January 7, 2002
Most mega-churches in West & South
___HARTFORD, Conn. (RNS)--A majority of the nation's mega-churches are located in the South and the West, and half of them--despite their large size--define themselves as "a close-knit family," a study has found.
___The research on mega-churches is part of the widespread study called Faith Communities Today, from which some data first was released in March. The additional research on mega-churches, based on a questionnaire sent to 600 congregations with an average weekly attendance of 3,857, was released Nov. 4.
___Almost 72 percent of churches with weekly attendance of at least 2,000 people are located in the southern and western regions of the country, the study found. Just 2 percent of these large congregations are located in New England.
___Scott Thumma, faculty associate at Hartford Seminary's Institute for Religion Research, reported that almost all the large churches have small fellowship groups and half have an intentional strategy to use more intimate small groups. Thus almost half the mega-churches describe themselves as a "close-knit family."
___Asked to describe their theological character, 48 percent of respondents said they were "evangelical," 14 percent said they were "charismatic" and 2 percent said they were "fundamentalist."
___Thumma said mega-churches are considered to be pacesetters.
___"Even if a small congregation doesn't desire to have a 3,500-person worship service, it still looks to the programmatic characteristics of the mega-churches for clues about what it is doing," he explained.
___The researcher found the average age of a mega-church senior pastor is 52, and he has been in the post more than a dozen years. These churches average 13 staff in full-time ministerial positions and 25 full-time paid workers on their program staff. In addition, they use large corps of volunteers, with an average of 297 volunteer workers spending at least five hours a week on church activities.
___Additional research about mega-churches found:
___ Almost one-third are independent and not affiliated with a denomination.
___ Almost 80 percent have electronic keyboards, drums and guitars in their services.
___ 59 percent have sports and physical fitness teams.
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