Big Churches Not Always Impersonal, Study Finds
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 19, 2008; Page A06
Friday, September 19, 2008; Page A06
Congregants find megachurches offer more personal worship and sense of community than smaller churches, according to a study released yesterday that challenges the conventional wisdom that some large churches are too big to offer a spiritual experience.
Researchers at the Institute for Studies of Religion, who defined megachurches as those with more than 1,000 worshipers, found that their members were twice as likely to have friends in the congregation than members of small churches. They also displayed a higher level of personal commitment to the church -- attending services and tithing more often than small-church members.
Megachurches are often criticized for having "all sorts of flaws," said Rodney Stark, co-director of the institute, based at Baylor University. "They're big . . . they're kind of cold, they have kind of like theater audiences -- all wrong."
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