More than $84 million dollars has been pledged in the record largest church capital campaign. According to a news release, Second Baptist Church has raised support for ministry expansion in Houston and several other U.S. cities.
The two-year pledges and more than $21 million in cash came from 42,000 members from three Second Baptist sites in the city. The funds raised will be used to expand the Houston locations and to establish additional campuses in movie theaters in that city and across America.
"New York City, Phoenix, San Francisco and many other metropolitan areas are on my heart," Pastor Ed Young said.
The first theater campus was launched last month at the Cinemark Theater in Pearland, a suburb of Houston, and a fifth campus opened February 5 in nearby Willowbrook. Two other Houston-area churches will open later this year. Messages by Pastor Ed Young or Associate Pastor Ben Young will be projected on the screens.
"We see church services being held not just in Houston, but in other parts of Texas, across America and ultimately in other countries of the world," Ed Young said, adding, "God has opened a big door."
At least one blogger thinks this type of mega fundraiser may be redeemed because its focus is not only inward but outward as well. Here's what Mark Gainey said about megachurches:
"I feel passionate about using the resources that many of these churches use on buildings and programs, instead on evangelism, outreach, and planting new churches."
In other mega news, Gainey responded to the new findings I blogged about a couple weeks ago from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, suggesting that most megachurches disciple members poorly and possibly grow more through membership transfers than through new conversions.
I asked Scott Thumma of Hartford about this. He said the study showed 64 percent of the churches in the survey had 10-40 percent of new members as new converts.
"But this also does not mean that the megas are stealing from smaller churches," Thumma wrote in an e-mail. "I did another study of one large mega in Atlanta and found that a third came from other churches but another third came from out of state or had recently moved to the area so they were displaced from previous churches prior to joining. This makes sense given these megas are located in growing sprawl cities."
As far as the discipleship issue, the Hartford study reveals each mega as distinctive, just as smaller churches probably would be, in many ministry areas. No spiritual stereotyping allowed.
