Good News — Megachurches Are Facing Retirement

Published on by D. G. Hart

. . . and will be in nursing homes within 15 years.

That, at least, is a plausible conclusion given how closely the megachurch experience correlates with baby boomer demographics:

Even though megachurches only account for 0.5 percent of the 320,000 Protestant churches in America, nearly 10 percent of Protestant churchgoers attend one.

Only 21 percent of megachurches were founded in the last 20 years (the median founding year: 1977), and only 22 percent were founded by their current lead pastor.

The average (median) age of megachurch lead pastors is 55, while nearly 1 in 5 are under 45. Only five percent are under 40. (CT recently noted how one of America’s youngest megachurch pastors drew scrutiny for how his building a “big house” was connected to his bestselling book.)

Meanwhile, some aspiring sociologist needs to figure out why Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont escaped the megachurch bug (and why South and North Dakota did not).

21 thoughts on “Good News — Megachurches Are Facing Retirement”

  1. Hey, back off. I personally enjoy the intimate church experience of the megachurch in the same way I enjoy the intimate shopping experience of Wal-Mart. I just can’t figure out why I didn’t get a Christmas card from the Walton’s.

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  5. Between the boomers and the millenials, the Xers have had a shiite life. The boomers are of that species of alien who consume entire planets and then move on, and the millenials are idiots.

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  7. Ok, I’ll take a crack at why megachurches haven’t shown up in certain states.

    As the son of a guy who successfully led an aspiring megachurch in South Dakota (never cracked the magical 2,000 number), I’d posit (anecdotally) that megachurches have more to do with personality and vision of the leader than with place. Granted, starting a megachurch in Murdo, South Dakota would be nearly impossible, so there has to be materials there to work with in the first place. Other than a fairly decent size city with people to attract, I’ve noticed that megachurces do best when they have well-educated, white collar congregants who have done well in their respective fields and as a result appreciate good leadership and a quality product, which is synonymous in a lot of ways with good communication. If you can preach it, communicate vision, get the peons to run the light show properly, and have the right community to draw on numerically and financially, you can draw people in and get the suits (boomers and beyond) to open their wallets and write you that check for a million bucks to help finish the new worship center. The front man, though, makes all the gears turn and without him, you’re not going anywhere.

    All of that to say (and I might be missing something), but it seems to me that there is no reason that Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont couldn’t be home to a megachurch. It’s just that the right guy hasn’t come around to take advantage of the opportunity.

    Another thought. Megachurches may have started out with the boomer generation but it’s popular with the GenXers and Millennials as well. Sure, the lead pastors tend to be of that generation (Hybels started Willow when he was still a young man), but these churches are still growing and not just grey hairs. Plus, running a large church takes a lot of wisdom and experience, so it makes sense that megachurches would look to bring in lead pastors with two decades of experience. Granted, he still has to be hip, but a decade plus of experience running another large organization, errr, I mean church, is important for the organization, I mean, church.

    p.s. formerly Adam PetersEn

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  8. There are some mega-church wannabes in Vermont (and I suspect those other states too). But Vermonters are suspicious of celebrities and loyal to their institutions. That’s common grace if I ever saw it. If I recall correctly, New England has the lowest divorce rate of any region in the country. Not sure if that is because New Englanders don’t like lawyers or they are financially savvy or they just know grass on the other side is still grass. They don’t quit to join. Which means (a) all the liberal UCC churches there will hang on much longer than you would expect and (b) there are still many active “ancestors” of Jonathan Edwards ministering up and down the Connecticut River.

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  9. I doubt that mega-churches are in any imminent danger of decline. Churches with more than 2,000 members are in fact, on average, growing. Many Americans want to go to such large churches where they have lots of programs, nice buildings, and lots of people to hang around with. These may not be theologically compelling reasons, but theology is rarely the deciding reason on why people choose specific churches.

    Defining churches by size may not be a very useful way to categorize churches. For example, it should be obvious that First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS is radically different from North Point Community Church (where Andy Stanley serves as senior pastor). When Reformed Christians use the term mega-church they tend to be thinking about the latter when, in fact, many of the churches with more than 2,000 members are rather traditional, conservative, Bible-believing and teaching congregations.

    I’m also not sure why the statistics mentioned above would be surprising to anyone or in any way imply the coming decline of large churches:

    (1) First, why would anyone would be surprised that the median age of mega-church pastors would be 55 (some of us don’t think this is particularly old!). Large churches tend to call very experienced pastors to be their senior ministers and tend to not have their senior ministers leave for “greener pastures” elsewhere.

    (2) Second, the fact that 21 percent of mega-churches were founded in the last 20 years suggests that this is a movement that is likely to continue rather than one that is in decline. Churches normally grow over generations. This is particularly true if they are located in parts of the country where the population continues to rise over several decades [Think Grace Community Church in California or the evangelical churches in the suburbs of Dallas over the past 20 years]. Isn’t it rather surprising that more than 1 in 5 of the largest churches in America is less than 20 years old?

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  10. This is good news.

    The Furticks, Nobles, Warrens et al can keep their shrinking mega “churches”. I hope this doesn’t mean those same churches will be closing their coffee bars.

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  11. sean, what does that mean for us born in the early 80’s, straddling this great generational equalizer? We’re both idiots and have a shiite life (emoticon)?

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  13. sean, acknowledgement was all I needed, and I can die now a contented man (Phil 1:21). Lates, homeslice.

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  14. One thing you don’t find in a megachurch is very many contrarians, especially in leadership. The strong, charismatic leader just won’t have it. I know of a local megachurch where the lead pastor gets a list of who gives how much, in order by amount. Not surprisingly if you are at the top of that list AND you are in full agreement with the pastor, you are excellent elder material. Unfortunately some of those big givers are on their 3rd or so marriage so that throws a wrench into things.

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  15. One story has it that the folks who didn’t like the First Pretty Good Arousal fled up the CT. River Valley to the north.

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  16. I can think of a couple reasons why Maine doesn’t go mega. First, the largest city is 70k or thereabouts. Not many areas densely populated. Second, the character of Mainiacs might be flame resistant with respect to being on fire for shallowness and fakery. The third of my two reasons is they’d rather be working or playing than going to church.

    This has been my wicked good analysis. And you guys need to stop doing our accent like we’re from Boston or gawd fohbid New York.

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  18. “I doubt that mega-churches are in any imminent danger of decline. Churches with more than 2,000 members are in fact, on average, growing. Many Americans want to go to such large churches where they have lots of programs, nice buildings, and lots of people to hang around with. These may not be theologically compelling reasons, but theology is rarely the deciding reason on why people choose specific churches.”

    Yep, I think you’re probably correct that they are growing. But seems to me the dirty little secret is that much of their “growth” is not genuine conversion growth from the ranks of the unchurched; rather, it is what I would call recycled growth — that is, churchgoers who are habitual, unrepentant church hoppers who jump from one megachurch to the latest cool megachurch with the more dazzling bells & whisltes. Another source of their “growth” seems to be sucking the life out of smaller, more traditional churches which are less “hip”. Consumerist megachurches which employ worldly business savvy and felt-needs advertising techniques are like large parasites that suck the life out of faithful smaller churches committed to a more biblical shepherding model of ministry.

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  20. The weak link in Charles Montgomery’s research (maybe it’s because he’s Canadian) is that the closer one lives to the core of a major metropolitan area, the greater one’s exposure to violent crime. While rents (or condo purchases) in the cities may be higher for the well-to-do, thereby offsetting the cost of long commutes, they are not high for everyone – especially those who have HUD Section 8 vouchers and can live in certain rental spaces in the inner city. In other words, the ones who live in closer proximity to those disillusioned with suburb life and long commutes who now live just blocks away from them.

    So where does that leave the mega-churches? Stuck in the ‘burbs, catering to the stressed and conflicted who face 90 minute commutes to avoid the pitfalls of city dwelling.

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