On Megachurches ....

I think my church, which is about 400 people has much less than 45% serving rate.

Does "volunteering" includes doing something or other in your Sunday school? Making coffee? I would want to know what their definitions is.

I attend a church of about 150 parishoners. I would say about 10 - 20
5 are actively serving. Megachurches are not the only ones who have a large percentage of pew sitters. I have attended both small churches and megachurches. The megachurches I have been to became mega due to the fact that the gospel message was delivered without sugar coating, and diluted to touchy feely, tickle my itching ears nonesense. The pastors and staff were extremely biblical and orthodox in the basic Christian tenents. They were doing mighty works of God and harvesting souls for Christ.
I have also attended megachurches that are clearly not teaching or preaching or living out the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are good megachurches and bad ones. I personally have never heard a valid criticsm of them. Just because a church is a megachurch doesn't mean they are bad churches. God moves just as greatly in a large church as a small or medium sized church.

I have also been in a lot of smaller churches who were serving a watered down gospel with political correctness. My church of 150 is worshiping and serving the Christ of the bible. The people are growing and are challenged. I personally don't care how big or small a church is. It's about how the pastor and congregation serve and worship the Lord.

As I read through this list, I was struck by the sentence:

New people almost always come to the megachurch because family, friends or co-workers invited them. So often Christian leaders forget this very basic reality. There continues to be something very powerful about one inviting another to something meaningful. I thought of a time when I wondered how I could possibly encourage a certain person to come to our church. I thought, prayed and tried to figure out some sort of angle. It dawned on me that I had never even invited the person.

I don't make this statement to affirm the "invitation" as some sort of gimmick that works. Rather, I am just saying that sometimes we may ignore the simple and what even might be obvious.

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Julie (#7)

I am sympathetic to your overall thrust, but here is my question: how should people pick a church?

My bigger question is: How well is the church teaching people how to pick a church?

Julie:

I go to church for two reasons:

1) to worship corporately

2) to learn

So I would indicate a priest/minister/pastor as a reason, not in some charismatic, cult of personality way, but in that I have been to churches where the pastor didn't know what he was talking about, and it made learning impossible, or churches were the pastor's views were so deeply set in one mode that once you learned that mode there was nothing else, and to churches were the sermon every single week was a vibrant, eye opening experience to re-think an aspect of my life and my faith.

That would bring me back to a church. In fact, I've been attending a New Life church here in Chicago with my brother that couldn't be further from what I want out of a church in terms of "worship style" or a "statement of faith" point of view, but the pastor's words every Sunday make me think, and re-evaluate, and learn, and grow. He challenges my life and my thinking. And that makes it "worth" the nearly 2 hour CTA trip to get there each week.

What do you think is a "valid" reason to choose a church?

On the 45% who never volunteer, like others, I'd like to know how that compares with small churches (Having been in them, my guess is big churches compare favorably.)

I'd also like to know why it is that we think everyone in our congregations should be using the church as the primary venue for volunteering. For instance, what about the faithful attender of worship and other events who coaches a youth sports team in a city league, being Christ in the world? I'd want to know more before making to many critical judgments.

That should say, "I think we focus..."

...two critiques I have of Mega churches:

One is the tendency to pile up christians in one spot instead of spreading them out over the earth. This is of course a critique of small churches too. But the mega-church mindset of 'how many butts can we get in seats' tends to damper church planting...

Two is the promotion of the idea that numbers is the definition of success. My experience has been that the speakers at every conference, the regional overseers of every denominational area, the authors of every book, are the pastors with the largest churches. We count what we think is important, and I suggest we start counting some other 'success' indicators:

Here are a few suggestions, but I imagine that this crowd could easily improve upon it:

1) The number of languages spoken by people in the church
2) The comparison of ethnic mix in the church to the ethnic mix of the community (or socio-economic status, etc.)
3) The number of churches planted out of this church
4) The number of church plants that have subsequently planted new churches!
5) The number of cross cultural church plants sent out
6) The percentage of people participating in ministry
7) The percentage of people participating in some form of intentional community (discipleship house, etc.)
8) The percentage of people involved in a home group
9) The percentage of church income given to outside groups
10) ...
11) ?