Megachurches

In the middle of the responses to George Barna's "Revolution", there now is a new report by the Leadership Network on megachurches based on a Megachurches Today 2005 survey sponsored by Leadership Network and the Hartford Institute of Religion Research. The full report is available at http://hirr.hartsem.edu/org/faith_megachurches.html .

The report by Leadership Network is available at http://www.leadnet.org/about_OurNews.asp and is called "New Research Debunks 11 Myths About Megachurches". From the report it appears that there has been an increase in megachurch growth from 2000 to 2005. Some excerpts from the report:

The Megachurches Today 2005 survey is the most thoroughly researched study ever made of the Protestant megachurch movement in the United States. Since June 2005, more than 1,800 churches have been contacted by e-mail, phone and mail, with complete data for more than 400 qualifying congregations received, tabulated and analyzed.
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According to Warren Bird, Leadership Network’s Director of Research, “Based on the results of this survey, we are able to conclude that there are at least 1,210 Protestant churches in the United States today with average weekly attendance of over 2,000. That is nearly double the number of megachurches that existed five years ago.”
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The wide-ranging survey includes data on the many attributes that together define the nature and impact of megachurches in our society. Collectively, the results debunk 11 of the most common beliefs about megachurches, namely:
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I won't list those 11 things; I'll let you read them for yourself; but I just want to comment on a couple of things.

First, let me say that I have no doubt that most of the so-called megachurches are used by God in very mightly ways. I don't want to be too critical of these churches because I have many friends that are very happy being part of one of them.

Second, this research seems to fly in the face of some of Barna's research of late. Unless you look at how the research is done. On January 10, The Barna Update featured a survey that I commented on earlier, "Surveys Show Pastors Claim Congregants Are Deeply Committed to God But Congregants Deny It!". The full report can be found at http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=215 . This survey was done by two separate telephone surveys, one to a random selection of congregants and one to a large number of senior pastors at various Protestant churches. On the other hand, the research done for the megachurch survey was done by sending mail and email surveys to the churches themselves.

I think this is important to remember when looking at the results of the research.

I have no doubt that the number of megachurches has increased lately but Barna's research indicates that 80% of the growth is from transfers from other churches. Most major denominations have a very large number of churches with less than 100 members. It appears that many of these churches are losing people to the megachurches through transfers. This has to be happening if the church has not grown considerably in recent years, as Barna's research has shown. Barna's research has shown that the real growth is in the numbers not attending any institutional church.