EXPANDING UNIVERSE:Caught in the Oldest Sin of the Mega Church

by Stephen Kiesling

It is a big deal among evangelicals to be among Outreach magazine’s “100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches.” Perhaps so big a deal that the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas — listed as #15 in 2007, with a whopping 30 percent growth rate — was discovered to have reported 18,000 weekly visits on the 2006 top-100 list, yet only 13,000 weekly visits in 2007. That sort of “mistake” turned out to be made by 12 of the 19 mega churches that appear on both the 2006 and 2007 lists.

Outreach, which says it “accurately reported the numbers as we have received them,” is printing a new list. Explains Dan Gilgoff, senior editor of U.S. News & World Report, such misrepresentations are made for the most ungodly reasons: “Media attention, political influence, and money.”