Now, personally, I don't rock with the little small storefront churches either. Right. I don't want to be in a church where it's the pastor, his family, and me. Right. Because then I believe you get too personal. Like you all in my business then. But the mega churches lose to me the personality of a church. And that's what the church is, is really the people
But he's part of whatever denomination of Christianity that we were in when I was a kid, which was assemblies of God. Oddly enough, the hillsong people are assemblies of God people and good people to every church that I went to. Assembly of God was amazing. I had an amazing experience at assembly of God, living waters christian academy when I was in the kindergarten and first grade
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 3:26
I mean, we've got 1600 mega churches in the US, some of them with upwards of 10,000, 20,000 people. Someone like your grandmother, someone like my mother should be taken care of, not the other way around. Not these women or these elderly men supporting the church and building up the pastor's wealth. They should be taken care of. Lay back, relax. These churches should be building senior housing
People love to praise and worship there. I'm about ready to move on, maybe go to South America, preach the good news there. It, I mean, missionary work, I think, is the path. And right now I'm preaching the way I'm preaching the good news, and I'm hoping for a revival. That's all I got. I'm just working. I'm just doing the Lord's work. Ain't asking for nothing from nobody
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:42
So that part of it I didn't really care for at all. I would have much rather attended a revival where the live speakers were right there in the house instead of me having to come and praise and worship. And then by satellite, here comes guest speaker number one and all that stuff. And then you had to come back every night to hear each guest speaker. So, yeah, I didn't really care for some of that. And I know that's not the case with every megachurch
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:49
I'm not one of those folks that feel like it's got to be us and five other folks and the pastor. And you got to do like six different jobs in the church because you ain't got nobody. I was part of mega churches like that. The first pentecostal church I ever attended was a small family church. They had just been in ministry for a year. But we grew as a church and it was fun and exciting watching it grow from 1112 people to 150 people
I've seen a pastor and an Aman and Sierra Leone just holding hands and having a good time. Just everything about it. Like, there's no question. There's no question. If there isn't something else out there, there's no question that it's like the spirituality, the belief that there's something better on the horizon is the only thing that gets a human being through the day
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 5:00
And I would say if an elevation church is doing great things in their various neighborhoods with their various campuses, that's great. But you would think, and I'm just saying, I mean, if you're talking 1600 mega churches in the US, even if they're times the minimum number of members, 2000, that's a lot of christians who are supposed to be the hands and feet of Christ
We need to be that representation of not a religion, not building or a pastor or no doctrine or no one man's person. We have a gospel that we follow. It's very simple. Me, this woman above you, Ange, everybody. Everybody's talking on this. Nobody's going to hop in here and start yelling at us and tell us that we don't know what we're talking about. I'll tell you right now, we need more women in the church
It's crazy. There's a lot of stories out there. I've also got a pastor from Texas, beautiful man. He's getting up every day and just reading a verse from the Bible. And I link up with him and he's got an amazing story. He's a musician. He's been living for God. And I'm carrying on with people about politics and music. Nobody is pretending that we're not going to face a really rough time in the next
Evelyn Phipps
@LadyFi · 3:03
It. Hey, I wasn't going to answer this because it took me a while to really, really think about it because I belong to a megachurch, the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, the house of Hope. But it didn't start out that way
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 3:47
And so when churches grow organically like that, I can rock with it. I can rock with it. So thank you so much for offering your points of view. It certainly makes sense. Everything you said, and I agree with you the smaller churches. No, like you probably would think my church is small because of what you're used to, but that's okay because you're used to, again, a large metropolitan area as opposed to the town I'm from in Connecticut
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 3:47
They're not really big on church or any of that. They just want a church to go to. Or if they're there just because they want to say they're a part of this church. I go to Potter's house. I go to newburst missionary. They just want to say that. Just to say it. And they don't really care about any of the other stuff. They're just going to be a Sunday warrior
phil spade
@Phil · 4:25
That's one. Secondly, I lived in a medium sized city out of college, and there was one particular megachurch there that a lot of people belong to. And I knew neighbors, and I worked with a few people that belonged to this church. And without fail, everybody I met from this church had a holier than thou attitude. Like, they went to the church, and if you didn't go to the church, then you were below them. And it was that pervasive attitude
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 3:18
And again, if there's, like you said, the wealthy pastors who still offer, who still ask for money, and I say that because I've seen mega churches who have huge television ministries that go nationally, internationally, and at the end of a program, it could be a 30 minutes program, they are always asking for money. Partner, partner, partner. And I just wonder, what is the point in having that many members? These are the ones that have 10,000, 20,000 members
Patrick Derns
@patasd101 · 4:40
I had a 13 year old daughter that had to go into the hospital for surgery. And we spoke to his secretary and we asked his secretary if he could come to the hospital and pray for her. We never got a phone call. Nothing from the pastor. We never heard from his secretary. And as far as I'm concerned, you had associate pastors, you had other types of clergy in the church. And no one reached out to us as a family to pray for her
You see people leaving churches because bad things happen to them and then they turn away from God. And that is not good for anyone. So that's just my opinion. Thank you for your response, though. You have a wonderful speaking voice and recording set up. Me and you are going to have to have the chat sometimes, sir
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 3:56
You. Hey, Patrick. Thank you for chiming in. First, I want to say I'm sorry that your daughter was in the hospital and nobody from the church came to visit. I mean, that breaks my heart, and I know it was years ago, but come on, that's church 101. If you can't go visit the sick and the shut in, what are you even doing? Wing? And I think that's terrible
phil spade
@Phil · 3:22
When I hear my relatives talk about some of the things, there's things to do every night within the church and they talk about which Bible study they're going to join. Not a Bible study, which Bible study. There's different Bible studies based on what you want to study. And that's definitely a benefit that I don't think a lot of the smaller churches really offer. You just have a lot more to choose from as far as activities
Evelyn Phipps
@LadyFi · 1:52
We've prayed in the neighborhoods. We've gotten drug dealers off of the corners of the neighborhoods. We've gotten places that sold alcohol and tobacco shut down in the neighborhoods, because that's all you would ever see in the neighborhoods is someplace to buy alcohol, to get drunk, or to buy a pack of cigarettes, but you wouldn't see anything else. So there are many benefits to a bigger church, more funding. You have the ability to reach more people
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 2:44
So that's another way of looking at it, another pro that that's what people have to choose from. I think at the end of the day, the fact that people, I think the fact that people want to start churches and want to join churches is the main focus. How it grows and it could grow organically and just become something mega is great. I think it's all about the heart and intentions
Trevor Hammack
@tjh · 4:54
Now, as the host of the theology Central podcast and as someone who has seven college degrees in theological studies, I have seen and heard literally everything. And when it comes to what the church is, what the church isn't, what the church should do, shouldn't do. Should a church use the regulative principle? Should the church use the normative principle? The debates have raged for 2000 years and there's still not a lot of agreement
Thanks. I'm really glad you came in. Chimed in. I'm glad to hear from you. I'm glad to hear about your podcast. Of course. Yeah, I envy the fact that you've gotten the opportunity to study religion and theology so deeply. I hope to pursue a similar path, sir. Yeah, appreciate you chiming in. I'm glad you came in here and I'm glad I got to discover you and your podcast. So I will be checking it out. Thanks
And also, to be quite honest, the catholic church is mega churches. It's been the oldest mega churches existence. I mean, is anything bigger than the catholic church? I don't think so. You guys ever watch the tutors?
Trevor Hammack
@tjh · 1:38
Thank you so very much for your reply. If I can ever be of any help or assistance in your pursuit of theological studies. Hey, send me a message. Let me know. I'll do anything I can. I was fortunate to join the United States military, and I used every single penny I could of my educational benefits to pursue theological studies. So that's what I did. I started immediately
It's well earned, sir. I'm glad that you're exercising it to its full potential, and I hope you continue to help people out when it comes to selecting their doctrine or theology or what they want to believe. In any case, you contributed nicely to this conversation. I look forward to talking to you again, so I hope you have an excellent day spent
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:55
So my other cons, mega churches, because I've now been to some other ones, there's one here in the state I'm in called world overcomers. And it's almost as if people are tied more to the fact that they attend a mega churches. The word that is in the decency and order that is happening and coming through the people that are giving the word, and there's more commitment to the pastor. And is that pastor there? I've seen posts in different forums
preethy uthup
@peeli · 3:33
But anyway, so coming to the point, what I always felt that a small church, like the church where I go in the homily and the whole community is only about 600 or even less than that, I would say. But there is a lot of cohesiveness between all of us, knowingly or unknowingly. It's not that I'm an active member of the community, but the thing is that this particular anglo indian church, there is an unknown bond