Community Christian Church

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Biblical Proportions

Mega Churches are growing in Naperville and across the nation

Publsihed November 29, 2004 - The Naperville Sun

By: Ron Pazola

The white cross looms off Route 59 in sharp contrast to the materialistic mecca of restaurants, retail stores and shopping malls that can be found a few miles to the north. Ongoing construction seen from the highway will soon add buildings and parking spaces to the sprawling church campus. DuPage County sheriff's deputies direct traffic as cars leave the parking lot after a recent Sunday worship service. Inside the red brick church building, worshippers stream into the stadium-like auditorium for the next prayer service. A green curtain opens in front of the room, revealing a choir of 50 men and women singing and swaying onstage.

Meanwhile, people — some holding leather-bound Bibles — watch the service on large video screens in the vast main hallway outside the auditorium. Compact discs and cassette tapes of each service are for sale nearby.   The above scene describes a typical Sunday morning at Calvary Church in Aurora. But Calvary is not just another neighborhood church. Although it started with only a few families meeting each week for Bible study, the congregation has grown to 4,000 members, who worship and fraternize in a facility that is also expanding through a multimillion-dollar project. With numbers that high, Calvary is not considered a church, but a megachurch."I don't argue with anyone who says that we are too big," said Mark Burgund, one of the pastors at Calvary. "But we're not the only church in town. People have choices."

Yet numbers and vast physical space aren't obstacles for many of the worshippers at "supersized" congregations. Megachurches continue to grow — last year by 4 percent, according to John Vaughn, founder of Church Growth Today — a Bolivar, Mo., organization that tracks megachurches. Vaughn counts about 800 non-Catholic congregations in the United States that meet the 2,000-member standard of a megachurch. While Texas has three of the largest, the institutions have spread across the country, largely in the suburbs of big cities. And while they represent a small percentage of churches in the United States, the numbers are growing. In 1970, there were 10 megachurches nationwide; in 2000 there were 500, Vaughn said. Today there are 850. Twenty-five of today's megachurches are in Illinois. Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas — already the fastest-growing congregation in the country, with more than 30,000 members — will reopen in the spring in the Compaq Center, a former sports stadium that was home to the city's basketball and hockey teams. The renovation is costing $75 million. As far as Chicago-area megachurches go, Calvary is much smaller than the gigantic Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. According to Church Growth Today, Willow Creek — which has satellite churches in West Chicago, Northfield and Crystal Lake — is the 11th-largest church in the United States. More than 17,500 people attend its weekend services, in contrast to the 125 people who participated in the church's first Sunday service in 1979.

The church building covers 404,000 square feet, and the main auditorium seats 4,540. An even larger auditorium with 7,200 seats opened in September. While most megachurches construct megabuildings, the nondenominational Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows — with a membership of 6,000 and satellite churches in Glen Ellyn, Crystal Lake, Vernon Hills and Rockford and another outside Toronto — uses pre-existing facilities. In 1995, Harvest bought and moved into a 100,000-square-foot former Home Depot warehouse. "There are so many vacant buildings out there," Fecht said. "We think it's good stewardship to make use of those buildings."

All things great and small

Like most megachurches, Calvary started small. In 1967, about 100 people began to worship in a little wood-frame church building at 129 W. Benton Ave. About 10 years later, the church moved to 1155 W. Aurora Ave., with 1,000 members. The church has been at 9S200 Route 59 since 1994, growing from 2,000 to 4,000 participants. Soon, the 190,000-square-foot church will become even larger. Calvary, which was annexed to Aurora last year, is near completion of a $24 million expansion that includes a 25-classroom school opening Nov. 29, a chapel and several large-group rooms on 120 acres. When it's all done, Calvary will have a 315,000-square-foot facility. The church's current sanctuary seats 2,500 people. If Calvary grows any bigger in the near future, the church simply will add more weekend services. But when Calvary can no longer accommodate its expanding congregation, church leaders may have to think about moving on with the last part of their master plan — constructing a larger sanctuary on the south side of the property.

Burgund said the growth of Calvary isn't a mystery. "The church grew because there was a sense of community and a desire to worship together and spread the Gospel," he said. "People are drawn to that." And Burgund makes no apologies about Calvary's size. "We can accomplish what a small church can't," he said. "This year the church donated almost $2 million to its missions. We couldn't have done that if our church was still on Benton Avenue." According to a Hartford Institute study, megachurches also are known for their marketing savvy. In 1999, about 47 percent spread their message through conferences, 44 percent use radio and 38 use percent television. The Hartford study also found that megachurches are highly successful at bringing in funds, averaging a net of annual income of $4.8 million. Many megachurches, the study said, have 10 to 20 assistant ministers, from 30 to 250 full-time staff members and up to 2,000 volunteers. The budgets of the smallest of the megachurches are at least $2 million a year. Calvarys 16 full-time pastors, seven directors and 15 secretaries, Burgund said. There are 10 to 20 paid part-timers and 1,500 volunteers at the church.

Although Burgund declined to disclose Calvary's yearly budget, he said 95 percent of the operational funding comes from donations, with 75 percent to 80 percent of that coming from tithing. Congregation members are expected to tithe 15 percent of their annual salary to the church. The church receives no funding from the Assemblies of God, the denomination Calvary belongs to.

Naperville resident Lyle Schaller, a Methodist minister and church consultant, said megachurches are successful because they make the effort to connect with their members. "Obligation has been replaced by holding your attention as far as church attendance goes," Schaller said. "Megachurches are good at speaking to where people are in their spiritual journeys. They challenge people to grow in their faith and show them how to do that." According to Calvary's leaders, the church has the resources to offer 100 small groups that minister to people of various ages and interests. "One of the great challenges of a megachurch is to make it small," said Ben De Boef, pastor of small groups at Calvary. "Megachurches can be intimidating places. A small group can help people build community with each other and also allow them to connect with the larger congregation." De Boef, who grew up in a church of 200 in Iowa, started a sports program at Calvary three and a half years ago that offers soccer, basketball, softball, children's soccer, aerobics and martial arts. "We use the sports program for evangelization," De Boef said. "The program is a great connector." Other small groups, which are built around such special interests as gardening, scrapbooking, fishing and media arts, meet twice a month at homes, restaurants and coffeehouses.

Relationships key to success

Roger Hunt, who has been a member of Calvary from its beginning 35 years ago, has witnessed the growth of the church from a small Bible study group of 10 or 15 to its megachurch status. For him the building of community is rooted in the church's small discussion groups. "We try to transition people who have just joined Calvary into a small group so they won't feel overwhelmed," Hunt said. Hunt belongs to an empty-nesters group that started two years ago. The group is made up of couples whose children are grown. Many of the members now have grandchildren. At a recent meeting, the group ate supper together at the house of one of the members. After the meal, the men played the women in a game in which they tried to guess various categories — TV shows, children's books, items from the Bible — by drawing the categories on a large piece of paper. Bud Joy of Downers Grove belongs to the empty-nesters group, as well as a men's group.

"You can open up in a small group in a way that you can't in a church lobby," he said. "Sometimes someone in the group will bring up a problem and ask for prayer and some peace of mind. The people in the group may talk about a relationship that has fallen apart or a family member who is addicted to alcohol or drugs."  Still, megachurches aren't for everyone. Schaller said some people feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of them, even though they offer opportunities to build smaller communities. Other people prefer liturgical services, characterized by ritual and symbol, altars and crosses. Others find the church is weakened when the founding pastor, who has a dynamic, charismatic personality, retires from the church after many years. Some even doubt if megachurches are meeting people's deepest spiritual needs. Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life at Boston College, said there are other negative aspects of megachurches. "Some critics say megachurches dumb down theology," he noted. "These churches don't present an overly complex theological view. They promise their followers certainty. Their message is that Jesus is the answer to everything, but people of other faiths are just as certain about the truth of their religion and maintain that Jesus is not the only way or even the main way to salvation."

The nondenominational Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows has a different philosophy of attracting members. Instead of targeting the "unchurched," people who have been disconnected, disillusioned or hurt by organized religion, Harvest stands on their belief in the Bible. "We are not a seeker church," said Jill Fecht, pastoral assistant at the Harvest Bible Chapel satellite in Glen Ellyn. "We don't target the unchurched. Our church is for people who want to listen to the Word of God. We preach the Bible without apology."

But Community Christian Church in Naperville is a seeker church. Communicating and connecting with people who ordinarily don't go to worship services is crucial for Community Christian, the second-largest Protestant church in Naperville. The nondenominational congregation started in 1989 and rented various locations before it moved into its 26,000-square-foot building on its main campus of 7 acres at Ogden Avenue and Rickert Drive in 2001. Church members call the structure "the yellow box" because of its appearance. With its 3,500 members, Community Christian has joined the ranks of area megachurches. "We believe we are growing because we want to bring Christ into the lives of people in meaningful ways," said Troy McMahon, one of the pastors. Community Christian, which has six locations in the area, has doubled its congregation in the past three years, McMahon said. To accommodate the growing number of people participating in the worship services, a 10 a.m. Sunday service has been held at Naperville North High School since April. Community Christian held its services at the school before its Naperville campus was completed three years ago.

The church expects to complete its new children's and arts center at its south campus in Romeoville by fall, even as it makes plans to expand its facility in Naperville, with additional meeting space slated for completion in 2006. The construction of a new auditorium and training center for the arts will begin in five years. McMahon attributes the church's success to building relationships and emphasizing the arts, which makes interactive use of lively music, PowerPoint images, videos and preaching. In previous services, worshippers formed objects out of clay or held a nail and thorn in their hands to meditate on Christ's suffering. "We just don't focus on one medium of communication," McMahon said. "We use a variety of forms to communicate God's message. There are many ways we can connect with God as a community. Our goal is to take people at the level of faith they are at and build on that."