Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Is It Over?
Is what over? - The megachurch phenomena. USAToday looks at some numbers.
But let's go back to the article for a bit. There really is not much news in there - it's an argument. A clear attempt to spin some statistics as an excuse to make the case against the mega-church, no transformation, no depth, etc. You've read them all here before because I agree with them. Needless to say, I got all excited when I started the piece. I was hoping to use it to once again pile on to the mega-church trend, but when I got into the depths of it I had an unusual visceral reaction.
Given that the evidence in support of my view was testimonial and not statistical, my reaction was to shrug and think, "I need to figure out how to cope with this trend instead of buck it." And if you think about it, that is a dilemma that has faced people deeply transformed by Christ WITHIN the church since the beginning. Cope or buck? It's the question that drove the formation of many orders inside Catholicism - it drove the Reformation - it drives the continual reshuffling of the denominational tiles we see today.
I sit here, staring at my computer trying to formulate a response to the question I just posed and I have none. I look over the history of the church and I see right and wrong answers to the question in so many events - I find myself unable to use that data to determine which point in history we are in NOW.
I am torn. The usual response to such dilemma is, "Be true to the Lord, rely on Him, and do the best you can." But I have a visceral repulsion to such a response becasue it is about me, and the issue is not about me, its about things larger than me and where I fit into them and what I am called to do in their context.
But let's rephrase that usual response - "WAIT!" That's all, just "wait." Sometimes God is doing something that I simply have no role in at the moment. In other words, it's not about me - I don't count right now. And perhaps that's the real problem, I think I am supposed to count, I want to count.
Only God counts.
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On Outreach magazine's 2008 list of the largest 100, even the smallest says more than 7,000 people attend. But some of the biggest, including Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, with 43,500, showed slight declines.Pretty slight evidence in my book, particularly when the same article cites that the number of churches having "mega" status is growing pretty quickly. Of course, that is coming on the heels of losses from the more mainstream, moderately sized churches:
"The megachurch story is not really about growth, it's about shifting allegiances. People want to feel good about who they already are," says Philip Goff, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis. "If church is too challenging or not entertaining, they'll move on."The trend is just too obvious. People move from town square and malls with smaller stores to Wal-Mart, they move from smaller churches to mega-churches. There is an undeniable cultural shift.
But let's go back to the article for a bit. There really is not much news in there - it's an argument. A clear attempt to spin some statistics as an excuse to make the case against the mega-church, no transformation, no depth, etc. You've read them all here before because I agree with them. Needless to say, I got all excited when I started the piece. I was hoping to use it to once again pile on to the mega-church trend, but when I got into the depths of it I had an unusual visceral reaction.
Given that the evidence in support of my view was testimonial and not statistical, my reaction was to shrug and think, "I need to figure out how to cope with this trend instead of buck it." And if you think about it, that is a dilemma that has faced people deeply transformed by Christ WITHIN the church since the beginning. Cope or buck? It's the question that drove the formation of many orders inside Catholicism - it drove the Reformation - it drives the continual reshuffling of the denominational tiles we see today.
I sit here, staring at my computer trying to formulate a response to the question I just posed and I have none. I look over the history of the church and I see right and wrong answers to the question in so many events - I find myself unable to use that data to determine which point in history we are in NOW.
I am torn. The usual response to such dilemma is, "Be true to the Lord, rely on Him, and do the best you can." But I have a visceral repulsion to such a response becasue it is about me, and the issue is not about me, its about things larger than me and where I fit into them and what I am called to do in their context.
But let's rephrase that usual response - "WAIT!" That's all, just "wait." Sometimes God is doing something that I simply have no role in at the moment. In other words, it's not about me - I don't count right now. And perhaps that's the real problem, I think I am supposed to count, I want to count.
Only God counts.
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