Mega-Church

I was surfing some random blogs this morning and stumbled across one where a Baptist fellow was quoting a newspaper article about mega-churches. You know, the ones that are as big as an airplane hanger for jumbo jets with multi-media popping out of every nook and cranny and people packed in like sardines in a tin? One of the things in the article that caught my attention was a list of nine characteristics of a mega-church.

I was surprised to find that Sunshine met six (maybe seven) out of the nine criteria. We don't have instrumental music, so you can cross the in-house rock band off the list right away. We don't have stadium seating...well, our building really isn't big enough for that. The third area, well that's questionable. "A dizzying array of specialized services, with specialists in geriatrics, teens, addiction and early childhood." We do offer an array of specialized services, but I wouldn't really call it dizzying as yet. In every other area, we were pretty much on target...multi-media instead of hymn books, not passing a collection plate during services, no religious artifacts like crosses or stained-glass windows, conservative view point, etc.

Patsy was looking at a list of Churches of Christ in Ohio the other day and remarked that the number of members at Sunshine, although certainly not the largest, is significantly larger than average for our state. We have also been informally kicking around the idea about a new, larger building. Are we on the way to becoming a "mega-church?" Is that such a bad thing? I'm not wanting to be controversial here, I just thought this was interesting.

Here's the blog I was reading Those Aren't Pews, They're Stadium Seats!

Oh, and do I get ex-communicated for reading a Baptist blog? :P