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“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them,” Matthew 18:20.

God is among the few and He is among the many. Whether the size of a congregation is 15 or 1,500, God is with His children.

In the time of the New Testament, 15-20 people would make up the congregation of a house church, according to SmallGroups.com.

“House churches played an essential role in the rapid growth and ultimate triumph of Christianity, and it's safe to say that the first three centuries belonged to the house-church movement,” according to SmallGroups.com.

The Beginning of Megachurches

Centuries later, in the 1800s and early 1900s, Protestant churches began to form larger congregations, author and Venice Church of Christ evangelist Ethan R. Longhenry wrote in his book “A Study of Denominations.”

“Strictly speaking, a megachurch is any single Protestant congregation averaging over 2,000 people attending weekly services,” Longhenry wrote.

A Protestant church is one that believes that the Bible holds all of God’s authority, author Brian Miller wrote for ChristianMinistryEDU.org.

There are several denominations within the Protestant Church including Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostal groups which are a part of the megachurch movement, Longhenry wrote.

In 1918, Aimee Semple McPherson arrived in Los Angeles, California and began a modern Pentecostal renewal movement which drew in thousands of people, Gary Krist wrote for the Los Angeles Times.

“Her Angelus Temple — built in the early 1920s at the north end of Echo Park Lake, and still in use — became arguably the nation’s first megachurch,” Krist wrote.

Scott Neuman wrote in an article for NPR that there are about 1,800 megachurches in the United States, as of the year 2023.

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Saddleback Megachurch

Saddleback Church is one of the 1,800 megachurches that are spread throughout the nation. Rick and Kay Warren founded the first Saddleback campus located in Lake Forest, California in 1980. By 2022, the Lake Forest campus had over 20,000 members, according to Britannica.

Since its establishment, Saddleback Church has strived to achieve their mission of being a home for the hurt and hopeless, providing them with God’s Word so that they may outreach to others, current senior pastor of Saddleback, Andy Wood, wrote for Outreach 100.

“Every church must eventually decide whether it will be structured for control or structured for growth,” Warren wrote in “The Purpose Driven Church.”

Warren urged churches to introduce creativity in God’s people, according to The Christ Centered Life. Through creativity, Saddleback was able to live out the following statement that Warren mentioned in his book: “Turning members into ministers.”

The success of Saddleback, though, is centered around Warren’s belief that church growth can only happen if the church is healthy, according to The Christ Centered Life.

“Saddleback is clearly alive and effective, as it reaches out to people, brings them in and then sends them back out again,” according to The Christ Centered Life.

Saddleback established an online presence starting as far back as 2005, and by 2012, they had 83 online services, according to Faith and Leadership. Having an online presence encourages people around the world to grow spiritually and relationally with other Christians, according to Delmethod.

Saddleback has planted 21 churches in locations including Germany, Argentina, China and the Philippines. They have baptized over 56,000 new believers and have sent more than 26,000 church members to serve in 197 nations, according to Baptist News Global.

Whether people attend a Sunday service at Saddleback or not, the church reaches out to thousands of people in the United States and around the world to spread the Word of God.

Struggles Megachurches Face

While Saddleback is evidence a megachurch can thrive, modern-day megachurches can struggle with caring for all individuals.

The late Tim Keller, founder of the megachurch Redeemer Presbyterian Church, made a Facebook post in 2022 explaining why he chose to split Redeemer into multiple congregations rather than having one megachurch under a single successor. “Megachurches can often be too large to provide pastoral care for people,” Keller wrote.

“In general, they are poor places for formation and pastoral care due to their size,” Keller wrote. “In our current cultural moment that is a deadly problem because Christians are being more formed by social media than local Christian community.”

Mega churches can fall into the habit of relying too heavily on the founder, Keller wrote.

“Because megachurches tend to grow fast under a founder, they usually depend too much on the gifts and personality of that founder so the sooner that addictive dependence is broken, the better,” Keller wrote.

Certain mega churches will form an unhealthy codependency on its pastor, which will sometimes result in the pastor experiencing a burnout, and thus, the church as a whole declines, Dan Foster, facilitator of The Backyard Church Online and author of “Leaving Church, Finding God” and “Limbo Land: Poems from the In-Between,” wrote.

Just as the congregation becomes attached to their pastor, the pastor may become too attached to their congregation, according to Keller’s Facebook post.

“Keller, in his astute observations, points out that these founders begin to view the church as their very own possession, a living embodiment of their ego and self-image,” Foster wrote.

If the founder of a mega church makes the decision to retire, their successor often faces scrutiny and constant comparison from the congregation, Keller wrote.

“It’s lose-lose for them and the movement,” Keller wrote.

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Continuing Expansion

Saddleback has become an important aspect of church history and it is necessary to take note of the megachurch’s successes, such as its outreach missions around the globe, as well as its areas for growth.

The way a church is organized and run impacts the way the congregation can connect with the gospel and in turn, the way they can spread the gospel to others. Saddleback is a good example of a successful church that ministers to its congregation and to others around the world.

Megachurches have a large public-facing platform which allows them to spread their message of salvation to a global audience, impacting countless people. However, being under the public eye can put pressure on the megachurch and its pastor to maintain a certain image – which can lead to challenges such as a temptation to prioritize popularity over authenticity or succumbing to poor teaching in order to appeal to a broader audience, Eddie Kaufholz wrote for Relevant.

The question now is how can the church navigate this balance, ensuring that its expansive reach remains true to its foundational principles?

Shelby grew up in the Bay Area in California. She is currently a junior studying Journalism and Integrated Media with a Concentration in Writing and Publishing at Biola University. She hopes to pursue a career as a writer or editor.