Any Minute Now…
Last week’s The Spirit of Things saw Rachael Kohn talking to Marion Maddox about ‘Mega Churches.’ In Australia we probably most closely identify this idea with the Hillsong Church. I found this quote about the ‘vision’ of mega churches quite fascinating.
Marion Maddox:
Well growth is certainly a big part of it. Growth in numbers, growth in excitement, growth in the feeling that something’s happening, there’s always something very exciting about to happen. God is going to deliver something wonderful for us any minute now. One of the features of mega churches is that they have what sociologists of religion call a high level of churn, so other churches often look within the mega churches and notice that they have a real demographic bubble around 18-30 age group, but it’s an interesting thing that a mega church that has been going for 20 years, 20 years ago had that same demographic bubble of the 18-30s and still has that same demographic bubble, so they’re not the same people who were there 20 years ago. People often say, ‘A wide front door, but a lot of small back doors’. People come in but they also move out.
One reason for that is that the vision is all about growth and positiveness and being who you want to be and just as the leader visions what the church should be, individuals are encouraged to vision who they want to be, and this works very well, as long as you’re getting promotions and your career’s on the up, and your family’s growing. It doesn’t sustain you so well when your spouse gets a terminal illness or one of your children runs into serious difficulties, or you yourself face life crises of one sort of another to be turning up to church where every week there are praise notices about everyone else in the congregation, who’s finally got the house or the car or the job they wanted and these things are prayed for and given thanks for when they happen, can be a dispiriting message if you’re not getting there.
Happy Sunday!
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