Cardinal Theodore McCarrick discussed what description will best fit the parish of the future. Will it be a smaller familial reality in which everyone knows one another, where its reach extends deeply into a particular neighborhood? Or instead might the parish of tomorrow resemble a megachurch with great numbers of parishioners coming from a wide area and providing a vast number of services? / Presenter: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington (DC) / Gasson Hall 100

This thesis addresses how the Joel Osteen ministry uses mass media at its Lakewood church, located in Houston, Texas, and at its services around the nation. I studied this ministry?s religious use of media to understand what it communicates about the church or ministry itself. To assist in my analysis, I have applied the concept religious individualism. Herein, this concept describes an individual who sees him- or herself as separate from their Christian community (or affiliation) which stems from a belief in a God who is also directly involved in the lives of individuals. Religious individualism is acted out in four observable characteristics which include: displaying emotion to seek attention, taking personal responsibility for one?s spiritual growth, expecting God?s future blessing, and seeking one?s personal needs in a church above communal needs. I used this definition to determine whether Lakewood illustrated these traits in order to make an inference on how this would inform its use of mass media. I applied both field observation skills and qualitative content analysis in this study. My own observation was used during my own observation of the Lakewood services, while content analysis was used to analyze blog and newspaper articles covering Osteen-led services. Findings from both methodologies revealed that the Osteen ministry does not merely employ mass media as a tool but integrates it into the very image of the church, making its use necessary and natural. This conclusion was reached as both methodologies showed Lakewood and the Osteen ministry exemplifying each trait of religious individualism. In observance of its religious individualism, it appeared natural for the ministry and church to use media as it helped enforce the importance of each trait to the audience. Likewise, the results from both the field observation and content analysis show that the audience responded to Lakewood?s use of mass media as inseparable from the services. Perhaps paradoxically, it became necessary for the ministry to use mass media to reach an audience that expected to be addressed in a personal way, based on a value of personal needs being met.

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This study identified what Twitter followers were discussing in reference to the top five megachurches in size. The methods utilized within this study involved an examination of all tweets hashtagging the top five megachurches over a sixteen day timeframe. The first research question was answered by categorizing tweets into predetermined content categories. This study also addressed the second research question by determining if Twitter implementation was beneficial in executing the missions of the top five megachurches. This question was answered by analyzing tweets using a five point Likert scale measuring how reflective each tweet was to the mission statement of each of the Top five megachurches. Ultimately, this study revealed that hashtagged tweets did reflect topics that are beneficial to each individual church's growth, however, tweets hashtagging the top three megachurches did not reflect the mission statements of each church. Therefore, this study concluded that Twitter implementation is beneficial to church growth because followers discuss topics relevant to the success of the church, however, Twitter may not be the most suitable social media platform for megachurches in their attempts to execute their mission statements.

Thesis advisor: Stephen Pfohl / This thesis further explores the relationship between capitalism and Christianity by examining current changes to the style in which Evangelical Protestantism is practiced within the context of America's transition to consumer society. Using a theoretical framework of the marketplace theory of religious change and critical cultural studies, I argue that by displacing religion as the dominant mediator of ultimate meaning, the pressure consumer society places on religious content and practices to adapt may be part of a process of colonization through which the alignment between capitalism and Christianity is continued and its potential to be a critical cultural resource is reduced. To this end, I employ a mixed methodology of participant observation, unstructured interviews and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the cultural content of Lakewood Church in Houston, TX, America's largest Protestant church. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

My dissertation explores how digital media have transformed ritual, community, and the meaning of church. My research focuses particularly on the SaRang Community Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in South Korea. I examine how a Korean megachurch adopt digital media to reach out to the public and promote itself. The questions I will answer include: How does a megachurch present religious messages using visual and audio effects? How do people perceive those mediated messages? How do they configure communities through media experience? How does the megachurch reconnect communities through media? Is a church a medium of Christianity? What relationship does the megachurch have with consumer culture? While answering these questions, my dissertation focuses on the relationship between media and modernity. The dissertation picks three important themes: authenticity through media, nationalism and identity, and consumerism. To explain these issues through the lens of the transformation of the religious sphere in Korea, my dissertation examines (1) how the candle, an important symbol in Christianity, has been digitally represented, and how that representation has influenced rituals; (2) how digital media reconfigure various kinds of communities, as seen through the example of Korean Christian women’s daily religious practice; and (3) along with the development of digital media, how megachurches have grown in size, population, and social impact in Korea, a country well-known for its technological innovations and development. My overriding interest is in how religious rituals materialize through digital media.

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This dissertation explores the simultaneous rise of megachurches and Prosperity Theology within the black church. Recognizing that the megachurch and Prosperity Theology represent two separate phenomena within contemporary religion, I also acknowledge the tendency to regard them as being synonymous. My research begins with an examination of the traditional African American church and pastor, and an exploration of the recent growth of megachurches within the black community. In an attempt to better understand the Prosperity Gospel, I evaluated it in comparison to the Social Gospel, discovering the similarities and differences between the two movements. Considering that there is no consensus as to how Prosperity Theology is defined, I examine the various ways in which it has been defined by African American megachurch pastors. In particular, I assess the ways in which Prosperity Theology represents an extension of the traditions of the black church and its emphasis on economic, social, and political empowerment. This dissertation compares the ministries of Dr. Creflo Dollar, Senior Pastor of Atlanta Georgia’s World Changers Church International and Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, Senior Pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Both are regarded as proponents of Prosperity Theology, however, they advance significantly different approaches to prosperity and Prosperity Theology. An examination of the teachings of Dr. Dollar and Bishop Walker indicate that Dr. Dollar’s beliefs put him at odds with many traditionalists in the black church. In contrast, Bishop Walker’s ministry more closely resembles that of a traditional African American church. These findings are further supported by the responses of their churches’ members. The research conducted suggests that Prosperity Theology may be useful in facilitating the goals of economic, social, and political empowerment historically advocated by the black church.

Thesis (Master of Arts)--Miami University, Dept. of Comparative Religion, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-66).

The megachurch and the missional church are on-going global phenomena. Under the premise that the church has to be missional, this dissertation analyses and describes if a megachurch can be missional in both theoretical and practical ways from a Korean perspective. The megachurch is not simply a very large church in membership or size of its building. It, by the influence of interaction of socio-cultural, historical and theological backgrounds, has its own missiological and ecclesiological perspectives. The megachurch understands that the growth of an individual church is the expansion of the kingdom of God, so that the church must be functional and structural to fulfil the church growth efficiently. Thus, it is a powerful tendency that can be found not only in large size churches, but from all churches trying to achieve by all means the quantitative growth of the church and world evangelisation, through the power and material obtained from growth. The Korean megachurches represented by the Poongsunghan Church obviously display the characteristics of this tendency. The missional church is not simply a mission-driven church sending many missionaries to other countries. It believes that all churches are sent to the world by God who wants to reconcile the whole universe to Him, so that the church has to restore its missional essence to participate in the mission of God wherever it is as the early church did. Thus, the missional church is a reforming movement to witness to God’s rule by recovering its apostolic nature. The characteristics of the movement is clearly activating in the Bundang Woori Church, one of the Korean missional churches. In this line of research, any churches that are not resisting the megachurch tendency cannot be missional. The Korean church, which is in crisis being marginalised from society, has to join the missional movement. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Science of Religion and Missiology / MA / Unrestricted