Chris Rosebrough turned me on to some understanding of something I knew to be wrong for several years, yet I was unable to put it into a coherent argument. I have observed numerous troubling things, read troubling things but the nature of the problem illuded me. My recent post on The Problem with the Megachurch began with his presentation below. It first manifested in The Rise of Absurdity in Western Philosophical and Political Views.

Watch his presentation! (Follow along PowerPoint here)

See More

• Why I Write About the Megachurch
• The Megachurch Defined
• The Problem With the Megachurch (PDF here)

** I want to be super clear that I am not implying, nor do I believe most of the folks that have used the “Drucker Megachurch Franchise” template had ill intentions. Most of the folks that started these churches were GEN Xers, and we GEN Xers grew into adulthood with a lot of distrust of the things that were around us. Those of us that grew up in church saw a stale, ineffective church. We knew the Sunday talk and the weekly walk of many people.

I grew up in a very typical place that describes that. I was raised in Powedersville, near Greenville SC. As typical of the Southern Baptist Bible belt as you can get. I saw all the things that likely frustrated those that followed the Drucker plan.

I also do not believe the folks working in these churches as underling leaders have ill intentions, or at least they did not start out that way. There is however something corrupting when you place an ordinary man in a position of extreme power over others, young impressionable folks, and give him a soap-box to repeat the myth of himself that develops from that power. I have witnessed such people, abuse their power in subtle ways.

These people did not mean evil, not all of them do overt evil and there are good things that derive from these churches. Most have zero understanding of the flawed philosophy that this movement came from and many of the underling leaders are not even formally trained in theology to recognize error.

On the whole, it was all a mistake, it has morphed into something very dangerous and it is, in my observed opinion, the single greatest existential threat to organized Christianity in America.

When you think of visiting one of these places, keep looking, find a Bible-believing place without all the communitarian trappings, apostasy and error.

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