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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   15689 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Eh. Depends on your definition. I’ve been at small churches and bigger churches over the years. Current church is on the big side, but I don’t know if it’s “mega”. I’m not sure how many members we have exactly, but there are two different service times and several hundred people at each service. Plus there’s a “satellite campus” on the other side of town, and another one up in the valley.

As a working definition, I would say a church is a megachurch if

  • it is not affiliated to a denomination
  • more than 1000 people watch the same sermons in real-time (either in person or by videolink)

But the interesting thing about megachurch Christianity as practiced in Red America is the distinctive theology and Church polity it produces.

The theology is de facto based around the "born-again" experience and the personal relationship between individual believers and Jesus (if you are being polite) or about being gay for Jesus (if you are being rude from a male perspective) or about Jesus wanting to be your perfect romance-novel boyfriend (if you are being rude from a female perspective).

The Church polity is based around the effectively total-within-their-Church authority of individual charismatic lead pastors who are openly permitted to keep a significant percentage of the collection plate for their personal consumption.

Is there any non-pejorative definition of Megachurch? I mean this honestly, I only use it as a negative term of abuse. A sufficiently good Megachurch would become something else, almost by definition.

Is there any non-pejorative definition of Megachurch?

Non-denominational (but theologically probably heavily Baptist) church with a parking lot the size of a big-box store.

The only times I've ever encountered the term IRL have been purely descriptive usages similar to MadMonzer's definition with no negative implications.

Maybe this is a me-problem but reading @MadMonzer I'd say:

about being gay for Jesus (if you are being rude from a male perspective) or about Jesus wanting to be your perfect romance-novel boyfriend (if you are being rude from a female perspective).

and

individual charismatic lead pastors who are openly permitted to keep a significant percentage of the collection plate for their personal consumption.

Strike me as inherently pejorative negative definitions.

But maybe that's just my preferences. Even baptist pastors tend to tell me they "aren't Megachurches" or pejoratively refer to another congregation as a "would-be Megachurch" around me. Come to think of it, could be a regional thing: megachurch is something "they" do not something "we" do.

Strike me as inherently pejorative negative definitions.

They weren't intended as definitions - they were intended to be an empirical observation about how large American non-denominational churches (my two-bullet definition of "megachurch") tend to differ from other churches. Megachurch theology is usually different from traditional denominational Protestant theology in ways which are controversial, and I tried to describe both sides of the controversy, probably badly. I agree that I was being perjorative about the practice of allowing pastors to get super-rich off congregant donations - essentially all other Christian traditions think that a pastor earning more than a doctor is per se problematic.

FWIW, I think the word "megachurch" is perjorative in that it is mostly used by people who disapprove of the underlying phenomenon (Blue Tribers who object because megachurches are Red-coded, and denominational Christians who object because they often promote heresy)

When I said "similar to MadMonzer's definition", I was referring to the

  • it is not affiliated to a denomination

  • more than 1000 people watch the same sermons in real-time (either in person or by videolink)

definition. I've never encountered the pejorative uses described. That isn't to say that people don't use it perjoratively, merely that non-perjorative uses do exist and are the only ones I've personally encountered outside this forum.

Have any of your churches ever utilized a smoke machine during a worship service?

Ha! One did, back in my college days.

Uh, does over-enthusiastic loading of the thurible with incense count?

Alternatively, do they have bands playing which sound like a third rate copy of U2?

Wait, is this "smoke machine as in theater" or would a Catholic censer count?

Genuinely "smoke machine as in theater." I would also count it as a yes if any of his churches have ever conducted a men's conference featuring monster trucks.

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