In the last ten years, the nation’s largest churches have doubled…
In 2000, the 100 largest churches in the United States all had average weekly attendance of 4,000 people or more.
In 2010, only churches with average weekly attendance of 8,000 or more made the 100 largest churches list, according to megachurch researcher John N. Vaughan.
via BibleBeltBlogger
Thoughts?
My initial thought: Â Instead of throwing stones at churches that are doubling, wouldn’t it be great if most churches doubled in size in the next ten years?
Todd
Todd,
I wonder if the doubling of large churches may be related to a generational desire for anonymity concurrent with a desire for all of the banquet of opportunities large churches offer. Perhaps it is a spiritual reflection of the social media craze…connection without relationship, superficial authenticity, and so on. Small churches are having a much greater challenge in order to double.Sounds like something you could write about.
Dave you say, “Small churches are having a much greater challenge in order to double.” I agree there are unique challenges that face small churches but to say the challenge is greater may not be wholly accurate. I pastor a small church and with the Lord’s blessing we have quadrupled in 7 years. I often where the Lord will take us in the next 3! Large churches can be great! Small churches can be great!
Tom,
You start off with the premise that because a church is large, that people aren’t connected. That’s really not what I’ve seen in many large churches (and I work with many)… Actually, many large churches are large because they spend SO much time connecting people to the mission, vision, and values of the church church through many different ways.
Sure, there are some that go to a large church to disappear. But large does not mean anonymity all the time. In fact, many times it means deep community.
Todd
I wonder how much multi-campus affects this reporting. If each campus reported individually, I presume the threshold for breaking the top 100 would be lower. (e.g. LifeChurch & Northpoint would hold multiple smaller spots rather than one spot). I think what is now called a “church” may have been called an “association” or “denomination” 10 years ago.
I’m NOT against mulit-site, I just think the landscape has changed and terminology may need to reflect this when doing historical comparisons.
I would agree with Dave. Years ago I attended LifeChurch in Oklahoma City. I would definitely say that they are a collection of smaller communities. While they may report a single number of “attendance” across all their campuses and services, each campus acts as it’s own community. And within each campus, I found that each service time acted sort of as its own community. And within that each LifeGroup (their small groups) acted as an individual community.
While the church was (and is) very large, there are multiple levels and opportunities to engage in community.
I also agree with Dave that these churches do function like denominations. There are certainly differences between a denomination (or association) and one church with multiple campuses, but when a church has 5 to 10 or more campuses in different cities, or across large metropolitan areas, it has a lot of similarities as well.
I am a new first generation believer and I dont know all the politics involved just to say when I was in a small church I found it unfriendly and closed and small for a reason. I was nervous about going to a bigger church and have found more community and more connections there than my previous small church. Nothing against small but if they are not growing than are they living? Life Produces Life.
I should disclose my small church had about 30-40 people on a good day and my big church would be around 300 so I am not talking mega church or anything like that. Just to give perspective.
Large mega churches grow at the expense of smaller churches who cannot compete in the consumer Christianity that is killing the church in North America.
So that’s the case? Quite a revaletoin that is.
KJo1RE ohyfcpyoigzj
clDe8f yweuzfamrlve