What makes a 'gigachurch' go?
MINNEAPOLIS — The 23rd Psalm rolled off the Rev. Jason Strand's tongue with soothing familiarity, the way it had since he memorized it as a boy.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters ..."
But up on the 16-by-24-foot screens flanking Strand, the PowerPoint version displayed the updated words "quiet waters" instead of the "still waters" of Strand's memory.
Amy Anderson noticed the problem instantly. She began scribbling notes in her three-ring binder, then flipped to a new page to catch up with what Strand was doing next, watching every word.
There would be follow up: If Strand might slip again and say "still" in one of the remaining services that weekend, the word needed to be changed in the PowerPoint.
"We don't want anything, no matter how small, to knock the worshipers out of the mood of the service," explained Anderson, executive director of worship.
No longer just a "megachurch," Eagle Brook now qualifies as a "gigachurch," the term for congregations of more than 10,000 members. It serves an average of 11,000 worshipers a weekend — and swells to 17,000 on Christmas and Easter.
There are 1,200 megachurches nationwide, a phenomenon traceable to the 1960s. But it really took off about 15 years ago. Usually drawing members from second- and third-ring suburbs where residents may lack historic ties to more traditional local congregations, they remain the fastest-growing churches in the country, according to a 2005 survey by Leadership Network, nonprofit church consultants.
Eagle Brook started in a living room in 1948. There were 19 people at the inaugural service of what was titled the Bethany Baptist Mission.
In 1997, the group changed its name to Eagle Brook because it felt that having Baptist in the title kept away people from other denominations (although it remains part of the Baptist General Conference). Within two years, average weekly attendance went from 1,400 to 3,000.
At last count, Eagle Brook was the 58th largest church in the country. The list is dominated by a handful of immense churches — Lakewood in Texas is No. 1 with more than 47,000 members.
But there are some traits that set megachurches apart from their big-church cousins, according to Scott Thumma, a researcher at the Hartford Institute for Religious Study and author of the book Beyond Megachurch Myths.
Megachurches often are associated with the religious right, an image linked to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the first megachurch founders to develop a large media following. He didn't shy from mixing polemics with his preaching.
But most megachurches keep politics at arm's length, worried about alienating one side or the other along the political divide, and wary of sparking controversy on church-state separation.
"Strong, biblical Christian faith doesn't always lead strong, Bible-believing Christians to the same political conclusions," says a statement in the church's Source magazine, published three times a year.
Megachurches are characterized by a rapid jump in attendance, most of it in the past decade. They are more common in the Sun Belt states. Most — 54 percent — are, like Eagle Brook, evangelical. They lure younger worshipers with non-traditional services.
"The image these congregations want to portray is: 'This is your parents' religion, but bigger and better,"' Thumma said.
