For I believe the second year in a row, Kent Shaffer has put together an excellent metalist of “Best Churches Lists.”
He compiled this metalist from the following compilations:
- Outreach magazine’s 2007 America’s 25 Most Innovative Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2007 101 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2007 100 Largest U.S. Churches
- The Church Report’s 2007 50 Most Influential Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2007 America’s Top 25 Multiplying Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2006 100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches
- The Church Report’s 2006 50 Most Influential Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2005 100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches
- The Church Report’s 2005 50 Most Influential Churches
- Outreach magazine’s 2004 100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches
And here are the top 5:
- LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) :: Craig Groeschel
- Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX) :: Ed Young Jr.
- Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) :: Rick Warren
- The Potter’s House (Dallas, TX) :: T.D. Jakes
- Willow Creek Community Church (South Barrington, IL) :: Bill Hybels
While acknowledging that some oppose such lists, Kent comments, “I find lists valuable in helping me to know which churches are worth studying.”
I would agree with Kent. While church growth is not an sure indicator of health, it is evidence that a church may be healthy and that there may be something to be learned. Moreover, some or all of these lists use criteria designed to privilege healthy churches in their lists.
Kent comments that some lists have misinformation. I suggested to Kent that in the future he might consider not reference lists that are particularly controversial. Here is his response (posted with permission):
“The misinformation usually affects only one or a few churches on a list, if any. Since churches report their numbers, sometimes there are “inflations” of what they run. Sometimes a church … may actually be running 24,000 attendance but somehow mistakenly report 13,000. Supposedly that was an error on [the church's] part. Some churches choose not to participate in these lists, which also causes misinformation due to their absence. These bits of misinformation add to the lists being imperfect, but they are not huge enough to throw the baby out with the bath water.”
