Megachurches: too big to succeed meaningfully

I have a tremendous problem with the megachurch movement. I'm aware that putting the resources of that many people into one assembly creates tremendous potential, but it  really bothers me to see churches that big.

One of my wife's best friends was married in a church out in Tucson, Ariz., that could fit my entire block on its campus three or four times and still have room left over. It had a coffee house, a bookstore, high ceilings and probably an accredited Christian school and daycare on the premises.

The whole time I was there, I kept thinking of the kids I knew in Haiti who had diminished eyesight from malnutrition, and of the teenage prostitutes I met while I was down there. And I kept thinking of the poor in their own city and wondering why I didn't see a sign that said "Soup kitchen" or "Homeless Shelter."

Not their ministry, I guess. They just didn't feel led.

The personal kicker was that because we had a child with us, we were told we had to sit in a separate, sound-proofed room so no one would be disturbed if she cried. That has to be the lamest excuse I've ever heard to tell someone they're not welcome in your church. ("Well, we're concerned if she cries it'll interfere with our seamless arrangement of the service.") And of course the pastor complained twice about cell phones ringing during the service.

Megachurches can do some good things. Willow Creek's dramas usually are better than 90 percent of the stuff that passes for drama in the church today, and they do make an effort to make sure that everyone involved in their church is plugged into a Bible study and a small group of people.

But I think megachurches also become excellent places to hide from Christ and from accountability and they're symptomatic of the American idea that bigger is better and that money/material resources can solve all our problems.

It's not just in America were that happen — the largest church in the world is an Assembly of God church pastored by Paul Yonggi Cho in Korea — but the phenomenon is very American. We love bigger and bigger things.

Most be those Texans.

Which is better, an effort at a high level that is diluted across a wide area by the time it trickles down to the grass roots, or a tight, focused effort in a small area with a smaller group of people?

I know which model Christ used. While people came in huge crowds to see Jesus, it wasn't as though he held regular large meetings for people to come to in the same place all the time. He did the bulk of his ministry and teaching in smaller groups, either with the Apostles or with whoever was giving them dinner that night.