I just stumbled onto Outreach Magazine’s annual “Fastest Growing Churches” list.
Here are the official stats in pdf form.
Now I haven’t looked in-depth at this list, nor am I really in any place to say anything like this – but here were two thoughts that came up
1. Would God make a list like this? (well, course he wouldn’t because he’s God and he should know better)
2. Is this really a list of the fastest growing churches, OR is it mostly a list of churches that refuse to send people out to plant more churches?
I could be WAY off base here, but it’s getting late in the night…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
That reminds me of Mike Yaconelli in “Messy Spirituality” who talks about being sure he was a member of the fastest shrinking church around. That was refreshing. He talked about that the same time he talked about using hot dog buns for the Lord’s supper.
Makes me wonder if we can redefine what “growing” means. Is “growing” really something numerical, or is it something more.
beim – that’s a great thought. I do believe in growth, after all, living things grow… but i agree, we need a redefinition of what that means!
I stumbled across your blog just a few minutes ago. I read this post, and I have to admit, there’s always been something about *most* megachurches and many of the “fastest growing churches in the USA” that just seemed to put me off, but I could never quite put my finger on why. I think that your #2 might be it. It never occured to me that that could be the real/issue problem, but I really think that you might have hit the nail on the head there. I’ve always wondered why in America (and perhaps this is an issue in other areas, I really don’t know) we have this fascination with churches that have 10,000 or 20,000 members. Are they somehow superior to 10 churches with 1,000 members? In the same way, what if a church decided that at a certain size it would simply “multiply.” I’m not sure about all the logistics of this….but I think that it’s something that should be looked at.
I’ve poked around your blog some, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far…keep up the great work!
Hey Rhea, there definitely is something fascinating by big numbers even for myself, but it’s probably not healthy. I wonder how many people hear about these gigantic churches and just feel bad about their own…
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! Feel free to come back and chime in anytime. I checked out your xanga as well, keep blogging!