#49. Small churches that want to be megachurches

Your tiny, small church, Holy Church of All Ages and Eternity, has got a fever, and no, the only prescription is not more cowbell. I wish, that would be easy. Your church has the megachurch fever. Sadly, success in most American churches is not measured anymore by faithfulness, endurance, loyalty and truth, instead success seems to be measured by how many people are in attendance, regardless of what you have to do get them there. There's nothing wrong with a church that grows into "mega" out of a healthy and Godly growth. What's wrong is when churches grow out of manipulation.

If all you care about is numbers, not really the souls of people, then the list below is for you. But please, don't call your building a Christian church. Just call it a "Sunday morning gathering for uplifting entertainment."

Guide for the Sunday Morning Gathering Uplifting Leader

1.Preach that God wants to make you rich. Nothing gets more people in the building that someone twisting Scriptures to make it sound like God wants to make them rich. "Want a new car? Well God wants that for you too! Just visualize it! See the car! Make the sounds! Vroooom! Vroooom!"

2.Preach that you'll never get sick. This is also a popular way to increase your attendance. Tell people that since Jesus heals, then a believer must NEVER get sick. This implies that a believer then can never die, but don't follow that logic since Peter and Paul are not around anymore. If a person in the church does get sick, then blame their lack of faith.

3.Create more services. Nothing says "Mega-Church" like ambition. Just go ahead and create two more services. Who cares if no one goes except for the worship team? What matters is that your web site says that you have multiple services.

4.Minimize the talk of sin and hell. Better yet, never talk about sin, repentance or hell. Just tell everyone that God wants to make then happy. Tell them that by becoming believers, they will be rich, healthy and can attend a multiple number of services.

5.Tell them that "Love Wins." Yes, I had to go there. Just be like Rob Bell and tell your congregation that it doesn't really matter what they do, or even what they believe, in the end, everyone is going to heaven and they're going to have a big party prepared for them.

Can you think of any other ideas to make a church "mega" while compromising Christianity?