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April 2023

April 20, 2023

Where Praise Music Comes From

Of the 38 most popular praise songs--those that made the Top 25 charts for that...

January 2023

January 04, 2023

Mini-Church

We were in the age of the megachurch. We are now in the age of...

June 2022

June 10, 2022

Politicians Have Been Borrowing Megachurch Tactics

Bill Bishop, who has studied the social dimension of politics, says that beginning with George...

April 2021

April 19, 2021

Churches without Members, Christians without Churches

As church membership in America drops, the percentage of professing Christians remains high. Some churches...

April 30, 2020

The End of Big Churches?

Big, densely-populated cities are being hit hardest by the coronavirus epidemic. Big gatherings in general--as...

October 2019

October 22, 2019

Multiple Congregations with One Video Pastor

In "multi-site" churches, a congregation has multiple "campuses," sometimes spread across the country, all of...

May 2019

May 29, 2019

Megachurches Discovering Liturgy & Traditional Christianity?

The Church Growth Movement led to a surge of megachurches--congregations of 2,000 and more--built on...

August 2018

August 14, 2018

The Implosion of the Church Growth Movement?

Willow Creek is imploding, due primarily to a #MeToo sex scandal involving its influential celebrity...

April 2017

April 13, 2017

A church with its own police force

The Alabama state Senate has voted to allow a church in Birmingham to have its...

January 2017

January 25, 2017

The problem with crowds

In a column in which he explains why he didn't go to the Inauguration, Jonah...

October 2016

October 07, 2016

In defense of small churches

Most churches throughout history and throughout the world have been small. Today more than one...

July 2016

July 26, 2016

Evangelical Catholics

Donald Trump's running mate Mike Pence describes himself as an "evangelical Catholic." By which he...

February 2016

February 16, 2016

Unintended consequences of megachurches

The larger the group, the less the individual involvement. That's a long-established finding of social...

December 2015

December 04, 2015

How megachurches are doing

Megachurches continue to attract big numbers, but, according to a new study, people aren't attending...

April 2015

April 07, 2015

“Power of Positive Thinking” founder dies

Rev. Robert Schuller, one of the pioneering megachurch pastors with his Crystal Cathedral and "power...

January 2014

January 20, 2014

A watershed in American evangelicalism?

The New Life Church in Colorado Springs was one of the nation's leading megachurches. But...

December 2013

December 03, 2013

Do church growth tactics attract the unchurched?

The best argument for adopting the techniques of the Church Growth movement--contemporary worship, non-traditional styles,...

January 2013

January 16, 2013

Stranger in a Strange Church

Philip Jenkins cites the prescience of science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, whose novel Stranger in...

June 2012

June 14, 2012

The Christ-al Cathedral

Robert Schuller's Chrystal Cathedral has been bought by the Roman Catholic Church, which has renamed...

February 2012

February 29, 2012

Chrislam?

Rick Warren, megachurch pastor and author of the Purpose Driven Life, is working to reconcile...

November 2011

November 28, 2011

The megachurch bubble?

There was the dot.com bubble and, more recently, the real estate bubble, markets that grew...

May 2011

May 31, 2011

The end of the megachurch?

As we have already blogged about, Robert Schuller's megachurch has gone into bankruptcy. Now the...

January 2011

January 13, 2011

Theological bankruptcy

Christianity Today has a thoughtful editorial on the bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral and what...

December 2009

December 09, 2009

The Prosperity Gospel and the Megachurches

In her article Did Christianity Cause the Crash? - The Atlantic (December 2009), Hanna Rosin...