“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” -Timothy 6:9.

Followers of Christ should not aim for wealth, riches, or baleful actions, yet megachurches and their attendees have been proven to do so…

Every Sunday morning, crowds of people pour into colossal churches that resemble concert venues more than traditional places of worship. Inside, the blinding laser lights, booming music, and charismatic speakers create a party-like atmosphere rather than a spiritual gathering.

Beneath these modern churches that seemingly offer inspiration and hope lies a more troubling reality: the rise of megachurches has shifted Christianity from humble reflections and close-knit communities to a commercialized social group.

The term megachurch refers to a church with an attendance of 2,000 or more people. Within the last decade, megachurches have made a significant increase in the number of attendees. In 2024, an average of 7 million people across the United States attended a megachurch weekly. In addition, statistics have shown that megachurches are growing rapidly, specifically attracting a younger audience.

As someone who has gone to small, local churches since the age of six, the idea of megachurches sparked curiosity within me. 

For context, I have been a Christian my whole life. I lived in a small town in New Jersey where I also attended a small and local church with fewer than 100 attendees. When I moved to Nebraska in 2018, I started attending another small church, Korean Presbyterian Church of Omaha (KPCO), which is a little bigger than my old church.

After being hooked into the idea of megachurches from several outside sources, I started to look into larger churches in our local area. I found that these churches in the Elkhorn area have been able to make significant impacts on peoples’ lives.

However, one particular church stood out to me. Relevant, a local church in Elkhorn, is a popular church among many teens. They provide two morning services each Sunday and additionally have small groups for elementary, middle school, high school, and college students. Relevant has grown significantly in the past couple of years, reaching just over 2,500 attendees according to their website which barely makes them a megachurch.

“Relevant makes faith easy to follow, and it gets me excited for church,” sophomore Jamie Vogel said. “The lessons they do make it fun for everyone, and it’s a lot easier to understand compared to other churches I’ve been to.”

In addition to Relevant, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) at Elkhorn North High School is a popular club that many participants of Relevant join. They meet on Wednesdays at 7:20 in the morning before school to focus on their faith.

“Since student-athletes are really busy, they have a tough time being involved in some youth groups and other things that might be important to their faith,” math teacher Spencer Peterson, who hosts the meetings in his room, said. “FCA is an opportunity for them to meet with other people that have their same faith but can also share the same thing of being an athlete together.”

With FCA and Relevant being a strong factor of faith at Elkhorn North, I decided to attend a Sunday service at Relevant so I could form my own opinion. From my experience, the service had a strong message, and it was obvious that the pastor had a powerful willingness to spread the word of God to everyone there. However, there were a few things that caught my attention.

Before I say anything more, I want to preface that I do not believe that all megachurches, or Relevant specifically, are bad. Everything I state relating to some specific megachurches or megachurches as a whole is not reflective of Relevant or its members.

The first thing I noticed was the general size and atmosphere of Relevant. Compared to my church, KPCO, Relevant was about triple the size. With the large size of Relevant, small details from my own church, like providing Bibles and having a meal together, were not present.

I also noticed that people at megachurches, like Relevant, have a tendency to create closed off cliques within enormous communities. This can make it hard for newcomers to feel welcomed when they first attend a service.

“The Bible says a lot about building a strong community of believers together,” senior Evan Olijnek said. “However, in my opinion, megachurches take that to the extreme where there are too many people for you to completely connect with someone on a personal level.”

Though Relevant is a smaller megachurch compared to others, larger megachurches, like Lakewood Church in Houston or North Point Community Church in a suburb of Atlanta, can reach up to an average of 43,500 people weekly. This colossal number of people have started to accumulate concerns about modern Christianity.

After attending the service at Relevant, I researched more about megachurches. Over the past few months, a multitude of people online have spoken up about several drawbacks of megachurches and what effects they had on their attendees.

One common theme that many people have noticed, including myself, is that socialization has become a strong factor in worship attendances. Although socialization is encouraged and benefits many people, interactions between friends have a tendency to disengage them from the real sermon.

“I think with any church you go to nowadays, mainly bigger churches, people are only there for social purposes,” sophomore Makenzie Webster said. “It is still a good thing, but it is less on the view of God.”

There have been a multitude of conversations I’ve listened to where other kids have talked about going to church just to hang out with their friends. With teens going to church to only socialize with their friends, attendees in megachurches have started to come off as performative. 

While I agree that it’s okay for teens to be with friends at church, especially when it helps boost their mood and confidence, there’s an extent to socialization that limits the ability to worship and praise God. Church should be a place of belonging and reassurance rather than a building where teens go to fit in with the crowd.

More examples of this concern can be found on social media. On TikTok, many girls have been seen expressing their excitement to meet guys or disclose trending drama occurring at their church. In addition, “get ready with me for church” videos have been circulating all over social media. In these videos, girls appear to act a certain way so that they can gain more views and likes rather than trying to spread more about the gospel.

Another extremely disturbing topic that has not been talked about enough is sexual harassment and assault inside churches, especially megachurches.

A prime and recent example is the case of Robert Morris. Morris was a 64 year old megachurch pastor at Gateway Church, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, when he was charged with five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child on Oct. 2, 2025. The victim was only 12 years old when she got groomed and sexually abused by Morris. This continued on for more than four years and took over 40 years to finally be disclosed.

Though this story is disheartening, it is not unique nor uncommon. Thousands of cases of sexual abuse have been reported within churches, many of which have been megachurches.

“Megachurches get away with a lot of bad things, and sexual assault is one of those many things,” Webster said. “It is so common, but nobody likes to talk about it because those actions are opposite of what megachurches advocate.”

Furthermore, some Christians, primarily teenagers and young adults who attend megachurches, tend to justify bad behaviors with their faith. For example, many teens online have been seen partying, drinking, or even committing crimes on Saturday nights but then worshiping at megachurches on the following Sunday evening. Though it may not happen around the Elkhorn area, it’s common in other places.

However, these bad behaviors don’t just come from attendees of these churches. Many pastors across megachurches have been seen following the same trend of using the money from the church for their own benefits. 

One example is Creflo Dollar, a pastor who started a donation at the church he worked at for a 65 million dollar private jet. Dollar received harsh criticism, yet people still donated money. Countless other stories have been spread of pastors at megachurches taking the profit they earn to live lavish and extravagant lives rather than giving back to the community.

All these small details and concerns circulating megachurches not only paint a poor picture for large-scaled churches, but for the religion as a whole.

God is community, not crowds.

God is presence, not performance.

God is compassion, not profit.

God is comfort, not a celebrity.

God is love, not indifference to suffering.

True faith is found in how we treat one another, not in the size of the building or the spectacle on stage. As we continue to grow, megachurches will not go away.

Whether in a small congregation or a large megachurch, the true purpose of a church should remain unchanged: it is meant to be a sanctuary and a safe place where people can seek spiritual growth, genuine connection, and unconditional support.