Our annual megachurch chart is one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s most popular features. This year there are 62 churches listed as megachurches (those with 2,000 or more in weekly attendance) and 62 listed as emerging megachurches (those with average attendance of 1,000 to 1,999). Click here to look at the chart of the 2013 Megachurches and Emerging Megachurches.
April 6, 2014
By Ken E. Read “Want to see the next trend in worship?” It was a decade ago. My daughter started the video halfway through the song, with the camera sweeping across the crowd. They were certainly enthusiastic (“filled with God”), raising their arms and swaying as they pressed up near the stage and sang along with the contemporary band. Thousands of people in the crowd were singing full-voiced, their faces turned upward, arms extended skyward, and waving in united praise, their eyes gazing off into space while they sang. The camera changed to show the performers on the stage. I
October 19, 2013
By Carl Kuhl The No. 1 rule of church planting is dead wrong. This rule is repeated in books, at conferences, at boot camps, and everywhere you turn. I believe God has put thousands of people in places across this country and millions around the globe for the purpose of rising to the occasion of planting a church. However, there is one huge problem: they are told they can”t do it. The first rule in church planting is that you must be called. And the people who say this seem to have Scripture on their side. They tell of God”s
October 11, 2013
By Aaron Brockett Six months after the grand opening of our church plant, I hit a wall. The combination of seeing the last of the “well-wishers” depart, watching our first disillusioned family leave the church, and experiencing the drought of summer attendance was too much. I”d given everything I had to get this young church started, and now the needle of my emotional tank was firmly planted on empty. I wanted to bail. To be honest, I was irritated with the stories of church planters turned megachurch pastors who made it look so easy (or so I thought). On paper,
October 10, 2013
By Steve Wyatt Church planters are quirky and extremely headstrong, loner types who plow into most every “church” conversation with a Mighty Mouse mind-set (“Here I come to save the day!”) They tend to have an overdeveloped sense for “the way things ought to be” and confidence they can make it happen. At least that”s the case before launch day. I can make such seemingly harsh statements because I am a church planter. Church planters, as a tribe, are seriously impaired. Consider Exhibit A: we viciously trash the current church “model”””especially megachurches””but then build our “new and improved” model by
September 22, 2013
By Roger Boatman “There will be no large churches in this city,” thundered the city councilman of a Seattle suburb to leaders of a Christian church. At issue was land the church had in escrow to develop as its new campus. Church leaders objected, saying elected officials could not determine the size of their church. “Oh, yes we can,” the councilman replied, “because we set the parking code, and you will not be approved for this or any other large site in this city.” Not to be denied their vision for the church, the congregation backed away from that site
By Chris Travis “I think this is what church is supposed to be like,” a young actor said to me. Between us were two empty bowls of chili. I smiled. We cracked jokes about the diversity of our group of 20 people. It looked like we had hired models to make our group look as perfectly diverse as possible. There was a white couple with three daughters; a Dominican single mother with two young children; a couple in their 60s who had been married for decades; an African-American woman; a Korean woman and her New York-native husband who was a
May 31, 2013
By Brian Mavis Alan Hirsch is the founding director of Forge Mission Training Network. He also coleads Future Travelers, an innovative learning program helping megachurches become missional movements. Hirsch is known for his innovative approach to mission, and is considered to be a thought leader and key mission strategist for churches across the Western world. He is not only gifted in understanding the origin of movements, he is able to envision how to create new movements within Christianity. Hirsch is the author of The Forgotten Ways, and is coauthor of The Shaping of Things to Come, ReJesus, and The Faith
By Mark A. Taylor CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s annual megachurch report has taken many forms since it was first introduced in 1997. Since 2008 Kent Fillinger has served us by presiding over the megatask of getting reports from more than 100 megachurches. Our issues have offered more information about this growing group of congregations than any other single source. In 2009 we began reporting numbers from more than just the largest churches in the fellowship of Christian churches and churches of Christ. That year we published statistics from 66 churches whose worship attendance averaged 500″“999 in 2008. In 2010 we expanded the
May 5, 2013
By Kent E. Fillinger The Crossing is a multisite megachurch. Its original campus is in Quincy, Illinois, a town of 40,000 people. Even though there are 85 churches in Quincy, 80 percent of the people there don”t attend any church, so Jerry Harris, senior pastor of The Crossing, decided to focus on being the church for people who don”t go to church. The Crossing was a small church of 230 people in 1998 when it decided to spend $2.5 million to buy a community college to serve as the church”s new home. As part of the deal, The Crossing shared
May 4, 2013
By Kent E. Fillinger “Pray for One.” Bo Chancey sent an e-mail to everyone at Manchester (New Hampshire) Christian Church on the Thursday before he preached his first sermon there. He told them his inaugural message would be for each person to pray for one person to follow Christ. That Sunday, Chancey told the 1,200 who had gathered that if everyone would consistently pray for one person, the church would double in size in two years. Chancey continued to reinforce his “pray for one” message in his various communications. “Pray for one” is now part of the church”s cultural language. People regularly
By Kent E. Fillinger Twenty years of positive growth for a church is virtually unheard of, but that is what Barry Cameron has experienced at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie, Texas. When Cameron arrived in 1992, the church had never broken 250 in attendance, its facilities were limited and decaying, and it was in debt. The church outgrew its Arlington facility by 2004, when it was averaging 1,800, so it relocated to Grand Prairie. Even though the church could track 800 people who didn”t make the move, the church still grew. Last year Crossroads grew 15 percent to an
Our annual megachurch chart is one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD”s most popular features. This year there are 63 churches listed as megachurches (those with 2,000 or more in weekly attendance) and 67 listed as emerging megachurches (those with average attendance of 1,000 to 1,999). This low-res pdf also contains information on 105 large churches (which average 500 to 999 weekly) and 109 medium-size churches (an average weekly attendance of 250 to 499) Click here to look at the chart of the 2012 Megachurches and Emerging Megachurches.
By Kent E. Fillinger Here are some summary stats for the megachurches (more than 2,000 in weekly attendance) and emerging megachurches (an average weekly attendance of 1,000 to 1,999). A total of 63 megachurches and 67 emerging megachurches participated in this year”s survey. All statistics are based on the 2012 calendar year. In addition to the 130 megachurches and emerging megachurches, 105 large churches (which average 500 to 999 weekly) and 109 medium-size churches (an average weekly attendance of 250 to 499) participated in this year”s survey. The 344 participating churches are the most to date. Complete survey findings for
Some churches and church leaders avoid measuring ministries in the church out of fear or from a desire not to be held accountable. Are you afraid of discovering something you don”t want to know? By Kent E. Fillinger “The church is in a difficult time. But the church doesn”t understand it”s in a difficult time because it doesn”t know the truth about itself,”* said Dave Peterson, senior pastor of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. “Rich Stearns [president of World Vision] observes that a segment within the Christian culture seems to say, “˜We”re good people doing good things, and
January 29, 2013
By Kent E. Fillinger Quality leaders and effective leadership can make the difference in whether a local church or any organization succeeds or fails. So we asked a few dozen leaders from churches of all sizes to tell us how they develop leaders where they serve. (The 43 congregations surveyed have average attendances from 275 to 8,500.) Most of those surveyed (77 percent) said every staff member is responsible to train leaders and volunteers within each of their ministries. Four of the megachurches surveyed have a staff person focused solely on leadership development, yet these churches still rely on a
September 2, 2012
By Robert Hull I was born in 1943. Demographers are eager to put me in my place, but I”m not sure exactly where that is. They tell me if we stretch the boundaries a little, I”m considered a Baby Boomer (or just a “Boomer”). From the reading I have done lately, I think that”s bad news. Any day now Generation X is going to wrest power from me and my decrepit fellow Boomers, throw us all under the church bus (uh, van), reinvent the church we have loved and served with our idealism, strength, time, and money, and replace it
July 15, 2012
By Brian Maris It”s not all smooth sailing for the megachurches. Church leaders I interviewed foresee some storms on the horizon. In my previous column (May 27), I shared seven positive trends megachurches are experiencing. These were gleaned from interviewing nine authors, academics, megachurch pastors, and missional church planters. These nine were overwhelmingly optimistic about the future of megachurches. But not everything they see is positive. Today, we”ll look at three concerns that were mentioned in those interviews. 1. Overfishing in Other Churches” Ponds “There are two kinds of megachurches,” states Eddie Gibbs, senior professor of church growth at
June 8, 2012
By Mark A. Taylor Steve Reeves makes an eloquent and convincing case for long ministries. But how can we reconcile positive experience like his with the result of our research showing how church growth slows as a minister”s tenure increases? That”s the question we posed to church leaders across the country, and their answers this week suggest this is an issue for all of us to consider. Perhaps the truth is not as cut-and-dried as the numbers alone suggest. Perhaps several other factors (church dynamics, community growth and culture and demographics) are in play when church growth slows in a
June 7, 2012
By Brian Mavis I asked nine authors, academics, megachurch pastors, and missional church planters “What”s next for megachurches?” The nine shared enough opinions and insights for several articles, and I will develop those in upcoming issues. Several of the leaders I contacted mentioned some concerns, but this month let”s focus on identifying and distilling seven positive trends. 1. Deeper Discipleship Megachurches are growing less content with measuring attendance alone. David Faust, president of Cincinnati Christian University, said at a megachurch leaders conference he was . . . encouraged to hear a number of megachurch leaders talking about how their plans for the
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