Megapastoring

Christian Century, May 8, 2002

JOHN DART has done a great service for the church with his article "Wanted: megapastors" (April 10-17). Seldom has the emptiness of our ecclesiology been so baldly and clearly described. We have not only been seduced by our culture, we no longer know or understand what it means to be called by baptism into the one, holy catholic and apostolic church.

The article would have been better served if it had announced itself as "examples of idolatry." Do we hear what we say when "the heart and soul of these churches are the small groups and that the worship service was just the common celebration"? Dare we ask what we are "celebrating"? And when we talk about "interim leadership" do we really hear what that implies?

The sidebar on "Schuller's glass act" is even more pathetic. To claim, as Robert Schuller insists, that he is the founder of the megachurch and that his "biorealistic designs will never die" tells us more about him than we would ever want to know.

Lloyd D. Buss
Rochester Hills, Mich.

I was deeply disappointed to read the remarks of Jerry Van Marter about my father, W. Frank Harrington, in John Dart's article "Wanted: Megapastors." My father, who died three years ago, was described as having "a huge ego ... and it served his purposes to keep every member on the rolls." I was glad that no other megachurch pastor received that kind of breathtaking criticism in the article.

It would be very rare to find any person who has achieved much and left a strong mark behind him in death who did not have a strong ego. That is part of what makes any megachurch pastor a success. Along with what Van Marter describes as a "huge ego," he had a huge capacity to love, to forgive, to pastor, to comfort, to strengthen and to guide. He had a huge capacity to pour himself out as well. We need more huge pastors like that, egos and all.

Vicki Harrington
Franch
Atlanta, Ga.