If the apostle Paul returned to earth....
If the apostle Paul, the New Testament's great church-planter and ecclesiological expert, was to return to earth I wonder what he would make of the ever-increasingly popular megachurches, and just as importantly, of the leaders of these megachurches.
I ask this question in the wake of the latest megachurch scandal.
Here it is from the BBC website (notice how the BBC delights to include the word "evangelical" in the description of this megachurch, so as to tarnish all who might cherish that label):
"TB Joshua, a charismatic
Nigerian leader of one of the world's biggest evangelical churches,
secretly committed sexual crimes on a mass scale, a BBC investigation
spanning three continents has found. Testimony from dozens of survivors
suggests Joshua was abusing and raping young women from around the world
several times a week for nearly 20 years."
Mr Joshua is only the latest in a long string of fallen megapastors.
Is it not time to ask some uncomfortable questions?
Do megachurches have any legitimacy in the light of Scripture?
Can they really be called churches?
Is there such an office as megachurch pastor?
Is it time to call an end to megachurches?
Some people define the megachurch as a congregation of over 2000 people, but a better description might be a congregation whose numbers have become such that it is impossible for anyone to know everyone anymore.
Metropoltian Tabernacle
When we begin to explore the history of the megachurch, we stumble upon an uncomfortable beginning, the 6000 seat Metropolitan Tabernacle led by the good and godly Charles Spurgeon. We're talking 1860ish.
This auspicous origin could easily deflect us from "test all things" analysis.
"If Spurgeon did it, it must be OK."
Which is where we must always remember: Charles Spurgeon was a good man, but he was not an apostle.
And we must remember that the Metropolitan Tabernacle was no modern mega commuter church:
“The Metropolitan Tabernacle was not, as some have assumed, merely a highly popular preaching centre. It was not a church whose people largely came in from some miles around, and after listening to a marvellous exercise in Christian oratory, returned to their homes and seldom thought about the place again until the following Sunday morning…. The Tabernacle was a great working church. The vast majority of the members lived in the heavily populated area of London… many so near that they could walk… Apart from the sick and infirm, there were very few who came only on Sundays…” (p.153, Spurgeon, Arnold Dalimore)
Let's consider the megachurch question with a few other queries:
Do mega-pastors exist?
The most fundamental question is whether the New Testament ever hints at the notion of a mega-pastor.
Does any pastor have such superior skills and gifts so that he can actually pastor thousands?
And that begs the further question - what is the actual work of a pastor?
In the New Testament pastoral ministry is always a person-to-person thing (that is one reason the incarnate human Son of God pastored only 12 in his earthly ministry).
It is not feasible for a pastor to care for thousands since he has only 168 hours per week (unless he lives on Venus, in which case he would have some 40,000 hours per week. Perhaps megapastors are from Venus...).
A megachurch pastor must therefore, by the very nature of the numbers, stand at a very considerable distance from the actual flock. That's not what New Testament pastors are called to do.
And then he must appoint some kind of pyramid structure made up of real pastors to do the actual work of pastoring.
(Of course, a large band of elders together could do the pastoring of a large congregation, but then there would be no need to define the leader of that church as the "pastor," since he isn't the single pastor and that congregation would not possess a megapastor. But there is no megachurch known to me that is not in very large measure defined by their megapastor - often with dolly-bird pastoress in tow).
To build a megachurch, therefore, a pyramid structure must be introduced into church life that is unknown in the New Testament.
A pyramid structure that is exceedingly dangeorus.
A pyramid stucture that Satan gainfully uses to tempt the megachurch pastor to sin in one or more of the classical megapastor sins, power, lust or greed.
Let's be straight: the only way one man can 'pastor' a megachurch is by introducing into that church an alien - and dangerous - pyramid system of church government.
In contrast with these distant megapastors, the apostle Paul spends time with the people in the churches he plants, he knows them and their problems intimately, then he always appoints elders to lead the new churches he plants. Paul knows (Apostle though he is) that one man cannot actually pastor lots of people.
And so we find, that apart from the glorious risen Head of the Chruch, there is no office in the New Testament to correspond to the megachurch pastor.
But there is more against the megapastor. Without any known exception to myself, megachurch pastors live the "life of Riley." They live like worldly royalty, often with more than one home and vast income streams.
Do the great of the New Testament live such lives?
Merely asking the question evokes the plain answer.
The greatest church leader in the history of the church was the apostle Paul. And everywhere he went and everywhere he ministered, life was painfully and triumphantly difficult. Read his descriptions of ministry in 2 Corinthains 11. He was not loved by thousands, but hounded and hated wherever he went.
The mark of greatness in Christian ministry is never the number of YouTube or X subscribers or followers one has, never the number of people in your megachurch, but always the amount of sacrifices, difficulties and enemies one accumulates for the cause of Christ.
The "cross" element of ministry marks out the genuine servant from the fraud.
So by the lifestyle of these megapastors we can safely say, they do not reflect the godly heroes we are called to imitate.
But, someone asks, what if a man has exceptional preaching or administrative skills (the only two non-corrupt ways of building a megachurch)? If the reason people are attending a church - any church - are the giftings of one person (and that Person is not Christ), you have ipso facto, a rather big problem.
Because the church, according to the NT has only one Head and He is risen and ascended to heaven. The visible members of the local church - including all pastors - are merely an eye, an ear, a foot, a hand, all each needing the other.
None of us, in the end, are all that important.
Let these so-called exceptional men do what the apostle Paul did, travel around the world and plant churches. Let them prove their true godly credentials when they get beaten up, hounded, slandered and hated in the process.
In this way they will demonstrate conclusively, their true Christ-like, Paul-like greatness.
The only way we can possibly justify the phenomenon of the megachurch pastor is if we have already imbibed, hook, line and sinker, the concept of the Christian Celebrity and we worship at the shrine of B.I.G.
Do mega-congregations exist?
Next up for New Testament scrutiny must be the mega-congregation. The idea that a single congregation of believers should be made up of thousands of people, who therefore cannot possibly know one another.
All the churches of the New Testament were relatively small, because they met in homes.
The only megachurch of the New Testament was the orginal Pentecost Church in Jerusalem. It was big (3000 then 5000) to demontrate the dramatic Holy Spirit origin of the church.
It grew to these vast numbers from a humble 120.
Only God can do that.
And it is highly significant that God allowed that megachurch to be scattered not long after Pentecost. Why? So that the Christians in that large church would become more useful gossipping the Gospel as they radiated out from Jerusalem!
You see a common argument used by megachurches (and also by many large churches) is "we can do more for God's kingdom if we are large." But that's Babel-talk. It is not how God thinks. By scattering the Jersualem Church to the four winds, the Gospel spreads more effectively - not less.
(I am pretty sure that if all the megachurches were abolished today, the Gospel would be granted brand new wings.)
The smallness of New Testament congregations, however, is not a limitation imposed by house size: it's far more theologically, doctrinally fundamental than that.
What matters in church life is discipleship, the day to day life-influencing of younger believers by older believers so that they become like Jesus. Small groups relationally close facilitate this small-group pattern that Jesus himself set with his Twelve.
What matters most in the Kingdom of Christ is brotherly and sisterly relationships, being part of the family of God, which necessitates smaller maneagable we-know-each-other numbers.
What matters is living friendly living organism not cold distant functional organisation.
So does the notion of a megacongregation have any traction in the New Testament?
I would argue, No, none at all.
So why do megachurches exist at all?
The first reason is the ugly pursuit of fame, power or wealth. In evangelical churches we naturally and openly despise the third but there is plenty of the first two floating around our circles.
There can be very little doubt that many megachurches are often little other than temples of idolatry to to the founder(s). One man wants his name or his church to be immortalised.
Or he wants lots of dosh.
Or he wants lots of power.
Where does a desire for fame, wealth or power figure anywhere in the list of Holy Spirit qualities for church leaders?
The second reason for the existence of megachurches is a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the church's task.
The task of the church is to make disciples. And disciples are not made by preaching alone ("come hear some big shot preacher every Sunday morning") but disciples are made by many hours of difficult joyous interpersonal spiritual relationships, such as those that take place in small groups.
Some Christians really believe that preaching alone grows our faith. Therefore, if you have someone with exceptional speaking gifts, then put him on stage every week, pull in the crowds and they will all grow.
Someone needs to say it: no-one grows into Christlikeness by sermons alone.
The incarnational aspect of Christian ministry, "follow my example as I follow the example of Christ" is absolutely essential for true spiritual Christ-like growth.
A second misunderstanding which leads to the existence of megachurches is a naive view of human nature.
No-one, not one person in the world or the church, can be trusted with power. It does not matter what circles of accountability surround him or her, no-one can be trusted with power over others.
We are all too sinful, too corrupt, too biased, too parochial, too tribal, to be trusted with power.
But the only way to create a megachurch is to entrust vast power to an individual.
You would have thought, from the never ending river of megachurch scandals we'd listen to providence: God shouting in our ears this is the wrong way to go.
But we don't listen and even we conservative reformed evangelicals secretely and not so secretly admire our own tribe's megachurch pastors.
An end to megachurches?
Since everything is wrong with megapastors and their megachurches, is it not time to put an end to them?
Perhaps their members should be scattered and their congregations divided into small little groups living in real loving community and with real we-know-you pastors. What an explosion of Gospel witness that would lead to!
Perhaps we should avoid calling these groups "churches." "Megacrowds" or "megameetings" or "megahuddles" but not megachurches.
Perhaps we should avoid honouring the big-shots who lead these outfits. (I am guilty of this myself).
And when our churches happen, by the grace of God, to grow beyond the size where anyone can know everyone, let our first thought be, not, "how can we keep these people and make our church the biggest show in town" but how can we release God's people into smaller churches where they and the Gospel can truly flourish.
Megachurches just could be the Devil's biggest deception in a celebrity-soaked culture.
And the end of the megachurches could well spark true revival.
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