The Rise of Mega-Church Efforts in International Development

This paper was published in Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, published by the Oxford Centre for World Mission, in April 2009.

Abstract: Evangelical ‘mega-churches’ are awakening to the importance of tackling poverty and social issues even as they continue their focus on evangelism and church planting. As a result, they are moving into carrying out their own development efforts globally, emphasizing direct relationships with churches in the developing world. This is changing their engagement with the ‘professional’ evangelical development organizations, leading the mega-churches to search and experiment with development methods, approaches, and choice of issues, and bringing them up against questions and challenges inherent in development work.