by Sandy » Mon Oct 20, 2014 2:52 pm
I don't necessarily think they're all "bad' (depending on what that means) though I think that most of them are warehouses of gifted people who are called to serve in the church, but are expected, or relegated to the "sit, listen and give" mentality that most mega-churches develop in their congregations. What I see are people who sit and soak, and who generally have no idea what it means to be the eyes, ears, feet, toes or heart of a local church ministry, using their gifts to serve.
I'd venture to guess that among SBC mega-churches, the transfer of membership between them at various times in their ministry represents a significant part of their growth. I know that in Houston, trading members is a regular occurrence between First and Second Baptist, with the pastor introducing the new members to the congregation as having come by promise of letter from a "sister Southern Baptist church." Lakewood has been in that mix as well, since they opened their new location in Greenway Plaza, central to the upper middle class Anglo Saxon Protestant population of the city and metro area, First and Second have ebbed as Lakewood expanded. Now, as I understand it, Lakewood is in a pretty significant downward spiral, and First and Second are benefitting.
Having grown up in Southern Baptist churches, where 20% of the people do 80% of the work, and 10% of the people give 90% of the money, I am theologically convinced that churches, as bodies of Christ, were never intended to get bigger than the courtyard of the typical Greek or Jewish home where they met, and that the intention was equal sacrifice in terms of work time and giving. There are several indications in the New Testament that have convinced me of this. I believe Ed Stetzer's research still shows that the bulk of evangelism in the SBC is taking place in the churches that average 120 or fewer in attendance on Sunday, where there is a much lower baptism to membership ratio than in the mega churches. The Koreans have discovered that having a lot of people under the banner of one church is effective only if the congregation is divided up into small units that fit in living rooms. I don't think the Biblical evidence is conclusive, but if you follow the statistical pattern out, both inside and outside of denominations, the churches are getting bigger, but the total number of Christians is shrinking, at least in this country, substantially. "Church growth" now is defined by how many people you can get into your building from another church somewhere else.
Like William, I don't know of very many mega churches that don't have celebrity pastors, or pastors who think they're celebrities.