This says it all for me:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB115741786888753373-lMyQjAxMDE2NTA3NTQwMTU3Wj.html
For what it's worth, my in-laws attend North Point Community Church (mentioned in the article, in the 'burbs north of Atlanta) and I've gone there a few times. It looks more like a community college campus than a church, and yes, it's huge (three services a day, each split into two 2000-person halls by the first letter of your last name--"A-L go to the west hall, M-Z and visitors go to the east hall"), and yes, it's got just about everything. Every service is videotaped professionally. The sound system, video, all of it, is state-of-the-art. The halls have giant video screens, each hall has its own praise band (loud rock praise music)...you name it, they've got it. And it all runs with the smooth efficiency of a megacorporation with a large paid staff and literally hundreds of volunteers every Sunday.
From what I've heard while there, however, the preaching and teaching is pretty sound. I found Christ while attending a conservative Presbyterian Church in America congregation in South Carolina, and I never heard anything at North Point that contradicted the teaching I received from the PCA, which is a VERY conservative denomination. The pastor at North Point is Andy Stanley, son of Rev. Charles Stanley, familiar to many from TV and as the head of Atlanta's First Baptist Church, which itself is pretty gigantic.
Personally I like smaller churches. But not all of the megachurches are as shallow as some make them out to be. They're just...well..."mega."
}:-)4
A Church is not a building (or several) Mega-churches are money pits.