From 1892 until 1954 millions of “tired, huddled masses” made the same stop on their way into the United States, Ellis Island. No matter who you were or where you were from, if you were going to be an American, you would have to stop here.
Across the United States, there are approximately 1,300 churches who top out over 2,000, the unofficial definition of a megachurch. For untold thousands, these are the homes where many come to faith. They are the places where everyone in the family can learn the way of Jesus in a format that speaks to their age, race or taste.
They also serve as a sort of “Ellis Island” for many Christians.
Some are raised there. Some come to faith there. Many land at a megachurch because they are new in town. Megachurches have a lot of people and a lot of tasks to do, so it’s easy to jump right in.
For the better part of a decade, I’ve been involved in church planting, and I’ve noticed a trend: Entire groups of people migrating together from one of the local Megachurches to other communities.
My first response to this was cynical and heartless, assuming that they were just religious consumers looking for the next cool thing. That might be true for some of them. I also found that many of them are deeply wounded by their religious experience.
They aren’t “churched,” “unchurched,” “dechurched” or even “church-hoppers.” They are desperately trying to hold on to faith after getting the crap kicked out of them by church.
Megachurches are the first stop for many of today’s Christians. When they leave that church, it is often with wounds that must be treated at their next church.
Seven Church Systems that Chew People Up and Spit them Out
Let me make this clear: this is not just a megachurch problem. It can happen in any church. However, the very size and nature of a megachurch makes some of these problems inevitable.
I worked for two years in a megachurch with a celebrity pastor. I have also worshipped alongside dozens of men and women who came our way after their megachurch experience.
At the end of the day, it seems that many of these churches just aren’t very nice to some people. That doesn’t mean Megachurches are full of mean people. They are reliant on systems and theologies that end up hurting people. Here are seven of these hurtful systems.
1. There’s too much to do
Take as example megachurch youth pastors in the summer. They’ve got to organize Sundays, weeknight activities, mission trips and camps. At some point they are also supposed to be making disciples.
There are two side effects of having too much to do: You not only risk burning out the staff and key volunteers, you also teach that following Jesus means working yourself to the bone.
Which begs to the question, “why do we need all this stuff?”
2. We fail to teach how to rest
This church culture of frantic busyness falls right in line with our increasingly frantic broader culture. What a contrast from the God who created sabbath? How different that sounds from Jesus, retreating alone to pray.
Many of the churches best and brightest find themselves exhausted. Their bodies are constantly full of stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. They have problems sleeping and maintaining a healthy weight. They develop addictions, sometimes to caffeine, sometimes worse.
So what will it take to become a people who rest in the peace of our salvation? We have to teach rest from our pulpits. Leaders have to model it in their lives. We have to facilitate it by creating fewer activities and making sure our activities include plenty of parties and retreats where we can practice relaxing together.
If we make rest a priority, we will have less available volunteers. But it’s worth it.
Do less. Make what you do count.
3. Having more people creates more opportunities for hurting people
Everyone knows the saying “hurt people hurt people.” Basic math creates an inevitable problem for megachurches. More people will result in more opportunities for hurt people.
If you are going to have thousands of people, you have to making healing them and keeping them safe a foundational priority.
The abundance of counselors helping with religious wounds and the very existence of support groups for former church members shows that when megachurches don’t do this, they are effectively outsourcing their healing ministry to others.
4. Jesus instructions for handling conflict get ignored
Many large churches got to be large by using tricks and trades learned from the corporate world. The corporate world is pretty good at contracts, and not so good at relationships.
Jesus taught that we should live in peace. He gave direct instructions on how to deal with conflict. Paul taught that Jesus is our peace.
Christians should be ashamed that, with few exceptions like the Mennonites, we are known for anything besides being people of peace.
I have seen corporate style contracts, reporting and even blackmailing happen in large churches. Besides blackmail, these aren’t bad. But imagine how we would stand out if we developed our own approaches by applying the teachings of Jesus to our culture instead.
5. Leaders of organizations often become micro-celebrities
Celebrity culture is another inevitable problem of large churches. This is nothing new, even Paul and Apollos had to deal with it.
The problem is that celebrity culture can quickly deteriorate into factions, cronyism and narcissism. Even if the top leader is humble and thoughtful, that doesn’t mean his supporting leaders will be. Instead, they are often mediocre executives willing to tow the line.
In the worst scenario, micro-celebrity pastors start to take on the characteristics of cult leaders. The people who leave the churches often have harrowing stories of being belittled, pushed around or ignored because they didn’t tow the line.
By the way, I’ve worked with some great Church celebrities, and I know it isn’t always this way.
6. Authority is often given to the strongest personality
Jesus tended to favor the meek. He thought we could learn a lot from children. In a large room with a lot of bodies, this is hard to do. Instead, the loudest often are the only ones that are heard.
The result is that churches often give authority to people because of their strong personality. Not because of their humility or capacity.
Personally, I am in the process of learning to temper my own personality. It’s taken a few big failures, some life changing mentors and years of therapy.
Many who leave these churches still want to follow Jesus, but they are exhausted from having to deal with the raw personalities of others.
7. The goals of the local church become more important than the goals of the kingdom
The core of missional theology is that God is a missionary God that sends the church and sends people. The reality of modern American culture is that people are moving every two or three years.
Many churches seem to be more concerned about their goals and spheres of influence. Some even have “non-competes” written into their contracts.
Our theology and our culture should push us towards a focus on commissioning. Like parents preparing their kids for college, churches should always be thinking developing the people they send out into the world.
We all have baggage, and a lot of that comes from church. Megachurches aren’t inherently dangerous, but they do have a lot of problems.
We are all on the same team: sent by our Missionary God to bring good news to the poor.
We will do that job a lot if we aren’t focused on healing wounds left by our teammates.
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