To receive daily emails from Breaking Christian News to your inbox CLICK HERE
"Seismic" Trends in U.S. Church Growth: 1.6 Million People Now Attend 100 of American's Largest Churches Each Week—And That's Not the Half of ItAfrica already has more than 15 churches reporting more than 20,000 attendance. What many American church leaders think of as unique recent American creativity and innovation has been known in other global mega-churches as simply old school survival strategies for several decades.
Today, more than 200 in the U.S. are that large. By the year 2000 the Springfield, Missouri, researcher reported the 100 largest churches grew to 4,000 attendance. They then doubled in size and the smallest of the 100 largest by 2010 increased to 8,000-weekend attendance. Today, Vaughan reports, the 100 largest of the 1,742 non-Catholic mega-churches (Hartford has 1,467) begin at 9,000 attendance and the 200 largest begin at 6,000 attendance. Houston's Lakewood Church, led by Joel Osteen, is the nation's largest single-site church with 52,000 in weekend attendance. That's a five-year gain of 7,200 since 2010 and five times the size of the church led by his father and founding pastor John Osteen who died in 1999.
Church Growth Today reports 27 new mega-churches since 2010 and 39 that dropped below 2,000 attendance. Vaughan established 2,000 attendance as the baseline attendance for mega-churches in 1985. Few others had used the term mega-church and none had established a specific standard numerical benchmark. 2,000 is now the metric adopted by most researchers and major global news media. This newest research indicates that among the 100 largest churches 60 percent are growing, 20 percent have plateaued, and only 11 percent have decreased in attendance during the past five years. Multi-site locations are a major contributor to much of the gains in attendance. Three in four of the 100 largest churches are multi-site congregations. One in four, including Lakewood Church, are single-site churches. Life Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, a congregation of an estimated 10,000 attendance, is the national multi-site church leader with 70,000 attending 21 sites in seven states. Multi-site locations are a 100-year-old idea but this idea was rejected in the U.S. as recently as 1985 when nine of the 20 churches in the book, "The World's 20 Largest Churches", reported having satellite locations. The global leaders, since the 1960s, were in Korea and South America. By year 2,000 the International Mega-church Research Center, a part of Church Growth Today research, knew that the U.S. had more mega-churches than Korea. Korea had 24 and America had 74 mega-churches. Korean churches, however, were still larger. U.S. mega-church attendance, by global standards even by 1999 standards, are still smaller. In 1999, Church Growth Today had already identified 10 churches outside the U.S. with 30,000-weekend attendance. The three largest were Yoido Full Gospel Church-Seoul, Korea (180,000), Vision de Futuro-Santa Fe, Argentina (80,000), and Deeper Christian Life Ministry—Lagos, Nigeria (70,000). Africa is projected to be the most populated Christian continent by 2020. Africa already has more than 15 churches reporting more than 20,000 attendance. What many American church leaders think of as unique recent American creativity and innovation has been known in other global mega-churches as simply old school survival strategies for several decades. What about the next decade? Vaughan, with the Springfield, Missouri basedChurch Growth Today has already identified the next 150 potential emerging 9,000 attendance mega-churches, their geography, and their rates of growth. There are, as never before, an abundance of capable pastors able to lead these churches in the next generation.
To receive daily emails from Breaking Christian News to your inbox CLICK HERE
Other Recent Articles from Breaking Christian News 'God's Definitely Real': Cross Necklace Saves Man's Life after He Was Shot in the Chest Faith and Grief Intertwine in Texas Flood Recovery: 'Y'all Pray and Keep Praying' African Leaders Agree: Trump Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize Uh Oh, New Jersey Is Coming for Homeschoolers ICE Nabs Dozens of Illegal Alien Pedophiles Roaming Freely in Walz's Minnesota Trump Administration Moves to Bar Foreign Acquisition of US Farmland Six Secret Service Agents Connected to Trump Butler Assassination Attempt Suspended Biden's Doctor Pleads the 5th, Walks Out of Hearing on Joe's Mental Decline [WATCH] California Rejects Trump Admin. Resolution to Keep Men Out of Women's Sports CHANGE: Trump's TSA Reportedly Ending Annoying Shoe Removal Policy at Airports—With a Catch Netanyahu on Capitol Hill: Israel 'Must Finish the Job in Gaza'; US Group Serves 65 Million Meals With Latest Federal Abortion Funding Order, Obama Judge Takes Judicial Tyranny to a New Level Supreme Court Lifts District Judge's Injunction Blocking Trump's Federal Downsizing IRS: Pastors Endorsing Political Candidates Shouldn't Lose Tax-Exempt Status Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize Search the Articles Archives |
All articles on this site and emails from BCN are copyrighted property of Breaking Christian News. Permission is given to link to, or share a BCN story if proper attribution is given to both the original writer and summarizer of the story. Breaking Christian News 2005-2019. All Rights Reserved.
Breaking Christian News is a division of Elijah List Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: Articles and links, as well as the source articles linked to; do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Breaking Christian News.
Home | Store | Subscribe | Facebook | Article Archive |