Outreach Magazine: Can Mega Be Missional? Ed Stetzer

Interesting read here. It's late and I don't have adequate time to give it the summarization it deserves. But since it's a fair question on the part of some about what appeal a big chuch might have over a small church, this article seems to give a good bit of balance ... even putting criticisms such as overt consumerism into an historical context.

Personally, my initial reasons for setting foot in Lakewood were somewhat unique. I'd only heard good things about the church for about the past 15 years and since I frequented the old Compaq Center for hockey games, I was a bit curious to see how the old place was transformed. But my own previous hunt for a church home had been spectacularly unproductive - to the point of it being buried and left for dead for a few years more than my first word about Lakewood. I wasn't quite sure that I'd step in and find a church home, but I wasn't reluctant to let the opening weekend go by me with the only excuse being that I was too tired to go. Fate? Maybe. But I've obviously got no complaints.

Reminds me, though ... I remember stumbling onto some online rant about megachurches leaving churchgoers hungrier for the Word of God than when they arrived. It was offered as a derogatory statement, but the more I came back to that argument, the more I kept asking myself .... "Is that such a bad thing?" I mean, I'm back from a wonderful Bible Study with Lisa Comes that actually dovetails nicely into Tina Underwood's terrain (which I'm committed to for tomorrow (er, today)). I left with a newfound spark to read through Philippians as a result. Amazing how that might strike anyone as such a bad thing.

Totally unrelated, but I usually leave the laptop at the office Wednesday nights rather than lug it through church with me. Problem being that I was hoping to finish transcribing the weekend sermon tonight (which - you guessed it - is on the laptop! ... at the office!). D'oh! And I may have new reading material and music to dive into tomorrow night. Ah well, all in good time, I suppose. For now, Philippians awaits me.