Ted I agree and I would add one nuance to your argument: the growth of the megachurch movement in the United States is a lagging indicator of our decline. As smaller churches close or weaken, people consolidate into larger churches they believe will add more value to them. What appears as "growth" is actually redistribution within a shrinking ecosystem. To make matters worse, megachurch leaders often interpret the growth of their churches as divine approval.
This helps explain why the megachurch phenomenon (aka the "Walmartization" of American Christianity) feels both impressive and hollow at the same time. Instead of driving renewal, it is absorbing decline. We already have much research on this: the larger the church, the lower the levels of participation in giving, serving, and maturing.
I agree with your core concern. The question is less about which form is best and more about what kind of disciple-making ecology our forms are producing. Where disciple-making becomes programmatic, centralized, and difficult to reproduce, the outcome will remain thin, regardless of size. But where it is embodied, shared, and practiced in community, depth begins to emerge.
Our institutionalized megachurches in America are not designed to produce disciples (Hirsch says they are predicated on non-discipleship). When the medium becomes the message, attractional and consumeristic ecclesiologies shape the kind of disciples we produce. The church in North America has lost 40 million members this century. And just look at our theological drift-- https://thestateoftheology.com, esp statement 7!
We need to do something different. Let's learn from decentralized movements, especially those in the Majority World. This helps us look at the Bible with fresh eyes. I think we will rediscover that NT ecclesiology (theology AND forms) is actually quite robust for discipleship.
Another thought I had just now was something I read years ago in a book called "How Industries Evolve." Most industries start off with a bunch of small companies, and eventually they'll boil down to a handful of large competitors. The product offering between these competitors is not differentiated because they're all producing the same thing and competing with just each other and not small, scrappy, creative entrepreneurs. There are many examples in industry of this dynamic.
Maybe it's true for churches too!
In the book, the antidote was innovation. The large incumbent players struggle to keep up with fast-moving innovators.
I am not sure the Majority World is always a great model for us to follow. I recall traveling in Nigeria and seeing enormously large megachurches with machine gun-wielding guards patrolling their rooftops. The megachurch phenomenon is mostly a U.S. phenomenon, but it is also present where the church has grown numerically in the Majority World. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to understand if the same discipleship challenges are present in these Majority World mega-churches.
Sorry, if I understand you correctly, I'm not suggesting we have much to learn from megachurches in any context. I'm suggesting that CPMs/DMMs, especially among the unreached, offer a type of conversational midwife for rethinking/rebirthing church in the West. CPMs seem to be more aligned with biblical patterns than other types of ecclesial models.
@wes I think you are generally right, but I don't think it's as simple as a lagging indicator of decline. Megachurches are a real phenomena with strong economic and sociological logic and I think we can expect to see more and bigger megachurches within a late-capitalist system. Big churches are getting bigger not smaller, and they offer a great value proposition to the typical person, and capture economies of scale that smaller churches never will. We can't underestimate their appeal.
The deeper question becomes what alternative discipleship structures are actually feasible within a capitalist/consumerist economy, when everyone is struggling with childcare, inflation, two jobs, and a mortgage? Movements are great but require people with marginal time and capacity. Most of the house church groups I've worked with in the US still require their wealthiest members to host the meetings.
The weakness of megachurches is its "scaled" leadership and community structure, so people end up wanting more intimate relationships and active participation over time, and the pendulum swings over to house church, small church, organic church, etc. But we misunderstand the dynamic if we call one "good" and one "bad" and don't understand sociologically how powerful these models are, and how much of a product of our economic system they are.
The power law distribution means that in the future, a few big church "brands" will likely get bigger (enabled by technology) and optimize for seeker-sensitive belonging, and then there will be a very long tail of small, unique, contextual communities in the margins, optimizing for more high-commitment discipleship. There won't be much in the middle.
It's interesting to me that, in your personal experience, you put your finger on EXACTLY how discipleship scales. If the people IN the small group were ALSO discipling others outside the group, and if THOSE people in turn were discipling OTHERS, then it would scale just fine.
I also think you've put your finger on exactly WHY "movements don't happen here." It's not persecution. It's busyness.
When people ask me why movements don't work in America, I have two answers. (1) people in America don't have a significant felt spiritual need/desperation/hunger. (2) people in America put knowledge-based discovery IN FRONT OF any sort of powerful encounter.
In other places, people have significant and desperate spiritual needs - and they nearly always have a "power encounter" with Jesus BEFORE they begin reading Scripture and attempting to follow him. In America, the question is, "Do you want to learn about Jesus?" In other places, the question seems to be, "Please explain to me the miraculous thing that just happened."
Ted, thank you for the article. Your approach and content really resonate as it is an all too common experience for us as Jesus followers who happen to work in a church. We turned to help from a group called "Disciples Made," and are excited about the possibility of scaling up the formation of disciples, in the congregation and in our community. Highly recommended! (And I don't receive anything from them for this recommendation. ha ha) It definitely is a long obedience in the same direction.... www.disciplesmade.com
I think the first step is to acknowledge that your title is 100% true. Disciple-making does not scale. You have to do it small. It will be messy. Once we admit that and truly believe that, then we can take steps to move forward.
Ted I agree and I would add one nuance to your argument: the growth of the megachurch movement in the United States is a lagging indicator of our decline. As smaller churches close or weaken, people consolidate into larger churches they believe will add more value to them. What appears as "growth" is actually redistribution within a shrinking ecosystem. To make matters worse, megachurch leaders often interpret the growth of their churches as divine approval.
This helps explain why the megachurch phenomenon (aka the "Walmartization" of American Christianity) feels both impressive and hollow at the same time. Instead of driving renewal, it is absorbing decline. We already have much research on this: the larger the church, the lower the levels of participation in giving, serving, and maturing.
I agree with your core concern. The question is less about which form is best and more about what kind of disciple-making ecology our forms are producing. Where disciple-making becomes programmatic, centralized, and difficult to reproduce, the outcome will remain thin, regardless of size. But where it is embodied, shared, and practiced in community, depth begins to emerge.
Our institutionalized megachurches in America are not designed to produce disciples (Hirsch says they are predicated on non-discipleship). When the medium becomes the message, attractional and consumeristic ecclesiologies shape the kind of disciples we produce. The church in North America has lost 40 million members this century. And just look at our theological drift-- https://thestateoftheology.com, esp statement 7!
We need to do something different. Let's learn from decentralized movements, especially those in the Majority World. This helps us look at the Bible with fresh eyes. I think we will rediscover that NT ecclesiology (theology AND forms) is actually quite robust for discipleship.
Wes,
Another thought I had just now was something I read years ago in a book called "How Industries Evolve." Most industries start off with a bunch of small companies, and eventually they'll boil down to a handful of large competitors. The product offering between these competitors is not differentiated because they're all producing the same thing and competing with just each other and not small, scrappy, creative entrepreneurs. There are many examples in industry of this dynamic.
Maybe it's true for churches too!
In the book, the antidote was innovation. The large incumbent players struggle to keep up with fast-moving innovators.
Yes, Wes, that is helpful.
I am not sure the Majority World is always a great model for us to follow. I recall traveling in Nigeria and seeing enormously large megachurches with machine gun-wielding guards patrolling their rooftops. The megachurch phenomenon is mostly a U.S. phenomenon, but it is also present where the church has grown numerically in the Majority World. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to understand if the same discipleship challenges are present in these Majority World mega-churches.
Sorry, if I understand you correctly, I'm not suggesting we have much to learn from megachurches in any context. I'm suggesting that CPMs/DMMs, especially among the unreached, offer a type of conversational midwife for rethinking/rebirthing church in the West. CPMs seem to be more aligned with biblical patterns than other types of ecclesial models.
Yes, I see that. We probably can't say "Majority World" in this context as there are lot of megachurches in the Majority World countries.
Wes, when I first heard you explain the mega church as a lag indicator it both blew my mind and made perfect sense. Great work.
@wes I think you are generally right, but I don't think it's as simple as a lagging indicator of decline. Megachurches are a real phenomena with strong economic and sociological logic and I think we can expect to see more and bigger megachurches within a late-capitalist system. Big churches are getting bigger not smaller, and they offer a great value proposition to the typical person, and capture economies of scale that smaller churches never will. We can't underestimate their appeal.
The deeper question becomes what alternative discipleship structures are actually feasible within a capitalist/consumerist economy, when everyone is struggling with childcare, inflation, two jobs, and a mortgage? Movements are great but require people with marginal time and capacity. Most of the house church groups I've worked with in the US still require their wealthiest members to host the meetings.
The weakness of megachurches is its "scaled" leadership and community structure, so people end up wanting more intimate relationships and active participation over time, and the pendulum swings over to house church, small church, organic church, etc. But we misunderstand the dynamic if we call one "good" and one "bad" and don't understand sociologically how powerful these models are, and how much of a product of our economic system they are.
The power law distribution means that in the future, a few big church "brands" will likely get bigger (enabled by technology) and optimize for seeker-sensitive belonging, and then there will be a very long tail of small, unique, contextual communities in the margins, optimizing for more high-commitment discipleship. There won't be much in the middle.
It's interesting to me that, in your personal experience, you put your finger on EXACTLY how discipleship scales. If the people IN the small group were ALSO discipling others outside the group, and if THOSE people in turn were discipling OTHERS, then it would scale just fine.
I also think you've put your finger on exactly WHY "movements don't happen here." It's not persecution. It's busyness.
When people ask me why movements don't work in America, I have two answers. (1) people in America don't have a significant felt spiritual need/desperation/hunger. (2) people in America put knowledge-based discovery IN FRONT OF any sort of powerful encounter.
In other places, people have significant and desperate spiritual needs - and they nearly always have a "power encounter" with Jesus BEFORE they begin reading Scripture and attempting to follow him. In America, the question is, "Do you want to learn about Jesus?" In other places, the question seems to be, "Please explain to me the miraculous thing that just happened."
Love this! And for what it's worth, here are some thoughts about church disciplemaking ministries - https://noblethinks.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/five-pillars-of-church-disciplemaking-ministries/.
Ted, thank you for the article. Your approach and content really resonate as it is an all too common experience for us as Jesus followers who happen to work in a church. We turned to help from a group called "Disciples Made," and are excited about the possibility of scaling up the formation of disciples, in the congregation and in our community. Highly recommended! (And I don't receive anything from them for this recommendation. ha ha) It definitely is a long obedience in the same direction.... www.disciplesmade.com
I think the first step is to acknowledge that your title is 100% true. Disciple-making does not scale. You have to do it small. It will be messy. Once we admit that and truly believe that, then we can take steps to move forward.
Scale = better + faster + cheaper / multiplication = same quality with more people