To God alone goes the Glory. Not modern church growth theory that panders to the culture.
Amen.
While God can and does reside wherever He pleases, my experience in mega-churches left me reeling.
As I've said before, I have relatives in a very famous "mega-church" and I've attended Sunday services there. The heart of the service is always someone coming up and delivering a wrenching tale of debauchery and sin until they cleaned up their act. One time a cute 20-year-old blonde in high heels, shorts and halter top, spent 35 minutes detailing how she went from prostitution, heroin addiction, crystal meth addiction, four abortions and a broken jaw (?) to cleaner living through Christ.
Our kids were in the "audience" and I was appalled this X-rated theater was playing out in front of hundreds of kids.
They can say all they want that they are preaching God's word, but I think they're fooling themselves and simply titillating a large group of people who come to church on Sunday in order to attend the weekly programs -- AA, Weight-Watchers, "Divorced Partners, Three Kids and Two Dogs" (which alternates Tuesdays with "Divorced Partners, Two Kids and Three Dogs) and the Wednesday night beading class.
The real point here is not that these programs are not good and helpful in and of themselves. The real point is that for one crummy hour a week we should be able to sit our frazzled butts down and hear a solid sermon based on Scripture about God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
I think if we concentrated more on His activities, our own would be elevated without needing to reschedule our Blackberries.
One hour a week.
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" -- Matthew 15:9.
Ahhh, morality based sermons: "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew and don't run with girls who do."
No Gospel, just rules (and for the most part man made ones.)