I don’t know, but I suspect it has more to do with marketing and organization and a desire of leadership to be big and to keep growing. I don’t believe it’s doctrine, either.

I do know these churches aren’t stretched far beyond the capacity of their organization to run them. Systems are developed and put into place to manage the organization. I’m not sure if it was Driscoll or Perry Noble (or someone else) but I read/heard some megachurch preacher talk about having to change systems every so often to keep up with the growth.

I could chalk it up to an American thing, but there are megachurches in Europe, Africa, South Korea (Cho) and Australia (Hillsongs).

I’d also credit consumer demand – if there wasn’t demand for what the churches offer and the market couldn’t support it, you wouldn’t have these huge churches.

I’ve been thinking about this off and on all day, and I guess the best question I can think of is this: why do megachurches happen? Are there really economies of scale for large churches? Or does it have more to do with superior marketing/organization/whatever?

Call me crazy, but I don’t think doctrine is key; the churches on the Outreach list are of every different doctrinal stripe.

How can one care for thousands? Answer: he can’t, other than in a general sense and doing what he can to set up systems that train many people to provide that care.

I thought it was a great post.

If I had to sum it up now, I’d say, perhaps, “American Evangelical Christendom is dying (dead?); long live the Church”.

When it came time to write the intro in the main thread, I had NOTHING, and that’s all on me. I apologize.

I’ll cross out the original and put in my “gem” instead

Also, for you and everyone else, I’ll put the link to Michael’s interview with Tom Stipe (if you don’t already see it in the PP RSS feed to your right).

Thanks for posting the links to the Outreach lists. I need to look through this list closely: I suspect I haven’t heard of more than twenty of the men on either list.

I am starting to wonder if I know what a pastor is: how can anyone really be a pastor to two thousand people, let alone seven thousand?

Thanks for the link.