These are only the things I am aware of, there are many more, perhaps hundreds more
We support 5,000 missionaries around the world on all 7 continents.
We support Houston missions for the homeless .
We support missionaries in apartment complexes around Houston and we have a waiting list of missionaries. My wife and I are missionaries in this program and it is simply amazing. There are more than a hundred people in the field from our church and more from other churches. This program is only a year old in our church and it could become massive.
We have the best children’s program in the country.
Vacation Bible School is running 3,000 in attendance each year and is continuing to grow.
Several orgs support soldiers in the field with large boxes of stuff to make their lives a bit easier. We’re talking about hundreds of boxes.
We took care of 5,000 refugees from Katrina. We were with them in a public facility feeding and taking care of their material and spiritual needs.
Volunteers build several churches in South America per year and I think the total is above 250.
The church is Biblically based and is filled with activists looking for their next outreach project.
This is a very active church looking to bring mote people in from the darkness into His light.
And I will say that if you are an activist the church is an absolute blast. The most fun you can have while bringing more families to Jesus.
So what about the private jet? Have you hopped a ride? Been to your pastor’s mansion?
He went to a church that STARTED and TAUGHT everybody else, the megachurch model.
20 YEARS AGO he was involved with the churches Jr. High ministry. A Jr high ministry that had 600-700 kids every week. The HS ministry was running about 1200 per week at the time.20 YEARS AGO.
An auditorium that sat about 7,000 with 4 services on weekends, averaging about 18,000 people a weekend. That was BEFORE the satellite churches.
HEY...his pastor was"____ ______".
Every year they'd have a couple of major conferences where Christian leaders came from throughout the nation, even the world, to see how this game changing, cutting edge church did things.
They had an organization that other churches could be part of, so that other churches could model themselves after and market themselves as a "Church X" type of church.
After hearing his spiel for years, I started wondering who he was trying to impress. The more I heard him BRAG about HIS church, the more nauseated I got. After awhile, I really started wondering who he was trying to draw attention to? Himself and this awesome, massive church, that HE was PART of?...
Or Christ?
Because of him, today, I'm unimpressed with numbers.
I belong to a MUCH, MUCH smaller church, that is growing. I don't view growth as everything. It can and should be an indicator of God's Spirit working in the church. But NUMBERS shouldn't be ANYONE's focus.
I'm not interested in someone's CHURCH, doing this and that and that and that and this and, and, and, and...
I want to hear someone tell me what makes their heart burn for serving Christ.
That guy at that mega church. Before he tried to impress himself and others with numbers, his ministry for Jr High kids, burned inside him. You couldn't hardly talk to him without him talking about the ministry and what was going on in it and with his guys.
Does it mean that there wasn't real life change happening there??? NOT AT ALL!!!
Does it mean that the church itself wasn't about the GOSPEL, instead of numbers??? NOT AT ALL!!!
Does it mean that everybody at the church had the same view??? NOT AT ALL!!!
I have just known too many people like that guy, who get distracted by the flash and numbers.