About Adam
Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. He grew up in the Kansas City area, attending Shawnee Mission schools before graduating from Blue Valley High School. He earned a B.A. degree in Pastoral Ministry from Oral Roberts University and a Master of Divinity Degree from Perkins School of [...]
Writings and Sermons
Adam Hamilton has written eight books with a ninth, Enough: Discovering Joy through Simplicity and Generosity, due for publication March of 2009. He is a regular contributor to Leadership Journal and has written numerous articles and position papers on issues ranging from church leadership, to Christian ethics. Adam’s sermons are also available through [...]
Speaking Engagements
Adam regularly speaks on leadership and faith in a variety of settings. We’ll be posting his upcoming speaking engagements after the first of the year. He also preaches each weekend at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. You can listen to his sermons here, or you can download [...]
Methodism’s Largest Churches
I recently received the list of every United Methodist Church with more than 60 in weekly worship attendance. The General Council on Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church collects this information. The data is 15 months old, but is the most current information available. I thought you might find some of this interesting.
There are somewhere around 33,000 United Methodist Churches in the United States. 14,423 have more than 60 per weekend in worship, and approximately 19,000 have less than 60 in weekly worship attendance. I meet with the pastors of the top 100 churches every year to discuss ways that we can be a part of the renewal of our denomination. Last year the 100th largest church had 1,280 per Sunday in worship attendance. This year the 100th largest has 1,299 per weekend – which tells me that the largest churches in the denomination are getting larger. This is seen at the top of that list as well. We now have 8 churches with over 4,000 per weekend in worship attendance – several years ago there were only 5 churches in that size.
The top ten by worship attendance:
Church name: Metro Area/ State: Pastor’s name : Worship att:
Church of the Resurrection Kansas City, KS Adam Hamilton 7,430
Windsor Village Houston, TX KirbyJon Caldwell 5,813
Granger Community South Bend, IN Mark Beeson 5,241
Gingahmsburg Dayton, OH Mike Slaughter 4,883
Frazer Memorial Montgomery, AL Tim Thompson 4,392
The Woodlands Houston, TX Ed Robb 4,081
White’s Chapel Dallas, TX John McKellar 4,040
Highland Park Dallas, TX Mark Craig 4,000
Asbury Tulsa, OK Tom Harrison 3,349
Mt. Bethel Atlanta, GA Randy Mickler 3,100*
Some define “megachurches” (a term I do not like) as congregations with 2,000 or more in worship attendance. There are 27 United Methodist Churches with 2,000 or more in attendance, 12 with 3,000 or more in attendance and, as noted above, 8 with 4,000 or more in attendance. One of every 20 people who attend a United Methodist Church on any given weekend attend one of the 100 largest churches. I’m guessing GCFA has a great deal more analysis of this data that they’ve done that might be of interest.
One final word – the size of United Methodist congregations used to be measured in terms of membership. Few use that data as a benchmark any more. UM churches have different standards and expectations for membership hence the numbers are virtually meaningless. One of the top ten churches has 3 times more members than worship attendees, and another has 3 times as many attendees as members. These two churches have very different expectations of their members. The actual number of people showing up for worship is a better way to measure the size of a congregation. Having said that, in metro areas (I cannot speak to whether this trend occurs in rural areas) most active participants in church attend worship only about two times a month. This means that the actual number of regular worshipers is likely twice the average worship attendance. Hence a church with an average attendance of 2,000 per weekend likely has 4,000 regular attendees.
* I learned that the list as originally published was in error. The GCFA report lists Christ Church, Charleston WVA as having over 3,000 in attendance but I’m told that was an error. The list above would appear to be correct.
