Thursday, January 08, 2015
Examing The Megachurch
Jeremy Lott writes a somewhat ambiguous story about megachurches. There is no conclusive paragraph from which I can draw a pull quote, it's just anecdotally descriptive. The picture it paints is pretty simple. With the denominations in decline the megachurches have sufficient mass to do what denominations used to do. Fair enough on a congregational level, but there is so much they do not do.
They don't build seminaries. They don't do sufficient gate-keeping for leadership. They don't foster communal roots anything like a local denominational congregation can. They don't provide a national perspective. Apparently the only thing they do well is grow. And yet even that looks more like metastasis than it does cohesive growth.
There is nothing wrong with a large congregation. I have seen some good ones. But a megachurch is something a bit different from say a Presbyterian church with 2000 members, and it is that difference that the issues lie.
One question - where is the model for eternity? How does the megachurch continue after the charisma of its current status wears off?
eternity megachurch
They don't build seminaries. They don't do sufficient gate-keeping for leadership. They don't foster communal roots anything like a local denominational congregation can. They don't provide a national perspective. Apparently the only thing they do well is grow. And yet even that looks more like metastasis than it does cohesive growth.
There is nothing wrong with a large congregation. I have seen some good ones. But a megachurch is something a bit different from say a Presbyterian church with 2000 members, and it is that difference that the issues lie.
One question - where is the model for eternity? How does the megachurch continue after the charisma of its current status wears off?
eternity megachurch
