The One Gospel channel is a new DSTV channel doing the whole Christian broadcast media thing through Africa. Right now their market share of the music video space is 11% - not bad, since MTV is 25%. They asked me to be on The Late Debate - a show which aims to talk about topics of interest to Christians with a "no-holds-barred" approach to religious themes. Since I've been doing mixed martial arts for a while (and have been punched in the head a few more times than I'd like) I thought this could be fun. The topic: "Megachurch is the ideal church." Gloves off indeed!
We filmed the show this afternoon at the Urban Brew studios in Randburg. There were 6 panelists, a guest (the hapless bullet-proof-vest-wearing Marius, a pastor from Rhema) and a presenter: Thabo Mdluli, someone with charisma and presence...and a decent brain too. The vibe off-camera was great: we were laughing and joking between takes, and Marius kept on making faces at me when we were live. There were times when I was trying not to burst out laughing: especially at the end when it got a bit heated. On-camera I think we looked a bit more tense and reserved...but I think we all could've gone out afterwards and had a beer. I'm not sure if that'll carry across on the edited version!

Our show will be broadcast on DSTV (channel 331) on 9pm, Tuesday July 29th, with repeats on the 30th at 8am and on August 2nd at 9pm. Catch me saying some good things...and some silly things. I'll explain one of the silly things later...

The group was divided on the issue of megachuch. Marius works at one, so obviously he's into it. Kagiso and Stef go to Rhema, and Thiva is a pastor who trained at Rhema Bible School. Ex-Catholic, evangelical, mega-church attending (but not that into it) Amanda from NieuCommunities sat next to me, and Veronica who has a weekly show on Rainbow FM seemed to be saying that people need to re-Judaise to become Christian.

Marius did a great job of bobbing and weaving as we attacked him asked him questions. He was very gracious and explained the megachurch of 40,000 people that is Rhema in such a way as to portray it in a really good light. They're pretty outward-looking, concerned about issues of justice and mercy, were one of the first churches to practice racial integration, disciple people rather than focussing on just conversion...and have Shane Clairborne speaking at their evening service on August 3rd (I'll come and hear him - his book is great).

My provocative jabs against megachurch were that the supersized church buys into the belief that "bigger is better" and this turns people into consumers of spiritual goods and services. Marius guessed that about 30% of Rhema members are living out their faith in practical ways - which leaves 70% who attend the church for...what?

I also introduced some talk around Hillsongs and cultural recolonisation in Africa. I think South Africans at least have an attitude that if something comes from somewhere else it must be better, and so we use that instead of embracing our own identity and creativity.

A line of thought I wish we'd followed more was from Thiva, the Rhema-trained pastor. He pastors a medium sized church in Joburg (around 150 people, I think) but aspires to turn that church into a megachurch. He equated success with being big - which is a BIG problem. How many pastors out there feel like they're failures because their church isn't a megachurch? If bigger is better and this pervades our thinking, what kind of training are we giving new Christian leaders? How can we let pastors know that they are called to be faithful in their setting, and that they don't have to have a church of 2000 people to be "successful"?

One of the guys was talking about how Jesus was such a success and this is where I said my silly thing: I jumped in and challenged him on that. It seems like we can adapt the Bible a little too easily and make it say what we want to...and I don't know why I thought this would be a good thing to challenge, but I did. And told the story of Albert Schweitzer, one of the great human beings of the 20th century, who had great fun showing how all of the historians before him had brought their own presuppositions to bear on the historical study of Jesus, and instead of portraying the actual Jesus of history, they put across their own idea of Jesus. Then he proposed to tell us what Jesus was really like, and concluded that he was a wild-eyed apocalyptic prophet who died a failure.

The church at the time shrank back from this, saying, "If this is what we get when we do historical work on Jesus, then we'd much rather stick with the Jesus of religion, thank you." And so closed the first quest for the historical Jesus - which restarted after world war two, when it was clear that the lack of historical work on Jesus had opened a dangerous space for the Nazi's to re-brand Jesus as someone who was not particularly Jewish, and in fact was anti-Jewish. So the quests for the historical Jesus has continued, so that the church may ask itself, in every generation, "Have we got it right?"

Anyway, I didn't say all this, just that Schweitzer said that Jesus was a wild-eyed apocalyptic prophet who died a failure. Personally, I don't think this is the truth - certainly, Jesus didn't accomplish much in his lifetime and got killed for what he was doing. He left behind a few followers who left him in his time of greatest need. He didn't fight against the oppressors and win. He didn't start a wildly successful megachurch. However, as his friends went around telling people that the one whom they'd deserted was the Lord of all creation (a startling claim, considering) something strange happened: people started believing them.

My point in saying the Schweitzer quote was to try to shake up a more simplistic understanding of Jesus and success. I didn't accomplish that, tasted some foot, but it was fun :)

So - "megachurch is the ideal church" - what do you think?

I am truly starting to appreciate the "small" (by small I mean numerically)...often proposals, people and programs for the church some from shallow motives rather than from siginificant ones. IOW they are primarily focused on bigger numbers, more people, larger ideas etc and over look the more significant works like relationships, integrity and testimony...just a thought

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Posted by: Ivan Haylock 15 Sep, 2008 - 00:55:07

Roger,
Doesn't the question come down to the purpose of the church (or of each local church)? I would say in some cases, a mega-church can be better, especially if it's ministries involve giving or something along those lines.

But I like your comment about that way of thinking causing people to become consumerist! But then, maybe the problem isn't so much the size of the church in itself, but rather the theology that is driving people to create massive churches. How difficult is it for leaders to avoid having over-sized egos that correspond to the size of their churches?

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Posted by: GrayMac 26 Sep, 2008 - 01:33:42

@GrayMac: I've actually seen a study done for a house church model where they were able to raise significant amounts of money, showing that it's not just mega churches that can happen in.

For me, it's more of the thought that attractional church is the only/best way to do church. I think that as long as we build church around a weekly service, we've shifted into maintenance mode. And that's fine for people who want church to be all about teaching and maintenance, but church is meant to be more than that!

Your point about the size of a church corresponding to the leader's ego is well taken. It can also work with small churches - "I'm a failure because I only have 50 people coming."

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Posted by: Roger Saner 01 Oct, 2008 - 00:59:17

Hey Roger,

You'll have to remind us all about the show when it comes closer to the time - that's like a couple of months away :)

Sounds like you had fun, though.

Anyway, in my mind I tend to separate the 'big' church from the 'megachurch'. For me, it doesn't really matter on the size of the church as long as relationships are the number one priority for the church.

This is because relationships are the real key to evangelism, and the real key to discipleship.

For me, the 'megachurch' is a way of describing a church that is more programme driven, perhaps flashy, big lights and smiley pastors etc. whereas there are plenty of big churches that aren't these things.

Yes, plenty of mega churches do a lot of things but you can do many things and still miss the point. It's not about what you DO, it's about who you ARE. This is where church becomes primarily about relationships and ensures that the programmes facilitate relationships to grow rather than relationships being used to help the programmes happen.

A big church CAN do this - my last church was one that was like that. A church where we laughed and cried together and even though I've now gone on a church plant my friendships there have never ended, and won't ever end.

At the end of the day, it might boil down to what's important to the leaders; and that may be another discussion altogether.

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Posted by: Ryan Peter2 01 Oct, 2008 - 09:14:26

Roger: I agree! And I think it's often quite related- if "church" is all about the services, then of course the greater attendance gives the impression of a greater service! Unfortunately, numbers cannot measure the quality of relationships nor the internal growth of individuals!

Ryan: I agree that relationships are high priority. But do you even need a "church service" then?

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Posted by: GrayMac 05 Oct, 2008 - 01:49:43

I am looking for Ivan Haylock that attended school in Buna Texas. My name is Shawna Kerns DeLord. Always wondered what happened to my friend after he moved to South Africa.

Shawna Kerns DeLord snkd96@aol.com

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Posted by: Shawna DeLord 22 Feb, 2009 - 07:51:16

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