New Megachurch Study Underway
From The Christian Post, we have Pauline J. Chang's Unlocking the Key to Megachurch Success:
The number of megachurches is growing at a "45-degree angle," and according to a top mega-church researcher at Hartford seminary, sheer size is not the reason why.
It's an interesting article, but I think there's some confusion in it between the cause and the effect of megachurch growth. It reminds me of the confusion in the eighties over what made super-conglomorate corporations successful, versus what were merely symptoms of hyper-growth-induced bloat. (For instance, consider the case in the article of the McDonalds franchise inside the megachurch building complex!)
What I'm really interested in, though, is the results of an in-depth survey and study that is now being conducted. I'll have to keep an eye out for the study's completion.
Also interesting is the concluding finding of the original study done five years ago: there are megachurch-lovers and megachurch-haters. The implication is that these two exclusive populations per force need different approaches to organized religion in order to be spiritually satisfied. So: are there would-be New Christians among the "megachurch-lovers"? If so, we need to come up with a New Christian rethinking of the "traditional" megachurch. To do otherwise would be to flat-out decide on our own that the New Gospel just isn't for "certain people".
...Not that I'm planning to launch a megachurch any time soon...as far as I know.