Warren Bird has an insightful story about the Bethel Church in Drachten, Netherlands. Bird begins the story this way, "The church was started in 1923. But in 1988 when leaders called 36-year-old Orlando Bottenbley as pastor, they were a deeply divided church of about 60 older people. He led them to seek God, to reconcile with each other, and to ask forgiveness from all who had left the church in pain." Today Bethel Church is about 4,000 strong in a country with only about 700,000 evangelical Christians.
You might be interested in the Hartford Seminary's database of U.S. megachurches. This database lists 1,661 churches whose sustained weekly average at their worship services is above 2,000 (though the Hartford list includes churches from 1,800). Currently there are 11 churches from our fellowship that are considered megachurches:
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In reading today's post from New Small Church blog I was momentarily stunned (but excited!) to see your name appear. You were one of my favorite professors at Cascade College and I remember fondly the Bible classes you taught. I'm glad to see how you've been keeping busy since those days.
~Kristen Himes
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