Super congregations
more intimate than
most would believe
By Robert Marus
Associated Baptist Press
Waco, Texas (ABP)—A new survey by Baylor University researchers suggests that megachurches are more intimate, believers less gullible and atheism less prevalent than popular stereotypes would suggest.
Results of the 2008 Baylor Religion Survey were released last month at a Washington press conference during a meeting of religion reporters. It found some results that might surprise those unfamiliar with the lives and beliefs of deeply religious Americans.
For example: Stereotypes about churches that have an average weekend attendance of more than 1,000 worshippers.
“We all know that megachurches have all sorts of flaws. They’re big; they have a wonderful Sunday service because they can afford a symphony orchestra. But they’re kind of cold, they have kind of, like, theater audiences,” said Baylor sociology professor Rodney Stark, the study’s lead researcher, noting common perceptions of megachurches. “All wrong.”
The survey found that members of such churches tended to have more friends within their congregations, hold more conservative or evangelical Christian beliefs, share their faith with friends and strangers more often, and be involved in volunteer work more frequently than their counterparts in churches with less than 100 in average attendance.
“How does that make any sense?” Stark asked. “The answer is: That’s how they got there. Their friends brought them to church, and then they brought their friends to church, and that’s how the congregation was built.”
An additional factor suggested by the survey: Megachurches are far more likely than small churches to be conservative evangelical congregations. Meanwhile, smaller churches had a higher rate of affiliation with what the survey called a “liberal Protestant denomination,” or with mainline church bodies.
The survey also found that active religious believers—and particularly conservative Christians—were less likely than the general public to believe in the occult and paranormal.
“The Baylor Survey found that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases credulity, as measured by beliefs in such things as dreams, Bigfoot, UFOs, haunted houses and astrology, with education having hardly any effect,” the survey’s authors noted.
For instance, as measured against an index of belief in occult and paranormal beliefs, researchers constructed, only 14 percent of respondents who described themselves as “evangelical” rated high on the index. Meanwhile, 30 percent of those who rejected the “evangelical” label scored high on the same index.
Those who described themselves as “theologically liberal” were actually more likely than evangelicals—and than the public at large—to believe in such things as the ability to communicate with the dead, the existence of mythical creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, and alien encounters with earth.
Stark, asked if it should surprise people that those who hold conservative biblical beliefs would reject beliefs in the paranormal, said no—but that some in academia and the scientific community hold that stereotype.
“It seems pretty logical that people who are into conventional Christianity are not going to be open to this other stuff,” he asserted. “But there’s an enormous amount of belief out there that they’re just suckers for anything—that they’re just credulous people.”
The survey was funded by the Templeton Foundation, and is the second wave of a three-part survey project. The first set of results was released in 2006. The final set, researchers said, will be released next year.
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Megachurches are growing through satellite campuses
By Adelle Banks
Religion News Service
Dallas (RNS)—Megachurches—known for their big buildings, big schools and big crowds—continue to grow, but a new study detects shifts in the way they are expanding.
“The general growth pattern is that about 90 percent of megachurches report that they are growing, and many of them at very fast rates,” said Warren Bird, a researcher at the Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank and co-author of the study released last month.
The average megachurch saw a growth of about 50 percent in attendance in the last five years; about 10 percent reported a decline or stagnation.
The expansion of many of the nation’s estimated 1,250 megachurches is occurring through satellite campuses, and they are shifting their training emphasis by running fewer schools and more pastors’ conferences.
“You have a tremendous amount of growth but not ... larger and larger buildings,” said study co-author Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary.
The churches, with worship attendance of 2,000 or more each weekend, are increasingly using satellite locations, with 37 percent using them in 2008, compared to 27 percent in 2005 and 22 percent in 2000. The researchers found that, on average, megachurches surveyed this year had offered four services at each of two satellite locations each weekend.
Five percent of megachurches had six or more locations, where between one dozen and two dozen services occur each weekend.
Almost a third of the megachurches surveyed—30 percent—said they had started using satellite campuses in the last five years.
Outreach magazine, a church leadership publication based in Vista, Calif., recently reported that for the first time, all 100 churches on its list of 100 largest churches in the U.S. are attended by more than 7,000 people. It noted that experts predict that half of all megachurches will have multiple locations by 2010.
Yet as they continue to grow, fewer megachurches are involved in TV and radio ministry; the percentage of megachurches with a radio ministry dropped from 44 percent in 2000 to 24 percent in 2008. Likewise, the percentage with television ministries dropped from 38 percent to 23 percent.
Fewer also are operating Christian schools. In 2000, 42 percent of megachurches surveyed said a Christian elementary or secondary school was part of their ministry. This year, that figure dropped to 25 percent. The percentage with an affiliated Bible school or institute dropped from 30 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2008.
At the same time, more churches are offering conferences for pastors or other ministry leaders, increasing from 47 percent in 2000 to 54 percent in 2008.
Even though the majority of megachurches are affiliated with denominations, researchers said offering conferences, resources and mission opportunities suggest the rise of “mini-denominations.”
“They are creating alternative ways for churches and for religious people to get resources, to do ministry, to do missions, to connect with other churches,” Thumma noted.
“All the things that were typically done ... from the national denominational structure are being done at a local church level.”
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