Posted on 5/11/2012 by Warren Bird in the Learnings Blog
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Megachurches are not a creation of the United States. There are far more megachurches (defined as 2,000 or more in weekend worship attendance) outside North America than inside it. I've had the privilege of visiting the nation's largest-attendance church in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, China, Korea, and Singapore, among others. And in those churches, as well as those of other sizes, God is worshipped in languages parallel to the heavenly picture of "a great multitude that no one could count, from every tribe, nation, people and language" (Revelation 7:9).
In North America, are large churches primarily an English-language phenomena? No. Many English speaking churches host a church-within-a-church, such as Lakewood Church in Houston that offers three services in English led by Joel and Victoria Osteen and one in Spanish on Sunday afternoon led by Marcos Witt. Others bill themselves as "one church in two languages" such as Christ Fellowship Church in McKinney, Texas, where Bruce Miller is pastor.
Just as significantly, there are also megachurches where the main language is not English. Some have ministry for English speakers and others don't. Here are examples of the largest attendance church in North America for a number of languages:
Spanish: La Iglesia en el Camino (The Church on the Way), Van Nuys, CA, www.tcotw.org, Pastor Jaime Tolle
Korean: Sarang Community Church (Love Community Church), Anaheim, CA, www.sarang.com, Pastor Stephen Chong
French: Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church), Longueuil, ON, www.nouvellevie.com, Pastor Claude Houde
Russian: Braytskaya Baptist Church, Sacramento, CA, www.brytechurch.org, Pastor Pavel Khakimov
Chinese: Richmond Hill Chinese Community Church, Richmond Hill, ON, www.rhccc.ca, Pastor Daniel Splett
Perhaps you can help me identify large-attendance congregations that speak a dialect from India, Portuguese from Brazil, or perhaps one of the languages from Nigeria or Uganda, or maybe even churches from Arabic-speaking countries. If so, please add a comment below.
For more blogs in this “megachurch” series, see also “World’s First Megachurch?”, "Youngest Megachurch Pastor?", "Biggest Megachurch Sanctuaries?" , "Megachurch Books?" , and "How Many Megachurches?".
By Warren Bird
Warren Bird, Ph.D., research director at Leadership Network, with background as pastor and seminary professor, is author or co-author of 24 books for ministry leaders including Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work with Jim Tomberlin. His most recent title is Wisdom from Lyle E. Schaller. Some of Warren’s recent online reports include “The Heartbeat of Rising Influence Churches,” “Pastors Who Are Shaping the Future” and “A New Decade of Megachurches.” Follow him on Twitter @warrenbird
Comments
My husband and I are leaders and church planters with New Life Church, www.newlife.nu, an international church in Stockholm, Sweden with over 700 in attendance weekly from over 50 different countries. I am an American who has served as a missionary here for the past seven years, and my husband was born and raised in Stockholm. Is there any way we could receive some material from your seminar, as we will not be able to attend?
Thank you and God bless!
Thanks for sharing this great article on Megachurches. Your seminar sounds really good - I will have to recommend it to our church here in Mill Creek, WA. As evangelism increases, so does the need for a large outreach, like Dr. Cho’s ministry in South Korea. Social media is another excellent avenue for churches to take. A good resource on how to do this is written by author Jason Caston entitled, The iChurch Method: How to Advance Your Ministry Online. The author writes about how to establish a global presence online and also how to develop a mobile website. I highly recommend this one for new churches and those new to social media. You can find the author’s website here: http://www.theichurchmethod.com/
I believe religion should be spoken/preached in any language. By being large in size, preachers have to cater to everybody’s needs by speaking the common language of the country. I agree with the idea of having a church within a church so everybody gets to attend service in their prefered language.
Good post. I also appreciate the research by Deymaz on Multi-ethnic churches.
Religion and beleive in good has no language. it should be spoken in any language.Life is hard and churches are places where we can have comfort. In some ways, they are our home. And thanks for a great research on such an important topic.
For me and my brother, the church was our asylum.
We came at the age of 5 to America, a new land we didn’t know. Adjusting was hard like any new immigrants.
But in our church, in New port community, we found friends, who become family. They helped us find our way in the first years in a new land. I don’t know if we were in the same place today without those friends.Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this awesome articles.
A few months ago I went traveling into the far east: China, Korea and Thailand. Everywhere I go I see a huge Christian wake up.People are getting closer and churches
are getting more and more people. That’s so good to see.