What do you think of Mega Churches?

Question

All of those guys wear nice suits and have hot wives and expensive cars and planes, is there a conflict of interest here?

Answer 1

I think that they are dangerous places. The people that begin these churches probably do so at first for good intentions, but they generally seem to become large places where the worship of God tends to take a back seat to some sort of "cult of personality" surrounding the church leaders. Time and again, reports come across the news about megachurches where the leaders end up involved in corruption, or use their influence to unfairly manipulate the political views of many of their followers. They end up being places of demagoguery and not places of worship.

Answer 2

Conflict of interest? Well, how many of you have picked your car based on want verse necessity? How many of you have chosen your spouse with looks being a major role in the decision verse a pure heart? I'd say if there is a conflict of interest there it does not begin in a "Mega Church" but in the hearts of the followers (whether it be Mega or not!)

When you start looking threw the eyes of the more and the less fortunate, you'll see much more conflicts of interests in yourself. So do not judge unless you intend to be judged!

Answer 3

For the above and other reasons I don't but some people feel they need them. I object to their impersonality, their corporate structure and money seeking, offering simplistic solutions to lonely people as well as their generally conservative political and religious positions. They are more prone to corruption because of reliance on individual charismatic preachers. Examples Ken Hagin, Billy Sunday, Oral Roberts, the Bakers, Jimmy Swaggart. Its too bad religion is moving away from community based churches, with more individual attention and a devotion to social gospel as opposed to corporate greed and exploitation of the vulnerable.

Answer 4

I favor a small church. I kinda experience lost in a large church. The church i'll has about 2 hundred individuals and on any given Sunday, there are about 50-75 human beings. i imagine that in spite of church you want, even if it truly is huge or small, is solid. as long as you're there for the right motives:)

Answer 5

Most of them have a small core who do all of the work and function as the local Body of Christ and then measure their success by their ability to entertain the masses by telling them everything is going to be OK.

If the whole group is not being discipled into the ministry...or put another way of most of the membership are just feeding from the trough, Christ will remove their lampstand and find another church to show the true light.

Most provide only milk.

agapefromnc

Answer 6

I've always had trouble understanding it... it always seemed so contrary to the Christian faith.

But a friend explained it to me like this:
"Rich people don't know they are rich... they get used to living a lifestyle of luxury and any place they go - they EXPECT to see that luxury or the place looks pretty sad to them."

Unfortunately, these churches often have underbellies of a political nature. I have heard from people that their belief in America being a "Christian Nation" becomes slightly warped and soon members actually advocate an overthrow of the United States government.

It's fine if you want to believe that our founding fathers were Christian... but to use money and power to take over a political territory in the name of God is EXPRESSLY forbidden in the Bible.

A number of "megachurches" do not even have the attendance to warrant their size... the money comes from YOUR little church in the form of donations to a good cause.... chew on that for awhile...

Answer 7

There is only one Church. It was organized by Jesus himself (see Matt 16):

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

The Church was an is a human organization, with a hierarchy of leaders headed by the Pope. It exercises powers given to it by Christ, such as effecting the sacraments and preserving the truth revealed to the Apostles.

This organization is God's mega-church. In its longevity, size, and worldwide membership. the Catholic Church fits the term mega-church.

Some Protestant organizations are rival organizations, and each must be judged for its fidelity to the teachings of Christ, as vouchsafed by his Church. Some are very good; the organization that Lee Strobel works with does excellent work in defending the truth about God, using the latest internet technology to make accurate teaching accessible at a mouse click:
http://www.leestrobel.com/

I pray, with Jesus, that all Christian organizations may be brought into unity with his Church (John 17:21).

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 8

A church is supposed to be a spiritual community dedicated to enhancing the lives of its members. A mega-church is incapable of doing this, and therefore becomes to the church environment what the World Wrestling Federation is to entertainment---all about the "spark" of the show, but hollow in content.

Answer 9

That's one part of religion that really Erks the Hell out of me.

Christians who build Giant Churches and spend Mega bucks doing it... A real Christian would use that money to help needy people. There's NO need for churches that big and expensive. And preachers driving around in expensive cars, living in mansions. Their work is to help others not themselves. UGHHHHH... that is one issue that really gets me going.

Answer 10

I always thought they were impersonal, and I went to one once where they passed the offering basket like 4 times I really didn't like that!! Oh it's definitely a contradiction when they preach salvation but also find salvation in their Bentley's and Huge houses.