There had been trials and tribulations, highs and lows, but Mortlock had much to be pleased about. He founded Bays Christian Fellowship on Auckland's North Shore in July 1982 and watched it grow and grow.

In the early 2000s, the church, now known as City Impact, built a large facility complete with a state-of-the-art 2100-seat auditorium. Along with 10 campuses in New Zealand, there are 48 mission campuses in India, plus others in the Philippines, Mexico and Tonga.

On this particular Sunday, nearly 40 years after the start of the City Impact story, Mortlock had good news and bad news.

"Since we got back together [after Covid], which has only been a month, we've had just over 500 people decide for Jesus across the Auckland campuses," he said, proudly. "That's like a statistic, but it's people. The Devil doesn't like it when you're fruitful."

Then he segued into the bad news.

"The church in New Zealand is coming under attack like never before," he declared. "Things are being said and, to be honest, unless you are a little church on the corner and not a threat to anybody, churches who are fruitful are not very popular out there in society. Neither, of course, are committed Christians.

"Nobody has the authority to pull down the church," he stated. "It's easy to find fault. The Devil is a fault-finder."

Many of those in the room and watching online knew exactly what he meant. Or rather, who he meant.

A feeling of us against the world is a persistent theme of Pentecostal Christianity. There is a sense that the Devil is an active opponent. But this was different. Who was attacking the church in New Zealand like never before?

It turned out the enemy was an individual blogger and podcaster, living in California.

The floodgates opened

David Farrier​, a New Zealander based in Los Angeles, started his Webworm newsletter two years ago. As a TV journalist and documentary maker, Farrier has sought out the weird. He likes cults, conspiracy theories and odd belief systems.

And at this point in history, there is no shortage of weirdness.

Farrier says he started getting emails about Arise Church in late 2021. They came out of the blue. He also heard from former members of Life, a large Auckland-based church, "but for whatever reason, a few people from Arise wrote these really compelling, honest emails to me".

They were stories of damage and psychological abuse. They were stories about young people who felt burnt-out and manipulated by Arise, which was founded by charismatic senior pastor John Cameron​ in Wellington in 2002 and had, like City Impact and Life, grown quickly by following what some call "the megachurch playbook". It now has churches in 12 locations in New Zealand.

Cameron had a hipper affectation and was a generation younger than the likes of Mortlock, Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki​ and Life's Paul de Jong​. They were boomers but he was Gen-X. And Arise particularly appealed to university students, who became a reliable source of labour.

Cameron told US Christian magazine Outreach in 2016 that "outreach to the universities is our number one trait. Youth and young adults are a key driving force; the engine room behind the success of the church, with many Arise Church volunteers and interns being of this age group."

He told Outreach he "aggressively marketed" the church at Wellington universities when he started. The magazine was impressed and saw it as a pathway US churches could take.

Farrier heard about what happened to interns who worked hard for the church and sometimes paid for the privilege. By late May, he had published 16 blogs about Arise, which did its best to ignore him until it couldn't.

Other media, including Stuff, RNZ and TVNZ, followed up his stories.

RNZ repeated lurid allegations that John Cameron's brother, Brent, also a pastor, would get naked in front of interns, call them derogatory names and boast to colleagues about it.

Stuff ran a story about Darshini, whose mental health deteriorated after she worked 70 hours a week while paying to be an Arise intern. She was told she was choosing to be depressed and, after suffering a psychotic episode, was told she could no longer attend church or contact pastors and staff.

An Arise Church spokesperson said her claims were "inaccurate".

It was not just Arise. A TVNZ story about C3, a global church with campuses in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and other centres, said interns were driven so hard they were "on the brink of a mental breakdown".

After staying quiet, Cameron finally admitted he was "broken and devastated by these stories" and launched a review of the experiences of interns. Christchurch counsellor Charlotte Cummings​, who is leading the review, says more than 500 people made submissions.

Cameron temporarily stepped down from his pastoral duties and both he and Brent resigned from the board. The law firm Duncan Cotterill was called in to review management and employment matters, and Cameron and his wife Gillian​, who is also a pastor, went on extended leave.

City Impact was not the only church paying attention to the case of the media and the megachurch. Continue reading

A pre-pandemic, national survey of megachurches from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research found the median megachurch draws about 4,100 attenders to its worship services, up from about 3,700 in 2015.

The average megachurch budget is $5.3 million, up from $4.7 million in 2015. Seven out of 10 have more than one location. Six out of 10 (58%) say they have a multiracial congregation.

Despite the decline among Christian groups overall, most megachurches seem to be doing well, said Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary and director of Hartford Institute.

"They continue to do things that other congregations should be doing," Thumma said.

Thumma said the use of contemporary worship — along with a focus on small groups and international diversity — has helped megachurches continue to grow.

Megachurches, in general, he said, also tend to steer clear of controversy, staying away from culture wars or political battles.

According to the survey:

• few megachurches said they distribute voter guides (14%),
• encourage voter registration (14%),
• participate in get-out-the-vote efforts,
• sixty-three percent said their church avoids political discussions when they gather,
• one in 5 said their congregation is politically active,
• two-thirds disagree when asked if "everyone in this congregation has the same political position.

Thumma said the growing diversity in megachurches reflects the changing demographics of the United States. Megachurches, he said, also attract younger worshippers than other kinds of churches.

"Megachurches are one of the few groups of churches that have a wide representation of people under 45," he said. People in that age group, he said, tend to be more demographically diverse and more open to diversity. More than three-quarters of the churches (78%) in the survey said they were intentionally trying to become more diverse.

Still, Thumma pointed out, megachurch pastors themselves are not a diverse group. The average megachurch pastor is a 53-year-old white man who has been in place for 15 years. And many are in danger of losing effectiveness as leaders, he said.

According to the survey, most megachurches experience their biggest growth when their pastor has been in place for between five and 19 years. After 20 years, the growth drops off. The survey also found that after 15 years, a megachurch's spiritual health begins to fail.

"The gist is that the period between 10 and 15 years of a pastor's tenure produces the most spiritually vital congregational dynamic," according to the report. "Prior to and after that point, it is a less robust picture, on average."

Thumma said that after 10 or 15 years, megachurches need to reassess to see if the way they are operating still meets the needs of the community around them. After that much time, things have likely changed and the church may have fallen into a rut.

"You can't live on your charisma and assume the church is just going to keep flourishing and flourishing," he said.

Among other findings:

• Only two-thirds (68%) of megachurch attendees show up on any given Sunday, down from 82% in 2015 and 90% in 2000.
• Half (51%) cooperate with other churches on community service projects.
• One in 5 (21%) cooperate with people of other faith traditions on community service.
• One in 5 (19.1%) declined by at least 2% in the last five years.
• Sixteen percent merged with another church.
• Just over half (56%) had between 1,800 and 2,999 average attenders per week, while 5% had more than 10,000 attenders.
• The average megachurch offered about seven services a week.
• Twenty-eight percent have paid, professional security at services. Thirty-eight percent have volunteer security.
• Two-thirds (65%) of megachurches identify as evangelical.
• Twelve percent identify as Pentecostal or charismatic.
• Twelve percent identify as "missional."
• Seven percent identify as liberal, moderate or progressive.
• Thumma said that overall, megachurches seem to be growing less comfortable with the term "evangelical" and are more open than in the past to working with those they disagree with on theological or political matters.

"You can see them moving ever so slightly toward the middle," he said.

The survey included 580 megachurches with an average weekly attendance of 1,800 adults and children or more, and was part of the larger Faith Communities Today study. The survey was conducted from January until May 2020. The study was conducted by the Hartford Institute along with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and Leadership Network.

The full survey can be found at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research website.

• Bob Smietana is a veteran religion writer and editor-in-chief of Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Ahead of the Trend is a collaborative effort between Religion News Service and the Association of Religion Data Archives made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.

A small church pastor asked me that question recently. Not from cynicism or unkindness. It was out of genuine concern for a reality he saw.

To be honest, it's a reality we all see. The vast majority of unhealthy churches are small. That's unarguably true. What's not true is his concern that most small churches are unhealthy.

It's About Math, Not Health
There's a very clear explanation as to why there are so many more unhealthy small churches than unhealthy big churches.

90 percent of unhealthy churches are small because 90 percent of ALL churches are small.

It's that simple. Small churches outnumber megachurches by such massive amounts that there are more of every kind of small church than there are of the same kinds of megachurches.

Let's turn that inside-out to see the other side of the same truth.

Less than 1 percent of unhealthy churches are megachurches because less than 1 percent of ALL churches are megachurches.

There are 90 unhealthy small churches to every unhealthy megachurch because small churches outnumber megachurches by about 90 to 1. (The rest are medium to big churches.)

There's no evidence that small churches are more prone to ill-health than megachurches.

The abundance of unhealthy small churches compared to unhealthy megachurches is not a crisis, it's mathematically inevitable.

There's Good News In The Numbers
You're more likely to run into unhappy small church members than unhappy megachurch members - but you'll also run into more happy small church members than happy megachurch members. Why?

Healthy small churches greatly outnumber healthy megachurches. Not because small churches are inherently better, but because of the same 90-to-1 math.

So hang in there, small church pastors. Despite the abundance of unhealthy small churches, there's no need to worry that your church is more susceptible to ill-health just because it's small.

There are millions of healthy small churches throughout the world. Hopefully your church is one of them. Continue reading

• Karl Vaters is the author of the book, The Grasshopper Myth: Big Churches, Small Churches and the Small Thinking That Divides Us.