What do you think of when you hear the word megachurch? Maybe polished productions, big personalities, an expansive building, stellar programs (lots and lots of programs) and crowded parking lots with orange-vested attendants, come to mind. Maybe a great worship service that leaves you laughing, crying or both. Or perhaps a creative children’s ministry—kind of a Jesus-meets-Chuck E. Cheese type of place.

To most people, the word mega suggests bigness and power, not necessarily missional ministry and sacrifice. (It combines nicely with well-known words like megalomaniac, megaphone and mega-millions. Words like mega-service, mega-sacrifice, and mega-witness, well … not so much.) Although mega is not exactly a word we think of when subjects like Jesus, the Bible or the early Church are discussed, it definitely grabs our attention.

But what’s next for megas besides the infamous big productions and headline-making numbers? People have been criticizing the practices and predicting the demise of megachurches for more than a decade now, and some of their criticisms are valid. Many megachurches are not living with a Kingdom focus—unless that kingdom has the megachurch pastor as the sovereign. At times megachurches have been shallow, ego-driven and less than engaged in their community.

On the other hand, I’ve been doing quite a bit of research to uncover whether bigness always tramples the values of Christ. Are the thousands of megachurch attendees across the globe really that shallow and easily fooled by the music, lights and makeup? Are the hallmarks of the megachurch still consumerism, excess programs and marketing tactics?

Some may say yes, but lately I’ve noticed a progression in the ways these churches are bringing the Gospel to the community and the world. Following their trajectory helps us identify five missional realms megachurches are stepping into—key realms that will likely define their future.

1. Community Transformation

While some megachurches are building their own bowling alleys so believers won’t be offended by the lifestyles of those abrasive lost bowlers, others are serving and impacting their communities in profound ways—engaging the poor, working for the welfare of their cities, meeting practical needs in the community, purposely joining “secular” sports leagues—and seeing lives transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

For example, the 3,300 members of Calvary Church in Charlotte, N.C. (calvarychurch.com), engage in more than a dozen local outreach opportunities each week. Church volunteers operate the Homeless and Street Ministry where they cook and serve breakfast to hundreds of people on Saturdays at the Uptown Shelter and on downtown streets. Every Wednesday, the volunteer-run Clothes Closet provides quality, gently used clothing to those in need in the community. The church’s Jackson Park Ministries helps inner-city families deal with extreme financial hardship and broken family relationships by providing housing and services to help them recover and stay together. The ministry also offers classes on money management as well as marriage and parenting skills.

What’s happening at Calvary is a practical outworking of missional living. Calvary is focusing on someone other than itself, its services and its programs, and joining God on His mission in the world. Like Calvary, other megachurches are also deciding that what they are receiving from God—an abundance of people, resources and callings—is going to be the determining factor that drives their ministry purpose, commitment and giving. They’re turning their focus from “every member a minister” to “every member on mission,” and effecting change in the lives of their members and communities.

Megas are also partnering with organizations and individuals in their community to harness various talents and abilities for Kingdom work. For example, 19,000-member First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles (famechurch.org) conducts a free legal clinic two Sundays a month to assist people who cannot afford an attorney with landlord/tenant disputes, credit issues, real estate and more. The church clinic networks with the UCLA School of Law and its students to provide totally free assistance with no income requirements.

2. Global Ministry

For too many, going missional means little more than a pastor with a goatee and indie rock. But true missional engagement isn’t being trendy; it involves joining God in His mission both locally and globally. Going forward, more and more megachurches are taking Jesus’ words from Acts 1:8 to heart—that we are to witness of His glory in both local (our Jerusalem) and global (uttermost parts of the earth) settings—and utilizing their strength and influence toward that end.

Take Rick Warren, for example. Being the pastor of a church that defined the boomer megachurch phenomenon (think Hawaiian shirts, shoes without socks and a baptism pool right off the glass sanctuary) was not enough. Warren knew he was called to a global mission, so building upon the success of his book, Purpose Driven Life, Saddleback Church initiated his P.E.A.C.E. plan (thepeaceplan.com) in 2005.

Citing what he labeled as the five Global Goliaths—spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases, and illiteracy and lack of education—Warren singled out the worldwide network of Christian churches as the only organization with the resources to solve these problems. After spreading awareness, Saddleback began providing leadership and training opportunities for churches around the world that wanted to get involved in the P.E.A.C.E. plan, through seminar-type briefings and an extensive online system of tools and resources.

That’s what can happen when a megachurch focuses not only on increasing its own size and numbers, but on investing its God-given resources for the purpose of extending His kingdom around the world. I believe this kind of global leadership initiative will largely characterize the megachurch of the future.

But significant global awareness and influence is also happening at the local level. As the U.S. population becomes increasingly diversified, I see many megachurches claiming their role as Gospel ambassadors and cultural anthropologists. In Pensacola, Fla., the 10,000-member Olive Baptist Church (olivebaptist.org) is focused on reaching diverse ethnicities within its community. As Pastor Ted Traylor encourages the church to be missional, he models that concept with a multicultural staff of Hispanic, Russian and Chinese pastors. The church identified key people groups to intentionally reach, then hired staff who spoke each language and understood each culture to show the church’s commitment to taking the Gospel to all ethnicities.

3. Apostolic Networking

More and more megachurches understand that they are not called to be kings of the mountain. Rather, the Lord has blessed them so that they can bless their communities and incrementally reproduce their talents through other churches. Many megas are doing this through networking outside their church—a methodology called “apostolic networking,” or acting as a key leader of a network that partners in new missional endeavors.

This kind of megachurch collaboration is an increasingly prevalent theme that will carry into the future. Convening best practices and a wealth of diverse experience around a common table produces rich and strategic alignments, in turn providing new leadership and new means of collaborating. As I’ve been studying this changing paradigm, I’ve noticed many megachurches partnering with other smaller churches by freely sharing their vast supply of resources and experience—developing training venues, church-planting networks, outwardly focused seminars and conferences, and online training for other churches. They’re making their staffs and resources available to other leaders and churches all over the world. I predict these strategic partnerships will only increase, replacing the competitive mindsets of the past.

Community Christian (communitychristian.org) in Naperville, Ill., is a prime example of leveraging influence not for its own means or renown, but to extend the Kingdom of God. As an outflow of the TK-member church’s exponential growth and the increasing number of pastors nationwide who wanted to learn from its success, the Naperville- based NewThing network (newthing.org) emerged to coach other pastors in church planting and multi-site strategies. Founding pastors Dave and John Ferguson lead their venture by this mission: “To be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches relentlessly dedicated to helping people find their way back to God.”

Still other megachurches like Kensington Community Church (http://www.kensingtonchurch.org/) are aligning with organizations like Vision360, a multi-denominational ministry that functions like a network of apostolic networks committed to reproducing churches. Led by former church planter Steve Johnson and Al Weiss, president of worldwide operations for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Vision360 aims to impact at least 50 cities throughout the United States, resulting in 1,000 new churches. Its international goal is to start as many as 500 churches in the largest cities across the globe.

That’s a lot of cities and a lot of people, but another growing megachurch trend has the capability to impact millions: virtual social networking. I believe multi-site LifeChurch.tv may be paving the way—it is intentionally engaging people in church through its Internet campus, which can either mean people watching the sermons online or experiencing the full virtual effect in the 3D digital world SecondLife (secondlife.com). On the weekend of Aug. 13, 2007, LifeChurch.tv’s Web site had more than 800 IPs (or Web site addresses) logged in for its online church service. In fact, one IP represented a group of 17 people in Germany who viewed the experience together and are living out the LifeChurch.tv community in another country. Skip ahead 10 years, and this kind of virtual worship won’t be unusual for the megachurch—it’ll be the norm.

4. Holistic Disciple-Making

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to megachurches being missional is the ease in which individuals can simply blend into the large crowds, remaining faithful as attendees but disengaged from other members and uninvolved in service and outreach. However, many megachurches are reversing this trend by reorienting their members to the centrality of Jesus’ message: discipling people toward living their lives in outward ways, like missionaries.

For megachurches, a praxis style of discipleship is catching on, whereby seasoned workers are taking others hand in hand to the real places of ministry, quite often beyond the church campus itself. At 4,300-member Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas (mdpc.org), this missional training starts at the beginning for newcomers. The New Members Class is a six-session process, spread out over six weeks, that deeply embeds a missional outreach experience in its participants, driving home the value of being an outward-focused church and building relationships with other members.

As Diann Turet, the New Member director, explains, “We try to get our new members to understand that these ministries happen because everyone is involved. We take a Saturday and spend five to six hours on a project. When they experience the joy of reaching out to the food pantries we serve, or the junior high school where we’ve done makeovers for the library, painted the teachers’ lounge and weeded the flowerbeds, they get it. It makes all the difference.”
Also teaching church members to live their lives from a missionary stance is TK-member First Assembly in Phoenix (phoenixfirst.org), which sends enthusiastic, well-organized teams to conduct more than a dozen outreaches, transform neighborhoods and break the cycle of poverty and violence. Through one ministry called Sponsor-a-Bus, First Assembly picks up people for church—and nine bus routes operate throughout the week to serve the disabled, elderly and nursing home residents often forgotten by society. Its independent fleet of 34 buses is recognized nationwide for serving the Phoenix metro area.

From my observations, megachurches training members to live with a 24/7 missional focus are coming out at the forefront of the holistic Gospel that Jesus taught. We’ll continue to see them excel in plugging their members into niches where they can develop lasting relationships and change the world.

5. Church Multiplication

The title “fastest-shrinking megachurch” may go to New Hope Christian Fellowship O’ahu in Honolulu, Hawaii (enewhope.org), led by Wayne Cordeiro. Attendance is dropping like a rock. But Cordeiro seems pretty happy about it. On the surface, going from 12,000 weekend attendees to 9,500 may seem like decline. But by planting 83 new churches, New Hope continues to reseed itself by multiplying churches rather than adding to its own numbers. Cordeiro plans to plant New Hope’s 100th church by 2010.

In recent years, church planting has gained tremendous traction. And many megachurches are now embracing a missional vision for church multiplication. Notice I did not say church planting—these churches are not interested in simply planting one church at a time, but are leveraging their resources to multiply, or plant several churches on an annual basis.

A prime example of a megachurch that engages in church multiplication is New York-based Redeemer Presbyterian (redeemer.com), led by Tim Keller. With an average weekly attendance of 4,800, it has participated in more than 100 church plants and set aside $2 million annually for the Redeemer Church Planting Center. Redeemer is a model of local church leaders assuming significant responsibility for planting churches, not leaving the burden to their denominations.

The Future

While this article doesn’t prove that all megachurches are on the right track, it certainly points out that not all of them are egomaniacs; many are stepping into these five key missional realms and using their vast resources to touch lives in practical ways and share the Gospel.
Remember that smaller, niche churches don’t have a monopoly on missional. People are drawn by the authentic Gospel lived out through both large and small bodies. You don’t have to wear Birkenstocks to be about God’s mission—you can even do it from a very large church.

As we survey the future of megachurches, we should have a sense of hope and excitement. The churches of tomorrow are truly making a difference in building God’s Kingdom and living as the body of Christ in their communities. And their communities, the body of Christ, the world and the Gospel are all better off because of their efforts.