In answer to a question I was asked:
I don't think there's any right or wrong on this. There are tradeoffs. A megachurch has resources which a small church lacks. On the other hand, a small church may have a closeknit fellowship (like an extended family) which a megachurch lacks.
On the other hand, it may be harder for a newcomer to break into the in-group of a small church. Since he didn't grow up in their community, he is an outsider. By contrast, a megachurch has a leveling dynamic.
To some extent this is just a difference between town and country. Big city churches tend to be bigger simply because they serve large population centers. They have a larger poor to draw from.
There are other variables as well. Is downtown a place where people live, or just a place where people work and shop and dine out? If it's a place where people live, there may be more communal sense.
Although in principle one could say that the size of one's church is adiaphora, in practice I have found megachurches to be uniformly false churches. Even if the doctrine of a particular megachurch is more or less acceptable, the practice of church discipline is virtually non-existent because of the logistical realities that make this impractical or impossible. When a massive crowd packs a stadium or ampitheater every Sunday, listens to the sermon, and leaves, how can members (if there even is a membership) be held accountable to elders?
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know about that. Spurgeon's Tabernacle was the megachurch of his day. Was that a false church?
ReplyDeleteIs John MacArthur's church a false church? Is Tim Keller's church a false church?
BTW, I don't think Keller's church is above criticism. But I wouldn't call it a false church.
There's a sense in which the 1C church of Jerusalem was a megachurch. Thousands of members. They met, both in house-churches and also in the courtyard of the temple.