The popularity of mega-churches
Julia Baird has an article this week in response to the WCC statements against the influence of so-called “mega churches”. What I found particularly interesting was her suggestion as to why these churches were so popular and attractive to people:
First, Kobia was right - they make people feel good. Not unworthy, deserving a smack, or failing to measure up. When asked to describe their largest worship service, more than half of respondents to the 2005 study said: “Filled with a sense of God’s presence”, “inspirational” and “joyful”.
Second, there is an energy and buzz to most of the services that are totally lacking from most traditional churches. They sing, dance, play electric guitar and drums, and throw their hands in the air - sure it’s a bit Australian Idol, but people love it.
They have restaurants, child care (and that alone might be enough reason to go), gyms, coffee shops and basketball courts. Some churches also have football pitches, medical facilities, martial arts classes, music studios, and their own record labels.
Third, they are optimistic - you won’t hear much talk of hellfire or such gloomy things. They preach empowerment and the good life Jesus wants you to have in the here and now: wealth, beauty and happiness. It’s a reality TV show and therapy session all bundled into one. In a way - and this is both its appeal and its danger - it conflates neatly with a consumer culture where the individual is empowered to seek happiness through money and secular success, then return to share it with the church.
Fourth, they seem younger and fresher than their crusty Protestant counterparts. When you walk into Hillsong, you see dyed hair, piercings, bouncing teenage feet and fresh-faced volunteers.
Lastly, the size and rate of growth are critical parts of their appeal. Jesus did not aim to pull big crowds - he avoided them - but of course they gathered around him regardless. Growth in numbers is increasingly regarded as a sign of success amongst churches struggling with dwindling congregations. Even our local Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, set a goal for his ministers of amplifying their flock by 10 per cent.
The World Council of Churches is right to warn against mass-produced, shallow, corporatised theology. But the success of the megachurches is also a rebuke to the tired, flagging mainstream Christian groups who desperately need to modernise themselves.
I think that these assessments are fair enough. It is more attractive to be involved with a place that makes you feel good and which provides for your temporal needs. By this argument in order for “tired, flagging mainstream Christian groups” to “compete” then they need to make use of the same tactics. This then simply creates a model which says that all of these things are the ideal, because they represent the greatest possible appeal in terms of bums on seats.
As we all know, I think that there is a very important argument that many mainstream churches ought to be doing things differently. And I also believe that large churches which are able to pull off a reasonable facsimile of mega church style success and growth are going to be less likely to decide to turn things on its head and re-orient*. However, I have been in a heap of smaller poorly resourced churches who are trying to emulate the megachurch model and whatever your intentions, an ageing guy with a drumkit and a 14 year old recorder player just don’t have the capacity to create that “buzz”.
*Before we started at Northern we wondered what would be the greater task - to turn a non-bible belt church in decline into a missional church or to turn a bible belt church in plateau into a missional church. The smaller declining church has more openness to change, but less resources to work with (both financial and people). The larger church would be a force to be reckoned with but has a much larger investment in not changing.
March 13th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Ned,
Do you make people cough into buckets?
March 14th, 2006 at 1:51 am
This is probaly not the right forum, but is anyone here a Catholic?
March 14th, 2006 at 10:35 am
I, sir, am indeed a member of the True Faith.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I’ve vomited into a bucket - does that help anyone?
No church is immune to it’s leader falling down and sticking it to their flock - Pente, Bapo, Anglo, Catho, and all the rest. We’ve all had instances of stuff happening that has shocked and horrified us. I ahve always been wary of peopoe who really make a thing of decrying other immorality - I’ve seen quite a number of these peopoe doing just what they’ve been crying out against.
Up in Grafton Diocese of the Anglican Church there is recently retired priest who was very dogmatic (one could almost call him Sydney in his doctrine) and I konw for a fact that he was visiting gay beats (places where men go to have sex with other men - public toilets etc) an yet he would rail against homosexuality at our Synod meetings - hypocrite
March 14th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Exactly Greg.
Why do some people have such an agenda to push? Others are very moderate in their approach and attempt to discern what is right. One’s attitude when considering other ministries is very revealing.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
POST-MODERN ART?
COUGHING INTO BUCKETS?
Lionfish, are you serious?!!
Greg - ‘no church is immune to its leader falling down’…so true. I often wonder, though, what role the churches have in creating this situation. Now, I don’t mean to say that anyone is not responsible for their own actions - of course they are. But it strikes me that in smaller, less hierarchical communities, those identified as ‘leaders’ are more likely to be able to share their struggles and thus avoid ‘falling’, than are those identified as ‘leaders’ in large, strongly hierarchical communities. An individual’s humility plays a role in their ability to reach out and confess and share their struggles with others, but so too do the structures around them. I am fairly confident it’s easier for the ‘leader’ of a small house church to share their struggles with their ‘flock’ than it is for the leader of a big pentecostal megachurch to do that.
Leadership ain’t particularly important to me - community is - so perhaps I’m biased. However I’m concerned by the number of Christians I know who identify “leadership” and “preaching” as the most important things in a church. Where does following Jesus, or individual responsibility, fit into that? We’re creating unhealthy structures where leaders aren’t allowed to be normal, struggling, flawed human beings…
March 14th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
It seems that most of us want to believe that we have found the best church por the right churfch and that any other way of expressing our faith or relating with God is not right - I disagree with this - I believe that there is no end to the ways in which we can relate to and express our faith in God. Pentecostals are no more of the devil than Peter Jensen is.
There was a tiem when i would have been proud to call myself a Pentecostal - at the very least Charismatic - now I am not calling myself anything other than a Christian - not because I think lables are wrong - but because that is how I feel and what reflects my faith more accurately.
I believe that there are expressions of church (new and old) that some of us call cults that will never the less be found to harbour genuine believers.
It’s never helpful to start saying this is of the devil or that is of the devil
March 14th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Community - communion - this is what is central to our faith - Bec you get to go to the top of the class!
I enjoy the small Anglican cafe community I attend, my role is as worship coordinator which entails getting peoipoe to lead prayers, organise the music, arange for people to share testimonies and introduce the speaker on the night.
A couple of Sunday nights ago i shared with our group how I didn;t really want to come that night and had been looking for ways to get out of it (something really terrible had happend for me and I was very depressed) people prayed for me and there was definiteloya sense of togetherness that wold not ahve been possible perhaps if I was worhsip oordinaotr of a larger community like HS.
I think the push for larger churches misses the point of being a community of believers - I’d rather have a thousand 2-300 member communities than one 10,000 member one.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Yeah, there’s a place for big corporate ‘events’, but I think it’s pretty hard to really connect with more than 20-50 people…as soon as you get bigger than that, you move towards having communities within communities.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Bec: “We’re creating unhealthy structures where leaders aren’t allowed to be normal, struggling, flawed human beings…”
You are absolutely correct. Spiritual abuse - like many other types of abuse - is often perpetrated by people who are themselves victims within the system they are part of.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Greg,
“I’d rather have a thousand 2-300 member communities than one 10,000 member one.”
I agree, as long as they were well led and enjoyed momentum. Hillsong’s strength (and potential weakness) is its profile, so has a greater opportunity to impact the wider community for good (or worse). Unfortunately, we must realistically conclude that Hillsong will have negative as well as positive effects.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
“Spiritual abuse - like many other types of abuse - is often perpetrated by people who are themselves victims within the system they are part of.”
I could agree more - we have people who desire strong leadership and put others on pedestals, and people who desire adulation and are happy to be put on pedestals, and it’s just not healthy for anyone involved. Nobody is perfect, we are destined to be disappointed if we expect them to be - I have seen so many people hurt when they have come to know someone they admire immensely…the better they get to know them, the more hurt they are as they realise this person is not perfect. It’s not fair on anyone involved. It strikes me that while we profess to follow Jesus and to place him above all others, we’re not actually that good at doing it - instead we look around for someone who is made in our image of Jesus, and project all our desires on to them. Sooner or later everyone will get hurt because of it.
I feel so fortunate to be a part of a community in which this is not an issue - while we are by no means a perfect community, it is a community that is very much characterised by an acceptance that none of us are perfect, all of us can lead and be led in different areas, and that those who are in paid ministry are as broken and in need of discipling as the rest of us. This I believe is actually the real strength of non-institutional and missional churches - new expressions of christian community that acknowledge that mission/ministry occurs in a multitude of ways offer the possibility of less hierarchy, a move away from a clery cf laity distinction, and recognise that everyone has the ability to be an ‘expert’ or ‘leader’ in some fields and to learn in others. It takes the focus away from leaders and refocuses it on Jesus…
March 14th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Yes, but is it an efficient tool for the Lord? Is to much of the effort of large churches dedicated to making such a large structure not colapse under its own weight?
Remeber a mega church must justify its self also against the enviromental damage that it does. How much less petrol would be needed if no one went to a church more than a 10 minutes drive away? (obviously this isn’t a fully realistic ideal, I drive ~20 to church, but I bet thats a low number for the attenders of Hillsong)
March 14th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Most Hillsongers live quite close. some travel, but most are local. There are a lot of christians in the Hills
March 14th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
“Hillsong have written to me twice, each time to remind me of the “Christian mandate” they possess and that they have tens of thousands of supporters.”
“I’m advised there are employees at Hillsong who are employed to write applications for Government funding. To me, this shows the exercise is not just about obtaining grants, but gaining the legitimacy of Government endorsement across the whole Hillsong banner.”
From http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200603/a_guestreporter_westiewideweb.html
March 15th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Also, Hillsong has extension services throughout the city for the ease of having a local congregation. Incidently, I regularly attend the Ryde extension service.
March 15th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Steve, it would be interesting to actually do a study to see whether most Hillsongers really did live close. I’d be surprised if Hillsongs was different to the megachurches in Melbourne, and I know that stacks of people travel 30 minutes plus to attend them, when there’s a little church just down the road.
I think megachurches are in need of some serious self-analysis. Instead of constantly starting new things up (they’re great at starting up new churches, new street ministries, etc etc), why not support those that are already in existence? Why does Hillsong start up new things rather than support those with a long history in working with indigenous communities, or kids on the streets, or refugees? Rather than diverting funds and starting new things up, why not support the Brotherhood, or Salvos, or St Vinnies?
I suspect it’s got something to do with building empires rather than following Christ - but this is a problem in small churches too!
March 15th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Or why not do what one big church in Melbourne did, and send a bunch of people down to a struggling congregation down the road to boost their numbers? Why start up a new church in a community when there already is one (of course, there are valid reasons to do this, but I suspect that most church plants haven’t really considered this…)
March 15th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Bec said: Or why not do what one big church in Melbourne did, and send a bunch of people down to a struggling congregation down the road to boost their numbers? Why start up a new church in a community when there already is one (of course, there are valid reasons to do this, but I suspect that most church plants haven’t really considered this…)
This is a very interesting point Bec - what are some of the other ways that large churches can help smaller churches?
Dan and Phil (or is it Phil and Dan?) coudl we have a thread for discussing church planting?
March 15th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
I doubt that sending people down to the other smaller local church will help anything. Doing the same thing with more people wont change things often.
March 15th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Wrong, LovesTha. Glen Osmond Baptist Church in South Australia did something much like that, taking a pastor and about 30 - 40 younger people from the very much larger a dn growing Rostrevor Baptist Church, and both churches have been significantly helped by the arrangement.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
St Hilarys, Kew (Melbourne) did something similar with Christ Church, Hawthorn - stacks of my friends go there now…it looks a bit too much like a church plant, but the reality is that a dying community has been reinvigorated, a church building is being used, and the people I know who are going there are certainly getting a lot out of it…
March 15th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
I’m aware of both of these churches and their ‘plants’. They are good models for church renewal, especially of older, unhealthy churches. But there is a fundamental difference with this concept and the planting of churches to reach ‘unchurched’people. This model tends to create a new Christian hub of energy and activity for Christians.
The problem becomes that the presence of a critical mass of all the new Christians generally tends to stop there being a need for that group to reach outside of itself. This has been the constant struggle of these churches. Add to that the DNA of the sending church which tends to have been a bigger hub and that is what the new people take as how one ‘does church’ and this is hard to kick start into mission.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
starting new thread as per request
March 15th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Yeah Andy, I know what you’re saying, and there is some merit in it, but my experience of the South Australian situation is that the reverese actually happened. The church which recieved the new people became incredibly mission-focussed.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
now, now the new thread has started… dont make me have to copy your comments accross to the new thread too
this thread is about why mega-churches are popular.
haha - like herding cats
March 15th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I hear this ‘herding cats’ analogy quite often lately by pastors…to describe the difficulty they have in steering congregants and their own staff in a particular direction.
And I don’t disagree with the analogy.
But I’d like to see another analogy recognised.
My experience in dealing with pastors on any particular ministry issue…is that it’s like herding brick walls.
March 15th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
bec Says:
St Hilarys, Kew (Melbourne) did something similar with Christ Church, Hawthorn - stacks of my friends go there now
My little brother and some of his friends go there too. I really like it as a church from my one visit there.