The Anti-Stereotypical Megachurch

Posted on May 25, 2010
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Here are three quotes taken from an article at Chron.com that feature three very prominent megachurch pastors. See if this kind of flies in the face of what many people think about megachurches: low involvement, low accountability...

Here are the quotes... what do you think?

Craig Groeschel on "Christian Atheists":

I believe in God but I want to do whatever the heck I want to do. I want enough of God to keep me out of hell and enough of God to get me into heaven but I don't want so much of God that it makes me change my lifestyle because at its root I believe in God but I do not fear Him.

Rick Warren on Saddleback's future:

If you passively just want to sit around in the next 10 years and just waste your life on things that won't last, you probably want to find another church because you're not going to really feel comfortable here. Because if you're in this church, I'm coming after you to be mobilized.

Bill Hybels on Willow's discipleship mistake:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Any thoughts?

Todd

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Comments

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Jeremy Smith on Tue, May 25, 2010

I don’t see evidence that pushes against the mold if we base it on what pastors say. I think what is stereotypical is not what pastors say, but what their congregants do. And as near as I can tell from the studies, the members of megachurches are proportionally not as involved. Are there more people involved? Certainly due to scale. And they have effective ministries. But as a proportion of their flock, it is still waaay low.
Jason on Tue, May 25, 2010

I’m not sure how we can compare based simply on percentage of involvement by volunteers. I currently utilize 2 volunteer audio techs a week. If our church doubled, I might need 3. If our chuch quadrupled, I’d hire a staff. I guess I’d end up using fewer volunteers as their time commitment and level of complexity increased. Which I guess opens another can of worms….
Peter Hamm on Tue, May 25, 2010

Too often, what Groeschel says is true of me.

Warren’s quote is fantastic, but Hybels is, although good, very much out of context. People have been taking that quote as a proof that Hybels thinks their model of doing church has been flawed and wrong all along. That is NOT the case.

Jason, good thought, you nailed it. And there are other dynamics as you grow that get in the way, too…
Adam Lehman on Fri, May 28, 2010

quotes from mega-church pastors are not necessarily indicative of their actual ministries.
gospel light curriculum on Fri, February 18, 2011

I’ve been to a mega-church before and while it was impressive, it felt more like a show. It’s almost like people were going there to be entertained. I think that can be good as long as the message gets through and the people take action but not if it just encourages people to sit back and applaud and do nothing.