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Debunking the Debunk of Mega-church Myths

Posted by Chris Case | August 7, 2008 .

Carlos Whittaker recently posted a blog where he goes through 9 different mega-church “myths.”  Well, I’m not sure he deals with the myths as carefully as he could have, because there are definite truths to some of them.  I understand for every myth there are exceptions to the rule, but universally, the critiques that are there are there for a reason.  That being said, if a church doesn’t aspire to grow in attendees and converts, its not doing its job either… it should want to be a megachurch, but then learn how to break off for the good of its people.  Here are some of the myths:

Myth: You can’t find real relationships in a mega-church
Truth: Having been both an employee and an attendee at a megachurch (10,000) member and a smaller church, I might have to agree in part with this.  The myth shouldn’t be that you can’t find relationships in mega-church, but that mega-church doesn’t do a great job helping you connect.  I have attended Carlos’ church several times.  I have never once been talked to… by volunteers, staff, anyone.  It really, really rubbed me the wrong way.  I now am I engaged to someone who used to work there, her sister still works there and even babysits the pastor’s kids, so I understand that its not the personality of the staff for that to happen and there heart is that everyone is welcomed, but in my personal experience, that did not happen.  Its hard to find relationships when you don’t even feel welcomed.

Myth: Mega-Churches are a mile wide and an inch deep.
Your growth at a church is a lot of what you make of it, but it also helps for someone who is spiritually more mature than you to help as a discipler (hey… that’s actually biblical).  I think a lot of the critique stems from that fact.  I’ve heard megachurch pastors preach some light sermons, then I’ve heard them preach some really spiritually deep and hard lessons.  Understandably, by being seeker-sensitive, the megachurches choose to preach lighter sermons some weeks, but that’s a question of methodology.  I think my critique is that I haven’t really seen top down growth patters at most megachurches.  Don’t know how much they are teaching and pouring into layleaders to turn and lead and discple more folks.

Myth: Mega-Churches have it all figured out.
I don’t know anyone who believes this myth… c’mon.  No church does.

Myth: Because they pay musicians to play on Sunday morning, there is not as much “heart” on stage.
I know or have met most of the musicians at Carlos’ church.  They definitely do have a ‘heart’ on stage… completely.  There are some bad seeds once in a while, but they desire to weed those folks out as well.  Just because it feels like a concert inside, doesn’t mean that the musicians look at it that way.  Any leader of worship can take it as performance, no matter what the style, church-organ player or rock star.  I’ve been to both styles of worship, and I have to admit, I saw more of a worshippers heart in the folks at the rock-concert style worship.  Now, sometimes production does get a little carried away with “look how cool we can make this” over “does this lead people closer to God” which is where I would have my critique a bit, but being now a worship and programming director at my church, I understand its tricky to navigate those things.

Myth: Mega-Churches are built on a man. The main communicator.
This myth I definitely agree with.  Here’s the difference to me.  There’s a church in midtown Atlanta that is growing at great rates and attracting a really awesome artsy community.  Whenever I hear about the church, I never hear “Oh, Kris is just the greatest speaker,” or even “Their music is just awesome!” I hear, “Its just a great community,” or “I just feel really a part of something.”  When asked about the preacher or music, everyone overwhelming loves it, but its not what defines who the church is.  The same way Paul said that Apollos or Paul himself does not define the church in any way  (1 Cor 3). I understand that God has blessed some great communicators (Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Ed Young, Mark Driscoll, etc) but when you build a cult of personality, and apply that to multi-site campuses, a loss of one pastor effects them all.  Now you have multiple flocks being affected by just one man.  Carlos’ comment is tongue and cheek, but I have heard people that go to those churches and I ask them why, and they say its because of (insert pastor name here).  My church isn’t immune to it either, since Alan really is a very gifted communicator.

Myth: Mega-Church staffs are cooperate, non-relational, and stiff.
Ok, that’s not true. Don’t know where people got that one.

Myth: Mega-Churches are too uptight with their money and should just give it all away.
Myth: Mega-Churches should spend their money rescuing orphans with all their dollars instead of building fancy buildings.
First off, I’m not advocating that they give it ALL away.  This is one area where I’ve been recently really impressed with a mega-church pastor.  Recently Francis Chan’s church was growing and looking to build a new multi-million dollar complex, but he read the verse regarding how we should love our neighbors as ourself, and chose to change the budget so that more money goes outside the walls of his church  than inside.  I posted on this before.  Someone pointed out that this myth may be right in Carlos comments to which he said, “No one said God needed multi million dollar buildings to reach Bob. I’m just saying that the same amount of energy needs to be given to Bob as the orphans.”  If that’s true, than equal money should be spent outside those walls than inside, if the same energy (and resources) need to be spent.

I think one of my biggest critiques about the mega-church is something that Ed Setzer researched.  I think its important not to look at the grandeur of the churches, but look at what they are actually doing in terms of kingdom growth.  According to the research, small churches or new small church plants are 30 times more effective in evangelism than the average church, and 5 times more effective than the average megachurch (this is in terms of converts and baptism).  Effectiveness is converts and baptisms per the amount of people in the congregation.  Often small churches will continue to stay small since soon after people are converted they realize that the programs and systems at the megachurches are often that much better, so they attend there for a while.  I understand that megachurches often have folks that grew up in church, got tired of a church, and are coming back to church for the first time.  That’s great… of course!  But, if that’s not matched with winning the lost for Christ in the church, then there’s a big question mark for me.

Lastly, in my experience with megachurch attendees, there’s often a very large front door to bring people in, but also a very large back door.  I’ve attended large worship gatherings at a mega-church here, and had the person on stage ask “how many people are new within the past 6 months?” I would say almost half the room raised their hands.  The problem for me was that I had attended that same service a year before.  About the same number of folks were in the room… so my question was “What happened to the other half of the room?”  There seems to be a large revolving door effect within those congregations of people attending for a season, but never getting really involved or people that are growing and just reach a plateu where the seeker model of churches just isn’t cutting it anymore.

Thoughts?

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4 Comments so far
  1. subversivechurch August 7, 2008 6:30 pm

    I would recommend a book by Neil Cole entitled Organic Church.

    I love that the ‘myths’ are completely subjective. Anyone can come up with a top 10 list of stuff like he posted. The problem is, within the issues that warrant serious debate, there are those that are obviously trumped-up charges. By interspersing the real concerns among those that are bogus, the bogus are given a level of consideration of which they are not deserving and might well not even be an issue.

    You do a good job in expanding the debate. Too bad Carlos doesn’t have trackbacks enabled.

    -mike

  2. David August 13, 2008 8:52 am

    “I have to admit, I saw more of a worshippers heart in the folks at the rock-concert style worship.”

    This comment really bothered me. How do you see someone’s heart? “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him?” ~1 Cor 2:11a.

    I know for me, while I may be more likely to raise my hands when at a ‘rock-concert style’ worship setting, the deep theology of most great hymns is lacking in most of today’s ‘worship choruses’. I worship better to hymns.

    I can’t speak for anyone else, but neither should you.

  3. Daniel Kreps August 16, 2008 6:21 am

    Whether the myths have some truth to them or not, one thing that megachurches share with almost all other “churches” is a hierarchical, top-down leadership, for which there is no justification for in scripture, which stifles the priesthood of believers.

  4. jordan September 9, 2008 12:45 pm

    These are truly all myths that having nothing to do with the size of the church but the culture being set by leadership. For example.

    “Mega-Churches are built on a man. The main communicator.”

    NorthWood that I serve at as i mega-church yet we rotate teaching leadership frequently and it works. I know it isn’t the norm but it works at Irving Bible Church as well. Few people can even name the lead pastor their and they are huge.

    You can still be highly missional, etc. despite size if you work hard at setting culture, demand, and expectations.