Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches by Dave Travis, Scott Thumma, Rick Warren (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

Drawing on extensive, broad-based, and well-designed research, as well as stories and anecdotes, Beyond Megachurch Myths dispels popluar myths about megachurches while highlighting the diversity within the megachurch phenomenon. Defining a megachurch as a Protestant church that averages at least 2000 total attendees in their weekend services, Scott Thumma and Dave Travis reveal what these churches are and are not, why they are thriving, what their members say about their experiences, and why they have many valuable lessons to teach smaller churches.

Publishers Weekly

This data-driven description of American megachurches is aimed at leaders and members of smaller congregations who may harbor apprehensions about this growing phenomenon. Chapter by chapter, the authors tackle common misconceptions of churches with more than 2,000 attendees and suggest that they are simply Christian neighbors with a different-looking storefront who are here to stay a while and who have much to offer smaller churches willing to learn. However, the collaboration of the two writers (one an academic and the other a consultant for church leadership) is disjointed, with the "applying what you have read" sections at the end of each chapter feeling tacked on to the richer content of the main text. One of the strongest chapters confronts the "myth" that megachurches are akin to Wal-Mart in that they grow at the expense of existing congregations. The authors argue that megachurches feed a constant cycle of "birth, growth, maturity and decline" needed to "help keep churches and religion in America strong and vital." Readers are reminded that Christianity comes in many different packages and that the market for religion can and should be tapped in a variety of ways. (Aug.)

Nancy E. Adams - Library Journal

Megachurches, which have existed for some three decades in the United States, are today growing at a more rapid rate than the country's population. Their total membership would constitute America's third-largest religious group, and their worship practices and leadership styles have permeated the American church scene. Following a foreword by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren, Thumma (sociology of religion, Hartford Seminary, CT; Gay Religion) and Travis (executive VP, Leadership Network; Beyond the Box: Innovative Churches That Work) build their arguments and insights on data culled from several academic studies of megachurches completed within the last decade. (The book's uniqueness is that it is research-based.) The authors do not completely describe the causes or implications of the megachurch phenomenon-for that, see Lyle E. Schaller's The Very Large Church: New Rules for Leadersand John N. Vaughan's Megachurches & America's Cities: How Churches Grow-but they present a convincing corrective to nine common misperceptions about them that have been accepted as gospel by the media, leaders of other churches, and segments of the American public. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with collections relating to contemporary churches.

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• Table of Contents

Table of Contents