Archive for the ‘My Megachurch Confessions’ Category
My Megachurch Confessions [8/8]
And, thus we conclude our series on My Megachurch Confessions!
Sjoe, personally it’s been two weeks of digging deep, and figuring out precisely what it has meant for me to work and worship in a megachurch environment the past three years. Come February 2008, it’s been three years exactly since I started serving in and around this ministry, and I still learn new stuff everyday, whether good or bad.
May we all never stop learning in the context of our own ministries!
Anyway, to conclude this series I just have two thoughts to share:
- If you work and/or worship in a relatively smaller congregation, use your relative smallness to your advantage in building great relationships, knowing everybody your work/worship with to the best of your ability, and in the process foster a strong, involved community, where you can all do life together, while all the way glorifying Christ!
- However, if you work and/or worship in a megachurch environment, use the incredible resource at your disposal for the edifying of the entire body of Christ! Leverage your technological, human, financial, economic, real estate and political resources to such a way that your church’s bigness makes sense, not only to the greater church, but also to the unbelieving community around you.
If you have any comments, please feel free to post them here, also feel free to submit any online resource on the subject!
Next up: Money Matter$
My Megachurch Confessions [7/8]
Jack Of All Trades
Everybody knows that by juggling too many axes, you will end up losing an arm, or more, some time or another!
My realisation in the megachurch environment is that wider application to a broad spectrum of people groups and their interests, leads to a lack of focus in the church, as a general rule.
You end up catering to all kinds of people with all kinds of demands, creating a hundred or more different ministry departments and/or programs. Normally these ministries don’t necessarily tie in with, or compliment, each other, and they usually end up doing just the opposite: competing with each other for resources such as time, money, volunteers, marketing opportunities and venues, to effectively run their programs.
The harsh truth is that if you want to say yes, and really mean it, to a certain vision, focus or direction, this implies that you have to say no to a bunch of other stuff! This other stuff may even be great opportunities, good plans or well-intended volunteers or ministry leaders.
- Whatever God’s dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates.
- Stella Terrill Mann
I guess the problem is just that it is so difficult for a leader to say no to somebody who has a genuine good idea, even if that idea has got totally nothing to do with God’s vision for that specific organisation. We try so hard to be everything to everyone, but ironically, we end up being nothing to nobody, really.
Focus brings strength, momentum, vision and constant forward motion. Without saying no once in a while, it is near impossible to say yes!
What say ye?
My Megachurch Confessions [6/8]
The American Dream
Everybody knows that with stuff comes more stuff to maintain the stuff. And then that stuff needs even more stuff to maintain the first stuff. Very soon everything is way complicated and everbody’s confused.
Well, big churches aren’t very different…
My experience of working and worshipping in a megachurch environment is that one of the downsides is this: sooner than later the leaders, staff, volunteers and general congregation gets sucked into a corporate, institutionalized mentality. It’s not wrong of itself, God knows that the size of the monster warrants good organisation and structures. I just don’t know if it is the best thing for a community of faith to operate in that arena.
Example: more congregation members = more programs = more volunteers = more full time staff = more salaries = bigger human resources department = more financial personnel = a dedicated communications department, etc, etc. I guess my point would be this: the bigger the institution gets, the more people witn non-ministry related roles (and missions?) is needed to keep the boat afloat.
The biggest danger of this is that, eventually, the non-ministry related departments start dictating what is and is not possible, and relevant, to the ministry related departments. And before you now it, your church becomes an institution driven by corporate values, instead of ministry values, where the tail is wagging the dog, so to speak!
The challenge then would be to let your church grow in numbers, but also in effectiveness in ministry, becoming more of a movement and less of a monument (kudos, Erwin.)! To not let the corporate side of such a big organisation bog down the fluidity, creativity and immediateness that is such an integral part of ministering to our culture today.
The churches where this is working seems to be the exception, though.
What do you think?
Here is some funny but true quotes on committees and their downsides. If they struck a chord, check out these.
- A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. – Sir Barnett Cocks (1907 – 1989)
- A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members. - David Coblitz
For some more perspectives, see if you can get your hands on Erwin Mcmanus‘ book on church life, An Unstoppable Force. Also check out some other articles with interesting views on the matter here and here.
My Megachurch Confessions [5/8]
One Of Many
With this post, we start moving towards the not-so-good part of working and worshipping in a megachurch environment.As we start to talk about this negative side of big churches, please remember our premise when we started out on this series: that with everything there usually are two sides of the coin, and that the real truth is to be found somewhere in the balance between the good and the bad. Life isn’t always as simple as being black and white, and mostly not so when we talk about matters as abstract as faith, church and a life in ministry.
That said, let’s continue…
For me personally, one of the biggest drawbacks of worshipping on Sunday with about 7 000 other people is just that, the loss of the personal touch. It becomes just darn near impossible to actually have any kind of personal interaction when you are overwhelmed with so many people at ministry events, worship services, meetings and various other programs. Research has shown that a normal human being are capable of fostering a close, personal relationship with 14 people at the most, at any given time. This number includes friends, colleagues, family and fellow worshippers.
Even Jesus modelled this when He chose to change the world with 12, and even then there was still one who fell away!
I guess my confession would be this: in a megachurch environment there will always be that one person or family, that just falls through the cracks, that nobody notices or just keeps getting overlooked by church and ministry leaders.
Have you ever felt like a number at church? Speak up!
If you want to read up some more, read this post by Les Puryear at his blog.
My Megachurch Confessions [4/8]
Attracting Bigness
John C Maxwell, leadership guru and ministry veteran, has the following to say about leaders attracting other leaders:
“A 10/10 leader wil attract 9/10 and 8/10 leaders to follow him, just as a 7/10 leader will attract 6/10 and 5/10 leaders to follow him.”
I guess his point is this, that bigness attracts bigness.
Maybe it is just a practical matter (seating, tech gear and traffic), that all the big names in the Christian music industry have their performances at megachurches across the country, but even still, the law applies!
It’s the megachurch’s lead pastor thet gets invited to speak at the international conference, and it’s the megachurch’s worship leader that headlines the local worship festival, and it’s the megachurch that always hosts the big names in Christian writing, speaking and music.
But as I said, maybe it is really just a practical matter.
This may or may not be a positive side to being mega, but it surely helps! Working and worshipping in a megachurch environment has allowed me to liase and have close personal interaction with Rob Bell, Michael W Smith, Casting Crowns, Erwin McManus, Hillsong United, Leonard Sweet, George Barna, Planetshakers, Tree63, Bill Cornelius and Robin Mark.
Not that I’m into name dropping, but just to illustrate the point! Although all of this has been great for my personal and professional development, none of it transpired because of my own amazing inisiatives, but solely of me being positioned where I am.
And so it is, bigness attracts bigness.
So, tell me, what do you think?
My Megachurch Confessions [3/8]
Many Will See And Fear…
Psa 40:3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.
No matter how you spin it, there is something about a new, big thing that God is doing through a ministry, that attacts people’s attention, and even leaves them in awe. Christians and non-believers alike.
If there is a Christian ministry that can afford, against all odds, to build a church building of millions and millions of rands, it doesn’t matter what you believe about God, you have to respect and admire the accomplishment, whether you see it as man’s or God’s!
Therefore, the next positive thing that struck me about working and worshipping in a megachurch environment was this: just the existence of such a big ministry seems to be a testimony to the outside world. Just the fact that normal pastors and volunteers can grow an organisation to such a massive extent, seems to impress outsiders and members alike endlessly.
In the end, it is a testimony to the power, might and provision of a big God. When you’ve got a team of 200 staff members and 20 000 congregation members, standing in front of a R90 million building, saying: “Look what the Lord has done”, it gets kind of hard to deny the fact that God is at work among them!
Many times when I’ve doubted the inner workings of the megachurch system, I had to remind myself that the church is still the anointed of the Lord, even more so when growing, I assume. Now I know that bigger churches doesn’t necessarily mean better churches, but it still just helped to to keep my thinking straight.
Anyhoo, what do you think?
Are big churches a testimony in the world to God’s power and provision, just because of their sheer size?
Have your say!
My Megachurch Confessions [2/8]
Christ & Cash
The coordinator of my very first evangelism outreach used to say that the kingdom of God rests on this two very simple pillars: Christ and cash.
You may or may not agree, but you cannot deny that money is definitely indispensible in building an effective ministry in today’s day and age – and usually megachurches not only steward over mega-sized bank accounts, but also get faced with some mega-sized bills at the end of each month!
It is also true that it takes money to make money, and that more money can do more, even for the kingdom. Of course God isn’t limited to how fat our church’s wallet is, but if I can be totally honest, money never seems to be the biggest hurdle to overcome for our church when it comes to planning new ministry areas and opportunities. When more people are giving in a month, thus easing the fiancial pressure on the leaders, it just becomes easier to focus on spiritual, emotional and strategic growth issues.
Personally, I have experience of working in ministries where there are no salaries being paid, with hardly enough money for phone and electrical bills at the end of the month, to being on staff at a megachurch, having my office in a state of the art multi-million rand building, on one of the prime property stands in our suburb!
So this is my confession: one of the very real advantages of working and worshipping in a megachurch, has to do with the financial margin. Although on a very strict budget, we can with relative ease finance as many ministry projects as we can effectively motivate to our management team.
For more on this, checkout out Tony Morgan’s insightful post on church burgetary issues.
So, am I writing relevant truth or colossal garbage?
Let me know what you think!
[updated] This interesting post about megachurches investing in economic development just appeared over at the Leadership Network Learnings. Another interesting way how wealthy churches impact the community.
My Megachurch Confessions [1/8]
Introduction
One of my favourite quotes is this one from an anonymous, but very wise, person:
“Very often I’ve found that the real truth of any matter is found in the balancing of two other, seemingly opposing, truths.”
Thinking of this quote constantly reminds me that no matter how hard we try to ignore this simple fact, in every area of life there will always be grey areas. Even as religious or faith-based humans, we sometimes have to acknowledge that everything isn’t as easy and simple as being either black or white.
Please keep all that I’ve said just now in mind when you journey with me through this next series of posts: My Megachurch Confessions. We will discuss together three positive and three negative (?) confessions of working and worshiping in a megachurch environment, culminating in a series of eight posts.
Just a final disclaimer before we jump into the murkiness:
1. Please know that all of this is based on my own, personal observations. Yours may be different, and that’s ok;
2. Please don’t feel pressured into thinking that you have to agree with me. You don’t, and that’s really ok too;
3. Also know that I not only respect, but are also immensely thankful for, every church of any denomination or size, that honestly and authentically searches for and worships God, where they are, with what they have been given!
So, with that said, please make sure that you have your seatbelt on as we go on this ride together, starting of with the positive side of things!
To supplement your reading through this series, or just for an alternative perspective, check out these:
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Megachurch Survey (pdf courtesy of Leadnet.org)
