"Megachurch" is a new word not yet found in most dictionaries. However, that name is now spread throughout the media, describing how huge houses of worship are mushrooming, with some congregations exceeding 30,000 members.
A megachurch is described as one with over 2,000 members and growing. A study, "Megachurches Today," by the Hartford Institute of Religious Research shows over l,200 in this expanding category. Half of them are in the South. A third of these are non-denominational.
My first thought, filled with considerable alarm, is "What does this movement do to the little churches I came to know as a boy?"
Thank God, most of these "little" churches are still alive and some are even growing.
Let's compare this so-called megachurch with the little churches many of you, as well as I, knew as youngsters. I am quoting from a two-page article in The Christian Science Monitor. "The megachurch's Wednesday Bible study group meets in a hotel ballroom-style sanctuary with Bibles in hand (that's good). The teenagers have their class in another building."
I attended several churches – all small – with names like Old Rosehill, Rosehill Special, Pauline Missionary, New Hope, etc. Where I and some other teenagers went was decided by how many cute girls were there! Wednesday night was Prayer Meeting night with supper brought by local ladies. Each of these churches had only one room and that was used for Sunday worship, Sunday School and all other events. Couples got married there. Funerals and community gatherings were held in the same room. Members, most with tough hands and sun-drenched faces, laughed, shed tears, felt a togetherness seldom known in today's society.
This megachurch article described "upholstered mauve chairs and huge projection screens for movies and slide shows." Wow! All of my little churches had wooden benches, darkened and scarred with decades of use and sometimes the sweat of hardworking members. Metal folding chairs were used when needed. A movie or slide show was beyond our dreams.
This survey shows "some megachurch pastors pull in crowds by making people feel good and avoiding Christian demands."
My churches had members feeling good, too, because in many cases that was the first time each week they could sit, relax and meditate on the word of God. I don't remember a single preacher making folks feel good except guaranteeing a better life in the hereafter.
That article states these "big churches grow by prayer and caring for their community."
My little churches knew every family in the community from the youngest to the oldest. When any of them had problems, the community stepped in and delivered food, prayers, tender love, ready to do manual labor for the family if needed and "get the ox out of the ditch" as they said.
While my little churches didn't have movie screens or projectors or speakers (some of our preachers when they got worked up with a sermon could be heard a quarter of a mile away), they had one thing these monster megachurches can never duplicate. At least once each year they had an all-day singing and dinner on the grounds. Some of America's greatest singing originated in such churches. Also those with a cemetery sponsored a day for cleaning that was followed with a potluck dinner afterward. If those megachurch members could ever partake of one of those dinners, their hearts and stomachs would be won forever!
In addition, some of my little churches sponsored "brush arbor revivals" in the fall after the crops were harvested. Fresh cut poles were erected and the roof was covered with green branches from big trees. If no electricity, lanterns were placed on the poles and a kerosene lamp at the altar. Although these are now mostly history, many of you reading this are now devout older people who responded when that dynamic preacher reached your hearts and you walked down the sawdust aisle with the singing of “Just As I Am.”
Let these megachurches continue growing, and I hope they do, and reach millions of unchurched people. But for me, nothing will ever replace those little churches of my childhood where I had dreams about the future and got to know God. Now I believe without any doubt that God is still bestowing special blessings on each one of them!