As soon as I got my driver’s license, I ditched my parents’ small, traditional church for something that felt a whole lot more exciting: a booming megachurch across town. It was the place to be.
Smoke machines. Rock music. Lights timed to the beat. Dynamic preaching from a charismatic leader. Thousands of people all packed into a state-of-the-art auditorium, hands raised, voices loud. It felt electric. Alive. Like something was happening.
And for a while, it was incredible.
But as time went on, I began to notice a few things — small at first, but hard to ignore. I’d show up every Sunday, week after week, sit in the same section, nod politely during the greeting time, and then slip out after the service ended. It wasn’t that anyone was unfriendly — people smiled, handed out programs, made small talk — but it all felt… surface-level. Like I was just one face in a crowd of thousands.
I kept waiting for it to feel like home. For someone to really notice me. To invite me into something deeper. But it never happened.
Despite being there for well over a year, I wasn’t part of any small group, no pastor knew my name, and nobody ever asked where I’d come from or what I was going through. Eventually, I just stopped going. No dramatic exit. No letter. No confrontation. I just slipped away the same way I had slipped in.
No one followed up. No phone call. No email. Nothing.
Months later, I bumped into someone from the church at a café. “Hey! Haven’t seen you around in a while,” they said cheerfully.
“I left about two years ago,” I replied.
The Problem with Mega Churches
Fact: According to Lifeway Research, there are approximately 1,750 megachurches in the United States, defined as Protestant congregations with regular weekly attendance of 2,000 or more. Notably, around 90 of these churches have weekly attendance figures ranging from 10,000 to 44,000 people.
With numbers like that, it’s easy to assume that bigger must mean better — but not everyone agrees.
Megachurches “are poor places for formation and pastoral care” and tend toward “addictive dependence” on their founders. These were the words of the late Tim Keller in a Facebook post, explaining why the megachurch he founded — Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City — decided to split into three congregations when he retired in 2017.
Initially established by Keller in 1989 with a modest gathering of only 50 individuals, Redeemer Presbyterian Church experienced significant growth, reaching a weekly attendance exceeding 5,000. Surprisingly, however, the former megachurch pastor would later assert that the spiritual well-being of Christians would be better served by having ten smaller churches, each consisting of approximately 400 members, spread across the city rather than a single centralized church with a congregation of 4,000.
Yes, according to Keller, smaller churches are more effective.
Why mega-churches don’t work
Keller’s insightful post highlighted several issues with the culture of megachurches that absolutely resonate with my experience. Here’s why megachurches don’t work:
Too big to care for people
Let’s start with the obvious. When you are in a congregation of thousands of people, it is possible to attend that church for many years without even being noticed — let alone known by anyone.
Sure, you might get receive a cursory and obligatory greeting from an usher at the church door and an awkward hello from the people sitting around you during the token “greeting time” during the service, but if you really want to be known in a megachurch, it’s up to you to make yourself known.
Tim Keller says that this is one of the design deficits of megachurches. “In general, they are poor places for formation and pastoral care due to their size.” However, your absence will be noticed in a smaller church, and you are more likely to receive meaningful pastoral care.
Too dependent on the founder
The script that most megachurches follow is a reasonably predictable one. A megachurch is usually founded by a high-capacity, visionary, charismatic leader who is often a gifted communicator. He is able to paint a picture of a desirable future and knows how to get people on board with that vision.
Under the leadership of their founding pastors, megachurches often experience rapid growth. Nevertheless, Keller cautions that these churches frequently develop an excessive reliance on the abilities and charisma of their founders — an unhealthy codependence forms between the church and its pastor.
All too often, the end of the story involves some sort of moral failing or emotional burnout on the part of the pastor that results in a complete and total spiritual trainwreck. If an entire church is built on the back of one charismatic leader, the church either goes into sharp decline or ceases to exist altogether when he falls.
We see it over and over again. Think Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill, Bill Hybels and Willow Creek, and, most recently, Brian Houston and Hillsong Church.
Too much attachment on the part of the leader
Not only do megachurches develop an unhealthy addiction to their illustrious founding pastors, often treating them like bona fide celebrities, but the founders themselves can also succumb to an equally unhealthy attachment to their own “holy creation.”
Keller, in his astute observations, points out that these founders begin to view the church as their very own possession, a living embodiment of their ego and self-image. They cling to it desperately, unwilling to part ways or fathom the art of graceful departure. However, as Keller suggests, it might be wise for them to practice the spiritual discipline of bidding farewell sooner rather than later
I have worked in a church where the lead pastor had been there for four decades. He wore that as a badge of honor, but the truth was that he had overstayed his tenure by about twenty years, and the church stagnated. What is worse, his ministry became more about preserving his ministry than anything else. Anyone who suggested to him that it might be time to move on found themselves frozen out — their conduct and character assassinated.
Like many church pastors, he started with a good heart, but his ego took over, and his identity became subsumed into the very fabric of the church. If he lost the church, he would lose his identity as well.
Photo by Matthew Ball on Unsplash
Too much pressure on the successor
When the founder finally does leave — either by accident or design — the successor is left in the shadow of the enormous personality of the original leader.
It is a poisoned chalice. Keller notes that the poor successor of a megachurch usually finds themselves stuck in an unfair and downright brutal game of comparison with the larger-than-life founder. It’s a lose-lose situation for both the unfortunate successor and the church itself. As if that weren’t enough, these mammoth-sized churches, sprouted from the fertile soil of the founder’s vision and personality, rarely thrive when entrusted to a single heir.
It’s no wonder, then, that Tim Keller made a shrewd decision to forgo the traditional passing of the megachurch torch. Instead of burdening one unsuspecting soul, Redeemer Presbyterian Church opted for the revolutionary approach of forming three separate congregations, each with a different pastor.
Too few opportunities for ordinary people
The bigger a church, the more likely the key functions of the church are covered by a paid professional. The megachurch may talk about “the priesthood of all believers,” but it’s all rhetoric. In truth, the entire operation of these behemoth institutions is executed by a chosen elite few, while the rest of the congregation can recline lazily, indulging in passive consumption.
Smaller congregations differ! These humble gatherings are compelled to utilize the precious gifts and talents of their lay members to the fullest extent. There’s no room for excessive reliance on an army of staff members. In these more intimate settings, there’s a delightful scarcity of mere spectators who attend solely for the pleasure of observation, refusing to partake in any meaningful participation. It seems that the megachurch could learn a thing or two from the small and mighty!
Too large a catchment for care for local communities
I remember the day that Hillsong Church started in my city. I was running a local youth group in the outer suburbs. Within a few weeks, Hillsong Church was sending buses twenty, even thirty kilometers away to bring teenagers in from all over the city.
We couldn’t compete with the bright lights, rock music, and smoke machines of Hillsong Church. Local churches were cannibalized by Hillsong, while Hillsong was patting itself on the back for bringing revival to the city. Of course, most of it was transfer growth from the local church to the megachurch. The result of that phenomenon is a disconnect between the Christians and their local community.
Tim Keller says, “Megachurches tend to draw people from great distances who are not geographically close enough to participate in community building, discipleship, and local ministry to the neighborhood of the church. It is harder for them to be other-focused in the local area.”
So, what makes a good-sized church?
There is no exact answer to this question. However, there are definitely some key functions that the church ought to be able to carry out, regardless of its size. Here are a few guidelines that I think can help us decide if a church is too large.
- A church ought to be small enough for all people to be known and their absence felt if they happen not to be there.
- A church ought to be small enough to provide personal pastoral care and growth opportunities for its members.
- A church ought to be large enough to meet its financial obligations with plenty to spare for giving. Different models of church are less expensive than others. Churches with high costs risk insolvency should things turn for the worse.
- A church should never rely on one person’s gifts, talents, charisma, or personality. This is a one-way ticket to disaster.
- A church should be small enough to feel a strong connection to its local community. If every church took responsibility for caring for one city block, it would be more effective than one church trying to care for an entire metropolis.
- A church should be small enough for people to have opportunities to serve, help and participate in meaningful ways — not merely consume.
As for me, my church these days consists of a handful of people gathering around an open fire in my backyard, with a beer in one hand and a Bible in the other. It costs nothing to run. There is no stage, no pulpit, and no rock band. There is no personality cult connected to a charismatic leader. It’s reproducible, relocatable, and relatable.
I’m not saying it’s a better way, but it sure works for me.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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