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Editor’s note: In this three-part series, editor-at-large Paul Williams looks at seven factors that have had significant impact on church growth in Christian churches. In this final installment, he considers the seventh factor with influence on the past and considers a new phenomenon and how it will affect our future.
To download a pdf of all three parts of this series, CLICK HERE.
Megachurches have been steadily increasing their influence among all congregations, urban, suburban, and rural.
While leadership of the Christian churches was once firmly in the hands of educators and editors, within the last two decades leadership has firmly transferred to the megachurch senior pastors.
Some of smaller congregation leaders claim a bias toward the large church in conferences and conventions, but those same small church leaders vote with their feet, as they fill the seats of the workshops led by large church ministers. The paid staffs of many smaller congregations seem to be devoted to adopting whatever megachurch practices they can in their local environment.
While megachurches have their weaknesses, they are in large measure the reason for the phenomenal growth of Christian churches in the last decade. It is also true that many elements for which they are taken to task are in fact healthy indicators of strong Christian community.
Those opposed to large churches often call for a return to the small integrated community, concerned about the whole person and the whole culture, from feeding the hungry to taking care of the environment. And where might one find sterling examples of such community? In the megachurch, where it is far easier for members with common interests to find one another in small group settings.
Megachurches have discovered at least one good leadership principle from the playbook of Jack Welch at General Electric. They have mastered the art of decentralization. Programs within the church have great autonomy, creating healthy particularity within the larger environment. With the recent advent of multiple campuses, even more opportunities for varying themes have emerged.
Megachurches also continue to be the first environment in which most unchurched individuals in America are introduced to Christianity. They are sensitive to many types of seekers, from those who would classify themselves as "believers with a lot of questions," to those who are "questioners with a few beliefs." Worship is designed for Christians, but always with a deep sensitivity to those who are early on their spiritual journey. Preaching is solidly biblical, and often exegetical.
Many megachurches are accused of being soft on issues like racial reconciliation and service to the community, but churches all across the nation challenge that stereotype.1
What About the Emergent Church
Brian McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christian, took the 20 and 30-something world by storm when it was published in 2001. McLaren and leaders like Erwin McManus and Rob Bell are committed to churches that will impact the postmodern culture. Collaboratively they have created a vibrant new community that has been dubbed the "emergent church." Much of what they espouse was earlier suggested in Lesslie Newbigin’s 1989 book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.
In that work Newbigin suggested six marks for the coming church:
1. A community of praise and thanksgiving
2. Seeking truth
3. Not living for itself, but for the concerns of the neighborhood
4. Where people are prepared for and sustained in priesthood
5. A community of mutual responsibility
6. A community of hope
Following in Newbigin’s footsteps, Jimmy Long, in Generation Hope–A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation, summarized what he calls the influencing church as a "church that sees the world as a mission field and Christians as missionaries." Christians are expected to befriend individuals within the culture, and engage the culture to enable change to occur. As Long says, "Instead of drawing battle lines, the influencing church is opening up lines of dialogue."
Although it is a growing movement, a red flag has been raised about the emergent church. Some more conservative members of the evangelical community feel the movement is abandoning its evangelical roots. A group of well-known conservative leaders recently convened to discuss possible responses to what they see as a move away from "scriptural truth." At least one Christian church megachurch has been involved in these discussions.
Churches that identify themselves with the emergent movement come in all shapes and sizes. Many wondered if the emergent church would be a collection of smaller congregations, a new kind of megachurch, or a combination of both. Early evidence suggests the latter.
In New York City, a new church started in Park Slope, Brooklyn, began as a microenterprise, a coffee shop. The church has been quite focused on serving its community from that intimate base. While they have Sunday services in a separate facility, most of their work emanates from their storefront shop.
Across the river in Stuyvesant Town on Manhattan’s East Side, another emergent church, Forefront Christian Church, has employed the marketing expertise of the megachurch to catapult itself to a first Sunday with more than 400 in attendance.2 Both types of congregations are seen as viable and healthy in an emergent church world. Health is now measured by size, but also (and with greater difficulty) by quality of relationships.
These young leaders understand that as recently as 1970, 30 churches of 50 members each brought as many people to Christ as one church of 1,500 members. While they know those statistics changed drastically to favor large churches by the mid-’90s, they also realize the time might be just around the corner when Americans again prefer smaller congregations.3 They are prepared for either eventuality.
Those emergent churches that do employ Madison Avenue marketing techniques have adapted to America’s new fixation with "citizen branding." Corporations have learned that to advertise effectively to 20-somethings, they must show that their product is not just something to be consumed, but serves the larger goal of creating a better community.4 How much of that trend is hype and how much is a genuine maturing of American corporations is anyone’s guess.
Christian churches have been very active in the emerging church movement. Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois, has been one of the leading congregations. Many new churches in the Northeast have also effectively adopted an emergent church focus.
Bright Future?
While the independent Christian church wing of the Restoration Movement is enjoying unprecedented growth, a healthy future is not guaranteed. The movement could be in danger of losing its identity in the broader evangelical environment.
Only a handful of congregations are downplaying the ordinances of the church, but with so many programs being adapted from evangelical churches, it may only be a matter of time before the distinctives of the movement become blurred. In such an environment it would be difficult to maintain identity on heritage alone.
On the other hand, many of the newest and fastest growing independent Christian churches are proud of their heritage and diligent in informing their members of the fellowship of which they are a part. They understand the value of a network of churches that work well together without the intrusion of denominational control, and they feel that our devotion to being "not the only Christians, but Christians only," is a goal worthy of these hopeful times. It will be interesting to see which attitude prevails over the coming decades.
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1 An excellent example is the work of LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colorado. See The Externally Focused Church, by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson (Loveland: Group Publishing, 2004).
2 Link to both churches through www.orchardgroup.org.
3 While it is too soon to draw conclusions, early indications are that those 20-somethings migrate to larger congregations as they marry and begin having children.
4 A good summary of this trend is in Citizen Brand, by Mark Gobe (New York: Allworth Press, 2002).
Paul Williams is president of Orchard Group and editor-at-large for CHRISTIAN STANDARD.
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