammerman said.
That's part of what Richard and Nancy Sauser of Schaumburg, Ill., said they found at Willow Creek where they have been members for more than 10 years. They attend regularly with their daughters, ages 5 and 7. The 30-year-old church draws 20,000 weekend worshipers.
"Anything they put their minds to, they can pretty much do," he said, marveling at the power inherent in size. But he added, "Willow Creek has the resources to effectively execute on multiple facets of church life," through more than 100 different ministries.
Sauser said he does not attend Willow Creek for its size but for the teaching and the ministry.
When the thousands at Willow Creek break into smaller groups for Bible study, the men's ministry, the special needs ministry and the adult ministry, a lot of life change occurs. "In the small groups, that is where it really gets good," Sauser said.
When the crowds head for Willow Creek's parking lot, attendants in orange vests direct processions of cars into smoothly paved parking lots ahead of the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services. Inside, the throng moves through the hallways and up and down escalators and stairs, welcomed by smiling greeters.
Some drop off children at Sunday school.
On the first floor Danielle Jackola of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, a mother of two who recently moved to the area from California, has come in search of a church. After listening to dynamic lead pastor Gene Appel speak on family and passing the baton of faith from one generation to the next, she liked the message -- and the entertainment.
"I had never been to something like that. I think that is one of the ways of getting your numbers up ... to get the message across but to keep it fun and upbeat. And more contemporary to get more young families involved," she said a few days later -- after deciding to join the church.
SEARCH FOR MEANING
Scott Thuma, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, said his research indicates there are at least 1,200 U.S. Protestant churches which claim more than 2,000 weekly attendees.
Megachurches are addressing the needs of Americans who are disinterested in "traditional church" yet want to deepen a sense of meaning in their lives. Classes and volunteer ministry opportunities lead to a deeper commitment, he said.
"They have opened worship to the seeker and the unsaved rather than reserving Sunday worship for the saved and sanctified," Thuma added.
The three largest churches are Saddleback, Willow Creek and Houston's Lakewood. But Warren said the world has far larger churches, pointing to mammoth Christian congregations in Nigeria, South Korea and elsewhere.
Warren said U.S. Protestants have returned to the 19th century roots of the evangelical movement, emphasizing social issues such as caring for the sick, the poor and the powerless, and not just concentrating on personal salvation.
"The small group structure is the structure of renewal in every facet of Christianity, including Catholicism," Warren told the Pew forum. He said his church has 9,200 lay ministers leading more than 200 different ministries all over southern California with 2,600 small groups in 83 cities.
The #1 political leader at Willow Creek Church is my friend, State Rep and Schaumburg Twp GOP Committeeman Paul Froehlich, whom some would call a "compassionate conservative" and others would call a "moderate". He strongly supports immigration for "compassionate conservative" reasons, unlike my "liberatrian - let the marketplace decide" reasons. Disturbing to me he votes for way too much spending of taxpayer money on wasteful pork.
What do others suggest he do with his de facto position at Willow Creek?
One of the "small groups" he has formed out of Willow Creek is a group of precinct captains who are key to his ground game.
His major potential political competition from the right is the Baptist church of a few thousand members that delivered an amazing GOTV as part of the Christain Coalition/Moral Majority in '94 but has since been little involved in politics. That subsequent lack of involvement is precisely why Froehlich was able to win the GOP leadership in '98 while the incumbents were asleep at the switch.
The greater threat is from the coalition of many small mainline protestant churches and large Catholic churches which are all led by pro-abortion, pro-socialist clergy and lay leaders and use church money to fund their liberal political activity.
It's all entertainment fluff, If you take away the special music, and all the high tech stuff, and then go back to a traditional worship service with Hymnal music, confessional stuff, and the likes the crowds would disappear.
We had a number of mega churches in TX. I always felt there was something "cultish" about them.
amen dawn- that is the problem with Christians, we are too busy judging others instead of uniting and "loving" one another. 1st Corinthians 13 says that without love, you are not a Christian.
I have been in a LOT of megachurches, and I think the typical message about how to pass on the faith is to make sure that you are "plugged in" to a church, a youth group, etc. I have never heard a megachurch pastor say that the influence of the parents is the sine qua non. If you think about it, if they DID say that, then a lot of their justification for existence would evaporate...no need for youth programs, camps, etc. Just work on the parents and teach them to pass on the faith. But that is not the way of the megachurch, the program driven church, the segregation by age church.
You are correct that God "hates" divorce. But there is only one inpardonable sin- blasphemy of the holy spirit. God is a God of love and forgiveness. While there are penalties for sin, the Bible says that when you confess your sins, God chooses not only to forgive, but to forget they ever sinned in the forst place. So shouldn't we withhold our judgement and let the Almighty do the judging?
Unsaved people don't have the ability to serve Christ.
Newly saved people tend to have needs and the Church is there to tend to those needs and help feed them milk until they can handle strong meat.
Ok, so the mega church isn't for you...big deal.
Preach, teach, disciple. All different, all required.
Yep. And if parents actually passed the faith down to their children, these "mega pastors" wouldn't be hauling in the money, selling their books and marketing programs, etc.
The proof is in the fruits. Where are the fruits?
"So a single or divorced mom brings her kids to church, and you'd rather the pastor hinder her from coming because she's not accompanied by a husband?
Remember the Samaritan woman, or the woman they brought to Jesus who was caught in adultery?
Maybe the message this pastor is teaching is the same one Jesus taught, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.""
By diluting the message so as to "reach" the unsaved, you are doing a diservice to those in the pews who are saved and who need to be fed. Times are tough. Christians need to gear up for battle...cotton candy isn't going to cut it.
The entire megachurch mentality is based on the assumption that the church service is the place where evangelism occurs. That is simply wrong. Look at Scripture, indeed, look at the examples you give. Evangelism is to take place in the streets, at the wells, in stadiums, in office cubicles, etc....and most importantly, in the homes parent to child. The worship service is where believers come to be taught and fortified so that they can do the evangelistic work of the church - but that takes place outside those walls.
That model has nothing to do with condemnation. It has everything to do with recovering the historic and Biblical function of the church.
If you wrote a book, are you entitled to profits? Joel Osteen wrote "Your Best Life Now" and because of the royalties, he no longer accepts a salary from the Church he pastors which happens to be the largest in America (Lakewood in Houston). God wants to live life abundantly. That includes all Christians, not just congegration members. Writing books is something they do on their own time.So what if God blesses them with a num ber one best seller. If anything, they are preaching thru these books to millions.
The fruit may not be apparent to the casual observer or through the sense knowledge eyes of most church goers. And may not even be apparent for years to come.
Don't be to quick to judge; even Mary and Joseph had people judging their apparent sin.
To each his own. I prefer being a member of a small church where I get to have a personal relationship with my pastor.
If that is what the mega churches do fine. What I have seen of them they are more about the pastor than the savior. The pastor at the mega church in Houston is a classic example.
He writes pop psychology books and get rich junk. You are not helping new Christians or bringing in the unsaved by saying that Christ is simply another way to get along in the world. "I have overcome the world".
Again, just my observation. If there are mega churches who are preaching the Word and making Christ the center of all things then praise God for them. I just haven't seen it.
There is no doubt that there are churches who worship their style of worshipping.
That being said, I can't say that "seeker" churches are a bad thing. Here on Nashville's west side, we have a sort of hierachy of praise churches. One is a true seeker church and has a huge weekly attendance. A little down the street is one that introduces a little more Jesus but keeps the flash. Then you have the "graduate" churches - mine is one - that are fully biblical, yet still have the praise band, the Powerpoint slides, and the like.
Mine is a Methodist (yes, Methodist) congregation of about 1500 . We have 3 services on a Sunday, and our praise and worship service is a model for other churches - many have asked us to teach them how we do it. We are extremely lucky that we have two pastors that are quite conservative for Methodists (one is downright Pentecostal) .
We are gowing, yet we pray that we don't grow TOO big - one advantage we have over the megachurches is that at our church you can know EVERY SINGLE member by name, and feel part of the family.
Anyway, back on point - I think if a town has a multi-church path of "graduation" to solid, biblical Christianity, seeker churches have an appropriate place. Get 'em in the door, and Jesus will do the rest himself.
The mega churches are known by their pastors. It's "Chuck Swindell's church", etc. etc.
Excuse me?? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps she just escaped an abusive husband? Do you know how hard it can be to leave an abusive marriage?? Do you have any idea who she is or where she has been??
Maybe you shouldn't judge her or the pastor, since you do not know either of them.
I feel better now.
When Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep, Jesus meant for him to provide adequate food for all. Sunday sermons are not meant to be the mainstay for the devoted Christian doulos.
Yes, the message must be adequately diluted so that it can be assimilated by those who are not ready for the strong meat.
Christian Worship was not intended for non-Christians. Any attempt to include them must include watering down the message.
I don't watch Joel, but didn't he have the baby killer pelosi on his show a few months ago...
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