i found this map showing the geographical distribution of churches in the states larger than 2000 (avg weekly attendance) surprising. i expected to see more of a concentration in certain parts of the country, and way less dots in other places. i was surprised by the quantity in the pacific northwest and new england, and expected more of a concentration in texas and the rest of the south. the blob of dots in socal was to be expected (you can spit in any direction in orange county and hit a megachurch), and the wad around atlanta cracked me up.
(ht to stephen shields)
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I found the little cluster around D.C. the most surprising. It’s always interesting to see stuff like this, though. It kind of challenges your presuppositions.
I’m not sure these numbers are correct.
there are more than 1300 mega churches in the us and there are way more than 2 mega churches in tulsa…
if I ‘m reading this right.
I actually didn’t find the chart that eye opening. I could name those 4-5 megachurches in boston, and there are only two in Connecticut, so I don’t know if that’s “a lot” in New England. Otherwise it seems to me that you just look at for large cities and you have large churches.
Perhaps I’m missing something?
not eye-opening, just a little surprising! :)
riddle: don’t know. it’s in the new york times; they’re usually pretty good about fact-checking. hey, i’m just posting something that looks interesting.
calvin: i mis-wrote (spoke). i guess it’s not new england that i meant, but all of the north east, north of DC. us westerners (and mid-westerners, where i grew up) tend to think of the NE as not having as many thriving churches.
that said, i almost didn’t post this because it wasn’t that overly interesting to me, and i don’t really care that much about megachurches (and really don’t want to perpetuate the notion that because a church is big they must be both doing something great, and doing something worthy of copying). but, i thought the distribution was interesting. like i said, i expected much more of a concentration throughout the south.
Here I sit in the heart of Central New York with no little black dot within a 1.5 hour drive!
This might be a great sales pitch for moving to South Dakota, “Land of no mega churches.”
Some one better get working on some of those states and plant a mega-church. They are missing out!!
I’m Kidding.
it would be interesting to see this map over top of a population density map.
Is that a booger on San Diego? JK.
//TC//
Hey! So Dak is a great place! Don’t bring those mega-churches here!
I find it interesting how negatively so many view large churches. Is it not possible for a large church to be large because it’s growing, healthy, spirit-filled and spirit led? ‘Big’ church does not neccesarily equal ‘bad’ church.
(also, if you look carefully at the key on the map it’s not ‘number of megachurches’ it’s ‘number of megachurches per 100 000 people’)
This must explain why Orange County is so holy.