29 March, 2024

Megachurches and Missions

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by | 11 May, 2014 | 0 comments

By Chris DeWelt

Suspicious of missions? Uninterested in missionaries? Disengaged from foreign fields? Not the megachurches I interviewed for my doctoral thesis and this report. Actually, I found just the opposite. The American megachurch is interested in missions!

Kenyan children run beneath a parachute during a VBS conducted by a mission team from Crossroads Christian Church, Corona, California. Photo ©Gabi Adams.

Kenyan children run beneath a parachute during a VBS conducted by a mission team from Crossroads Christian Church, Corona, California. Photo ©Gabi Adams.

The advent of the megachurch is a phenomenon unique in church history. The fact that the megachurch is here is hardly a news item, but the growth and influence of megachurches is a significant part of our current story.1 Just 53 years ago there were only 16 Protestant megachurches2 in America. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research lists about 1,500 megachurches.3 Currently, Leadership Network estimates the number of American megachurches at 1,800.4

Though vilified by a few and praised by many, megachurches (those churches which average 2,000 or more in weekly attendance) are a fact of life in America. I study the world of missions. Understandably, the megachurch is of specific interest to missionaries and mission agencies, as well as our churches and their networks here and overseas. Many ask this question, “What is happening with missions in the megachurches?”

 

The American Megachurch and the Restoration Movement

Each year, Kent Fillinger5 reports on the status of megachurches among Christian churches and churches of Christ. When I began my research in 2010, there were 56 megachurches in our movement. Fillinger reported in April 2013 that the number had climbed to 63. (For a variety of reasons, including the fact that some megachurches did not report to Christian Standard this year, the list in this issue includes 62 megachurches.) This puts “our” megachurches at slightly more than 10 percent of our total number of congregations.6 These churches comprise about 4 percent of the total number of American Evangelical megachurches.

Based on the numbers in the Hartford report, the percentage of megachurches within our fellowship is close to double what it is for the general Evangelical church world. I was surprised to find that three churches with a Christian church/church of Christ background are among the top 10 megachurches in the United States.7

 

My Research

In 2010, I set out to discover what I could concerning megachurch missions programs. Plenty of academic and popular research has been conducted regarding the sudden appearance of the Evangelical megachurch in the past few decades. But few have reported on megachurch missions, even though the influence of the megachurch on mission patterns “often surpasses the influence of denominational leaders, mission executives, or leading missiologists.”8

Thanks to a sabbatical extended to me by Ozark Christian College, in 2011 I began conducting interviews with megachurch missions leaders as well as with mission agency personnel. My principle research goal was to determine how, or to what extent, the megachurches among the Christian churches and churches of Christ cooperated with mission agencies in sending missionaries to the field.9

 

Megachurch Missions Data

I conducted 55 interviews, 26 of them with megachurch missions leaders (about half of the Christian church/church of Christ megachurches).

The remaining 29 interviews were with mission agency personnel. This included leaders of eight mission organizations (Team Expansion International, Christian Missionary Fellowship International, Pioneer Bible Translators, Mustard Seed Global Fellowship10, New Missions Systems International, ACMI, Kontaktmission USA, and Frontiers); several other very small “microagencies”11; and a variety of people related to or involved with agencies, including some leaders of indigenous agencies.

I traveled from Ohio to California. Some interviews involved more than one person. These interviews typically lasted about 25 minutes and produced approximately 900 pages of single-spaced transcription. Although I used traditional avenues of research (library and other forms of archival research), the main body of my research was found in the data derived from the interviews.

Although there is much to say, I include here some conclusions and reflections:

1. The megachurch, in fact, has a deep and abiding interest in missions. A fear among many is that the megachurch simply is like a selfish child, interested mainly in taking care of itself with little interest in anything altruistic. But the facts indicate the opposite to be true.12 The American megachurch is interested in missions! My research and that of others confirms this concern.

Early on, it is true, some megachurches seemed to have little interest in missions, especially foreign missions. While this may still be the case among an isolated few megachurches, most megachurches among Christian churches and churches of Christ are committed to a worldwide focus. In particular, I found a corresponding deep interest in church planting, both domestic and international.

2. The megachurch missions pastor is indeed the “gatekeeper.” This is especially true when it comes to accessing financial resources for missions in the megachurch. Gatekeeper was a term Robert Priest used for the megachurch missions pastor as the result of his research among the Evangelical megachurches.13 The same is true of Christian churches and churches of Christ, where “missions pastor” or “missions minister” are new terms.14 Although local churches have long had missions committees and missions ministries, the missions minister has arisen only in recent years.

The missions pastor is directly responsible to the lead pastor among all the churches I surveyed. When the missions pastor wishes to create his or her own missions program, apart from the lead pastor”s leadership team, the relationship with the lead pastor is key. If the missions pastor hopes to engage in innovative missions programming, he or she must possess sufficient chutzpah (spunk) to engage the megachurch leadership structure and carve out his or her own space to build the program. This does occasionally happen, particularly in very large megachurch missions ministries, or ones that are involved in missionary sending processes.

3. The megachurch is moving rapidly toward an increased embrace with nationally led overseas church networks. One mission agency leader said he felt the megachurches viewed the agency as a kind of “dating service” between the church and the nationally led networks.

This is good, because the clock of globalization is irreversible. The growth of communication, ever-increasing mobility, delivery systems that are unparalleled in human history, and the general shrinking of the planet is the framework of the future.15 How we choose to function within that framework is up to us.

Megachurch missions leaders seem to have an almost emotional connection with their counterparts in the national church networks. Time and again I heard stories of the effectiveness and the strong work ethic of national church leaders.

4. The megachurch desires a stronger missions education process. In most cases, I observed men and women who were very open to learning and improving their missions acumen. In fact, I frequently was asked for recommended reading.

It would behoove the mission agency (and Bible colleges) to assist the megachurch with this need. Doing so requires an agenda-free approach on the part of those bringing the help.

5. “Who is leading this dance?” The agency must adjust. This has happened in some cases, but sometimes the mission agency sits on the side, chooses not to engage in dialogue, and strongly implies a desire to be seen as the expert on the subject of missions. Such an approach has not fared well. A spirit of patronization is lethal to partnership. Most of the agencies recognize this and are adapting, to one extent or another. The days of institutional thinking are in the rearview mirror.

6. Many megachurches have an interest in sending out “traditional” missionaries. Of the 26 megachurches I interviewed:

“¢ Eight were actively recruiting and/or sending their own people to the field.

“¢ Six were interested in doing so.

“¢ Six were in favor of the idea, but had no immediate plans to do so.

“¢ Six were not interested in sending their own, but exclusively viewed their missions program in terms of supporting national networks.

Today”s Christian church/church of Christ megachurches are significantly involved in missions. The relationships between megachurches and mission agencies (and other parachurch ministries) require work. Better communication, especially from the agencies, can provide a platform for improved mutual support as the agency finds resources for increased programs and the megachurch discovers help for understanding missions.

This triangular relationship of missionary, church, and mission agency features many common values, including a shared commitment to God”s will being accomplished among the peoples of the earth. May the communication increase, and may the people have a will to work . . . together!

________

 

1A helpful reference on the American megachurch is found in Scott Thumma and Dave Travis”s 2007 work, Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We can Learn from America”s Largest Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

2Thumma and Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths, 6.

3This data was obtained from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research”s searchable database at hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/database.html.

4Interestingly, there are megachurches outside the United States much larger than those found here. See Warren Bird”s helpful data at Leadership Network”s website, www.leadnet.org. The 1,800 megachurch figure was found at leadershipnetw.wpengine.com/how_many_megachurches/ on February 19, 2014.

5I am grateful to Kent Fillinger for his helpful assistance on many levels and for his diligent research with respect to our network of churches.

6The Directory of the Ministry counted 5,346 churches in 2009. It should be noted that all listings in the directory are voluntary.

7These are Southeast Christian Church, Louisville Kentucky; Central Christian Church, Las Vegas, Nevada; and Christ”s Church of the Valley, Peoria, Arizona. Outreach magazine (October 2012) lists the top American Evangelical megachurches, but does not show Christ”s Church of the Valley. I inserted CCV according to Kent Fillinger”s 2012 data. It should be noted that all three of these churches are larger than Saddleback Christian Church, and only slightly smaller than Willow Creek.

8I am grateful to Robert J. Priest, Douglas Wilson, and Adelle Johnson for their brief but seminal work, “U.S. Megachurches and New Patterns of Global Mission,” published in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, Issue 2, 97-104.

9My research was in fulfillment of the requirements for a doctorate in missiology through Biola University, La Mirada, California. For a free link to the dissertation, send me an e-mail, [email protected]. I request only that you provide me with feedback after looking through what I have written.

10Mustard Seed Global Fellowship (whose work is primarily in Japan) has since been merged with Orchard Group, the church planting organization.

11″Microagencies” are very small mission agencies usually comprised of one or two missionary units. Their board makeup is often a very close (and closed) group. This was how Carol and I went to the mission field in the 1970s and early “80s. These microagencies grew out of the direct-support missionary movement, which is part of our history.

12Thumma and Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths, especially 78-90.

13Priest, Wilson, and Johnson, “U.S. Megachurches and New Patterns of Global Mission.”

14I use the terms “missions pastor” and “lead pastor” simply because those were the terms most frequently used by the interviewees. A minority referred to themselves as “missions minister.” Many used the two titles interchangeably.

15See Robert Wuthnow”s 2008 work on missions coming from the American church, Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

Chris DeWelt serves as professor of intercultural studies at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri.

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