More Mega-Churches: New research reveals that their may be 1200 or more mega churches in the U.S. rather than the widely assumed 850 count. A cooperative project by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and the Leadership Network discovered the discrepancy when the two groups, each of which keeps a separate list of megachurches, compared their records and realized that there were about 350 churches not on both lists. Preliminary analysis of their data finds: (1) The 1,200 churches represent just 0.75% of all congregations. (2) The megachurches account for more than 5 million weekly attendees, and possibly as many as eight to 12 million members. (3) Megachurches are found in 45 out of 50 states. (4) The states with the most megachurches are Texas with 174, California with 169, Florida with 83 and Georgia with 64. (5) The greatest number of megachurches are nondenominational or Southern Baptist. (PWB 7/29/03)
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