Warren Bird, research director at Leadership Network, recently shared the ten most popular blog posts on Leadership Network’s blog during 2012. Interestingly, 40% of the posts on the list include the word megachurch in their titles:
- Youngest Megachurch Pastor
- World’s First Megachurch
- How Many Megachurches?
- Biggest Megachurch Sanctuaries
So What?
Megachurches, congregations with worship attendance of at least 2,000 per weekend, have been growing in number and significance in recent decades. According to the Leadership Network post on the world’s first megachurch:
- The term megachurch was first used in print in 1983 in the Miami Herald;
- The Crystal Cathedral is often wrongly assumed to be the first megachurch in the US (didn’t reach 2,00o in attendance until the 1970s);
- The Moody Church of Chicago appears to be the first megachurch with many others reaching the milestone well before Crystal Cathedral.
While the firsts are now decades old, the “what next” in the evolution and role of megachurches is something about which experts hold widely divergent views.
- Why do you think there continues to be such an interest in megachurches?
- What are your personal experiences of megachurches?
- Do you believe that the number of megachurches will grow, remain stable, or shrink over the next decade? Why?