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Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches arrives on bookstore shelves this month. In the following interview, authors Scott Thumma and Dave Travis give readers perspective on how they anticipate the book will impact American churches.
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Why did you write this book?
[Scott] We wrote it to clear up the misunderstandings about what megachurches are, how they are a diverse phenomenon, and yet how they are distinctive from smaller congregations. Generally there has been too much talk about megachurches with too little reference to actual data and research about them.
[Dave] After answering lots of questions from people who are not part of megachurches, including reporters, church leaders, professors and the like, we decided to write a book based on |
research and observations that clarified the current state of megachurches. From what we've seen, the popular picture painted of megachurches in the press was wrong in many key areas. Our book is an attempt to clear up those "myths" that circulate about these churches.
These churches have profoundly influenced American religious life and yet there are almost no books written about the phenomenon as a whole. There are quite a number of practitioner books based on one church example. Further, there are dissertations based on a small handful of megachurches. Our book seeks to cover the entire ground of megachurches in North America today.
What is new about your research?
Our research began when Leadership Network and the Hartford Institute for Religious Research at Hartford Seminary conducted national studies of megachurches in 2000 and again in 2005. This past year, for the book, Scott has analyzed the data in relation to what we know about churches of other sizes to see exactly how megachurches are different, as well as mining the 2000 and 2005 studies for new learnings. We anticipate completing additional national surveys in 2008 and 2010.
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[Dave] The new research shows the diversity of the megachurch movement. These churches are not all alike. We subdivide the movement . . . |
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Healing Place Offering the HPC Experience
HPC Experience is an opportunity for churches to visit Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA, and experience the "how" behind HPC. Each experience provides teams with the opportunity to participate in staff meetings, creative meetings, roundtable luncheons with the lead team and one-on-one time with Lead Pastor Dino Rizzo.
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Jesus Film Surpasses 1,000th Translation
The 1970s-version "Jesus Film" produced by Campus Crusade for Christ has been translated into its 1,000th language, with plans to translate it into an additional 500 languages—including every language with more than 100,000 speakers. |
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What U.S. Age Groups Are Growing This Decade?
One age cohort is growing dramatically during the 2000-2010 decade while another is actually declining in size, as depicted in a table. . . |
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Leadership Journal
Leadership Journal's mission is to strengthen church leaders through articles that are realistic and redemptive, thus encouraging biblical
faithfulness and personal effectiveness. Most issues also contain a special feature entitled "Leadership Network Church Innovation Series," such as recent articles on house churches and older adult ministry.
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