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26 Aug 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

A University of Washington study suggests that worship at megachurches (those with more than 2,000 people at a service) can trigger feelings of transcendence and changes in brain chemistry that make people want to come back. Source: Religion News Service via ENI

megachurches
Revolving door hits megachurches

13 Dec 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As the Christmas Day gospel testifies, there has been no greater evangelist of the Good News than John the Baptist, who “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” Evangelical mega-churches strive to spread that Good News and continue to grow, but also find that more people are attending irregularly. “They think ‘regular attendance’ is ‘I get there when I can,' ” said sociologist Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-author of a mega-church study released in December. “We found many of these large, successful congregations still have many of the same challenges of smaller congregations. They are not immune to the cultural dynamics in society. Everyone is trying to attract new people and hold on to them and make them disciples. But today, people are seekers and shoppers looking for a temporary experience of worship, not a long-term commitment.” Homily hint: A generation or two ago, many people tended to spend their entire lives in one faith tradition, their entire careers at one job, their entire adult lives in one relationship. But we live in a different age, where commitments are often seen as temporary, conditional, provisional. All the more reason to build a strong and deep foundation of faith, as an uncertain and changing world is sure to challenge it. For more on the megachurch revolving door, see: The megachurch boom rolls on, but big concerns are rising too

evangelical churches megachurches
Revolving door hits megachurches

20 Dec 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As the Christmas Day gospel testifies, there has been no greater evangelist of the Good News than John the Baptist, who “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” Evangelical mega-churches strive to spread that Good News and continue to grow, but also find that more people are attending irregularly. “They think ‘regular attendance’ is ‘I get there when I can,' ” said sociologist Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-author of a mega-church study released in December. “We found many of these large, successful congregations still have many of the same challenges of smaller congregations. They are not immune to the cultural dynamics in society. Everyone is trying to attract new people and hold on to them and make them disciples. But today, people are seekers and shoppers looking for a temporary experience of worship, not a long-term commitment.” Homily hint: A generation or two ago, many people tended to spend their entire lives in one faith tradition, their entire careers at one job, their entire adult lives in one relationship. But we live in a different age, where commitments are often seen as temporary, conditional, provisional. All the more reason to build a strong and deep foundation of faith, as an uncertain and changing world is sure to challenge it. For more on the megachurch revolving door, see: The megachurch boom rolls on, but big concerns are rising too

evangelical churches megachurches
Revolving door hits megachurches

27 Dec 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As the Christmas Day gospel testifies, there has been no greater evangelist of the Good News than John the Baptist, who “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” Evangelical mega-churches strive to spread that Good News and continue to grow, but also find that more people are attending irregularly. “They think ‘regular attendance’ is ‘I get there when I can,' ” said sociologist Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-author of a mega-church study released in December. “We found many of these large, successful congregations still have many of the same challenges of smaller congregations. They are not immune to the cultural dynamics in society. Everyone is trying to attract new people and hold on to them and make them disciples. But today, people are seekers and shoppers looking for a temporary experience of worship, not a long-term commitment.” Homily hint: A generation or two ago, many people tended to spend their entire lives in one faith tradition, their entire careers at one job, their entire adult lives in one relationship. But we live in a different age, where commitments are often seen as temporary, conditional, provisional. All the more reason to build a strong and deep foundation of faith, as an uncertain and changing world is sure to challenge it. For more on the megachurch revolving door, see: The megachurch boom rolls on, but big concerns are rising too

evangelical churches megachurches
Revolving door hits megachurches

03 Jan 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As the Christmas Day gospel testifies, there has been no greater evangelist of the Good News than John the Baptist, who “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” Evangelical mega-churches strive to spread that Good News and continue to grow, but also find that more people are attending irregularly. “They think ‘regular attendance’ is ‘I get there when I can,' ” said sociologist Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-author of a mega-church study released in December. “We found many of these large, successful congregations still have many of the same challenges of smaller congregations. They are not immune to the cultural dynamics in society. Everyone is trying to attract new people and hold on to them and make them disciples. But today, people are seekers and shoppers looking for a temporary experience of worship, not a long-term commitment.” Homily hint: A generation or two ago, many people tended to spend their entire lives in one faith tradition, their entire careers at one job, their entire adult lives in one relationship. But we live in a different age, where commitments are often seen as temporary, conditional, provisional. All the more reason to build a strong and deep foundation of faith, as an uncertain and changing world is sure to challenge it. For more on the megachurch revolving door, see: The megachurch boom rolls on, but big concerns are rising too

evangelical churches megachurches
Is bigger better?

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

The small church is dying in the United States. Protestant megachurches are growing. New and growing Catholic parishes are built to be large and getting bigger, while others consolidate. Why? In part, to benefit from economies of scale and to respond to the diminishment in numbers of priests, parishes are larger and churches are built bigger than before. We know this; we see it every day. But what does it mean concretely? And is bigger better? It may not be good to have few parishes that have an intimate family feel and to gain so many parishes that have a large-scale corporate feel or even a somewhat alienating and intimidating feel. Yet the trend within Catholic parishes and Protestant megachurches alike is the same: towards bigness. So it seems appropriate to ask how bigger might be made better. The answer is not to make parishes smaller--not only can that not be done but it would also sacrifice economies of scale and the services that only a megachurch can deliver--but rather to make parishes feel smaller by being more responsive and developing groups with a capacity to be more intimate within an overall rather anonymous setting. The large-scale parish is a funnel for connecting with today's Catholic, wide and open at the top but narrower and tighter towards the bottom. That's why the Catholicism is both the single largest religious group in the United States today and yet feels like such a small world where everyone knows each other. © 2009, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

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