This weekend I’ll attend one of the Mega Churches in town. They are a BIG CHURCH. I’ve heard reports of their attendance and been told that the numbers seem inflated, like stuffed ballot boxes in Chicago. I’m not sure I trust the criticism though; it came from one of the staff members at another Mega Church in town.
How does your church count your attendance? Some churches pass attendance logs down the pews so they can keep an exact count of who showed and who didn’t. Some report with the numbers on their membership rolls, not the actual butt cheek imprints on their padded pews. I staffed a church that hired a counter on Sundays to walk around each service to count every head from the newborns on up to the eldest elders. They’d count the same head again if the person was present on the church property for the next service. We counted everything, as if numbers were the ultimate indication of our weekly success.
In our town it sometimes feels like the Mega Churches are the monsters that battle each other over the city like Godzilla and Gigan. Now you wouldn’t hear these pastors say anything negative in public about each other. They pat each other on the back and talk up each other’s ministries. They sit beside each other at community prayer meetings and even bring their churches together on evangelistic crusades. But in back rooms I’ve also heard some of these same pastors talk about the other large churches in town like they are they competition, and discuss the other senior pastors as if they were business rivals instead of men of God.
This church that I’ll be attending this week is known as a solid church in our community. They have good local ministries and foreign missions. They have good teaching within their walls and good outreaches outside them. Their building is big, but not gaudy. They are big enough to have multiple services on multiple days. They have a radio ministry, a TV ministry, and more parking than several car lots combined.
This weekend I’ll attend a Mega Church that is promoting that a traveling band is in town to lead their worship. I’ll also watch 1980’s pop stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson star in Mega Python Vs Gatoroid on the SyFy channel. Both programs should be entertaining.
