Still no facts on megachurch convert composition

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research puts out a free powerpoint presentation on Megachurches. They show the amazing increase in number of megachurches, and they have grown in size also.

Unfortunately, they don't address what I opened this discussion on, namely that 90 to 95% of all megachurch growth is pure transfer growth according to their own people. Look at their slides on evangelism:


Maybe they do, but this question isn't necessarily asking about evangelism. This just says they invite people to come. Are they inviting Christians, or non-Christians? We don't know, but this chart is not revealing on that question. It does not prove what the title says.
This says they are willing to talk about their faith, but not many seek opportunities. Again, I don't see evidence here that people are witnessing, or if they are witnessing, that the church is winning non-Christians. Our studies show they are not. They go on to say megachurches do other things for outreach:
But none of these things has anything to do with evangelism! This could be a good list of ways to attract more Christians to your church.
This study is an intriguing example of how some studies may appear to show evangelism, but might not actually show that when it comes to megachurches. We still have no authoritative, reliable study on composition of megachurches.

Carson on authenticity

Emergent blogger Bob Robinson went to hear D. A. Carson speak on the emergent church in Akron, OH. He quoted Carson as saying, "the Emerging Church is making a plea for authenticity. That’s good. But since the Emerging Church does not use the Bible as its standard of what is authentic or not (relying more on feelings and cultural acceptability), then the authenticity has to be called into question."

This brings up a good point I've thought about quite a bit. How do we define authenticity in Christianity? And how would we recognize it in today's world? Here is where the pragmatic definition of truth runs into trouble. If we define authenticity in pragmatic terms (truth is what works for me), where do we end up? Pretty hard to say.

The notion of "working" can be pretty subjective. What does it mean when we say something "works?" Is Osteen's church "working" when he attracts 47,000 in attendance? Well, he still hasn't matched Sung Myung Moon's success. Unfortunately, while I believe results matter, in the absence of objective guidelines for what God considers success, results tell us nothing. Carson is right. Only scripture can give us the spiritual standards by which to judge results.

Christians should spend time pondering what God teaches on this question. Exactly what are we looking for when we say "this approach works?" What do others say on this? What can we get from scripture? There must be multiple answers.

This is at the heart of the question when it comes to authenticity. Authenticity isn't just a feeling we get because people are being intense. It has to mean that our service for God is real; that God is working in our midst. How would we know?

Accepting Sin in the Church?

At Monday morning insight Bernie says,
"Another reason why I tend to megachurches, in general, is because they tend to promote "Churchianity" rather than true Christianity (corrupting the Gospel). Keeping the main institution alive takes so much money and time that outreach is severely affected. Then they bring in false teaching about tithing in order to bring in money, to add insult to injury. From experience, they usually also have a "big tent" mentality, which means tolerating all kinds of evil teachings like the prosperity gospel, because they don't want to offend anyone (the donors)."

I wonder about this too. I just bought the new book by Ron Sider called The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? That's a good question. Why is divorce just as high with so-called "born agains" as it is with non-Christians, according to Barna? Why is fornication rampant in big evangelical churches? Why is no discipline practiced? Every single I've met from one big area church in our city during the past few years was fornicating--including a pastor's son! Nobody seems to care. When couples in our church fall into sin, they know they can to go this church or several others and nobody will say anything just because they are living together. In fact, nobody would have any way to know.

How much difference would it make for huge churches if they practiced church discipline? What if fornication wasn't allowed in the church? What if churches knew enough about their people to realize they were in sin in the first place? What if the church preached against greed instead of extolling it? Would that decrease church growth, or increase it? And should the church take an interest in regulating behavior? Or should we just preach the truth and let the chips fall?