Mad Cow Fueling Old School Mega church

Anne Jackson Does a great job speaking to the burnout in church in her book Mad Church Disease and how it pushes people from the Bride of Christ, like a marriage being torn apart by over work, and under growth. That is a component that impairs and destroys discipleship both in church and in a marriage. So many smaller churches don’t have a handle on discipleship, much of their time is using too few people to do too much, driving them to burnout.  They don’t know how to get more people involved- connecting, growing, serving, sharing & having a blast- cgs2/b. The result is people are torn away from the bride.

What might happen to these ex’s? Where are they going? Where are the broken and burned out going? Could it be that after they sit alone somewhere in their singleness, empty, burned out state, they come to some point where they think they might give it another go? However, this time they aren’t going to risk. They are going to stay safe. They are going to speed date with a few churches, but ultimately land in a mega church where they feel anonymous. Could it be possible that children who saw their parents burned out are staying away from churches where that same thing could happen to them? The Leadership Network’s  Mega Church research seems to suggest that one could draw such a conclusion.

Not many new Christians are hitting the hallowed halls of the classic mega church as one might think. The research suggests quite the opposite, especially over a long period of time. Where did the day go when Mega Churches were throwing out their percentage of new Christians vs. existing Christians? The Answer is it faded away as did the early day effectiveness of reaching those who didn’t know Christ.

However, nearly everyone, including

visitors, described himself or herself as a “committed

follower of Jesus Christ.” We think many respondents

interpreted this to mean, “do you consider yourself

saved” given that barely 2% (roughly 500 people

among the entire 24,900 survey respondents) said they

were not a committed follower of Christ. Interestingly,

of those respondents who were at these churches ten

years or more, a handful (36 people or 0.1%) still

described themselves as not being committed Christ-

followers.

As the classic mega church realizes discipleship is key the smaller church must do the same thing to break this cycle of “divorce” in the church. They are turning the rudder on a huge ship. Smaller churches have the opportunity to turn more quickly if they can get away from Mad Church disease and get mad about discipleship!

Not only that, but I believe smaller churches are contributing to the unfaithfulness to the Bride via poor discipleship creating burned out Christians in their pews. The result is, those that go to classic mega church are afraid to have any loyalty and having mistress brides in the local church.

There was a time when church participants were members of only one congregation.

Switching, when it occurred, happened serially – a person moved loyalty and participation

(and hopefully official membership if church rolls were being well maintained) from one

church to the next. This may no longer be true for all congregations’ attenders but it is

certainly no longer descriptive of many megachurch attenders.

When megachurch participants were asked if they considered this church their “church

home,” just three quarters said this was their only home church. Eleven percent of those in

the pews didn’t consider this their home church (yet only 7% said they were visiting).

Likewise, 12% claimed the megachurch as “home” but said they also attended other

churches as well. Therefore, almost a quarter of those in worship any weekend have

divided loyalties to the church they are in.

The loss is community. The global church, especially the American “church” has emphasized MEmbership for so long that the we think Christianity is all about me, and what’s in it for me.  We have generated a decentralized, dis-enchanted utopia of Starbucks drinkers and Panera bread Eaters who eat in a false sense of corporate unity as they remain hidden behind their computers, coffee, and breakfast cakes. No wonder more singles attend mega church. There are more people with a Single Christian mindset attending them.

I believe it is time for a new “mega” church a great church to rise up that gets mad about discipleship. A new “mega” church of all sizes working on a vision where walls struggle to contain the growth of disciples not mad church crowds.  A new “mega” church that  stops producing “mad church” corpses that have lost their structure, shape, and form from burnout, biblical illiteracy & binary Christianity.  This new “mega” church has to fall in love with the people again and get them to fall in love with Christ again and get the bride looking like the bride again. It can be done. We are doing it right here!