Monday, October 02, 2017

A Rural Pastor’s Warning About Megachurches


“Megachurches are sprawling wastelands of Christianity. They breed heresy, they have abandoned the truth of the Bible and they care more about numbers and budgets than they do souls and eternity.”

You’ve probably heard that characterization before. I have. And a lot of the times that I’ve heard it, it’s come from someone who attends a small, rural church. The implication is that once a church reaches a certain number of regular attendees, it suddenly abandons the gospel or that there is no way to reach such a number without putting God and his Word to the side. If the people making such assertions were around during Jesus’ earthly ministry, they surely would have missed his feeding of the five thousand. You know, with there being so many people and all, it was obviously a man-focused gathering of people who cared more about food than good, solid theology. I’m sure that these folks would have been off to the side with a small group of faithful Pharisees, plotting and scheming.

I am the pastor of a small to medium-sized rural church. Nothing about us is mega. We aren’t cutting edge. We still do Sunday School, have a meet-and-greet, and have kids come down front during the Sunday morning service for a children’s sermon. I’m sure that there are things that we do that would make church growth experts cringe.

But we are still a part of the body of Christ.

And so is the church 30 minutes up the road where there are more people in the youth ministry than there are in our sanctuary on a Sunday morning. Read More

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