Eagle Brook Chruch - Gigachurch in Minnesota - Updated

EAGLE BROOK CHURCH

2014

For the past twelve years, my wife and I have been attending Eagle Brook Church in MN.  Since we started there, it grew and grew and grew.  Now attendance is in the tens of thousands.  I have been to other mega churches in other cities, and have had church growth classes from the "fathers" of the Church Growth Movement (at Fuller Seminary); so thought I'd like to talk about my experience at Eagle Brook.

To begin with, although I have talked with some of workers at Eagle Brook in different levels, this blog is more a commentary about my own personal feelings and experiences as an observer - one who has been a pastor of two churches in the past, one who has been to dozens of churches in dozens of cities and 4 countries.  Oh yes, and I have been to several seminars by leading mega church pastors including Bill Hybels at his church in Chicago.

THE MUSIC

 

The first thing one notices at Eagle Brook is the music.   If I were the pastor of a large church, I would have the same set up with music - the same kind of bands and the same kind of songs - at least most of the time.  Why?  Because it reaches people.  And for all that is said against large churches, one has to admit they are reaching people who need Christ.  I would venture to say that most critics and complainers are not doing that in their churches.

Having said all that, I will say that I am not a big fan of the kind of Christian Pop music that is played at Eagle Brook.  The music played at Eagle Brook is mostly borrowed from songs played on a local Christian music radio station that purposely targets women with children in their mid thirties.  I am afraid I don't fall into that category and with few exceptions I am not a fan of Pop music.  For me the best music came once in awhile during offertory when the band did something totally different.  But lately the offertory is no longer a part of the service and the song that went with it has disappeared.

(UPDATE: 9/2015, I am not sure where they are getting their music any more because I really don't listen to the local Christian station that much.  However, it seems to be the same style as when I wrote this 2 years ago.)

Personally, I would prefer more Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Swamp Blues, Country and Southern Gospel, Gospel, Bluegrass, and most of all, some of good old fashioned hymns.  I can sing along with hymns and I can appreciate the sound of these other styles.  I am unusual (and I know this) in that I only like a small amount of Christian Pop; and the genres in music I do like and would like to hear may be too odd, reaching out to too small of an audience, and may not bring a lot of people into the church.  Even so, I would love to hear more of these other genres in church.

If I was pastor of a church that was willing to (and able to) try new things, I would try out more of these genres and include a few genres I am not too excited about as well, such as Hip Hop and Rap.

I think Eagle Brook is like a large company that grew because it was cutting edge.  I wonder if it may get to the point where cutting edge is no longer cutting edge?  Is their cutting edge in music becoming the norm?  The number of new people coming into church suggest that I am not right on this point - at least not yet - or perhaps it simply doesn't matter that cutting edge is becoming the norm.  

The quality of music at the campus I attend is amazingly good - top quality.  The band has been around for quite awhile and they gel.  Fill-in bands (which happen rarely) are not always as good and aren't always as tight - but bonding together comes with time.

Update - Christmas 2014:

I went to a Christmas service last night with my family.  I went to the main campus which is much larger than the other ones.  I appreciated the music and enjoyed the slightly different approach to songs than I am used to from my campus.  The drum was very heavy - perhaps too heavy because I couldn't hear the guitar solos as much as I would like to have.  The music reminded me of the Pseudo Folk Rock of Phillip Phillips, The Lumineers and Mumford and Sons.   One of my family members even pointed out that one or more of the musicians had suspenders on (like Mumford and Sons).  My family member doesn't like Phillip Phillips genre of music.  As for me, I enjoyed a different take on Christmas carols, and only one or two of the songs sounded too Phillip Phillips for me.

There was one solo which may have been one the best songs I ever heard performed live - "O Holy Night."  My family member was too turned off to the suspenders of the musicians and the music style of previous songs to appreciate the solo, but I loved it.

Upon reflection, you will have people who are turned off by different things.  That old expression will always be true, even with Christian and worship music.  You can't please all of the people all of the time.

Eagle Brook tries different things and I appreciate that, even when or if I am not impressed with all of the style of music I hear. 

THE OFFERING

Until recently, the church took offerings in their services and there is no way any church that passes out offering baskets can win with the stereotypical - "they just want my money."  Eagle Brook did about as good as any can by telling people over and over again, every week, that the offering is for people who attend regularly and not for first time visitors.  Nevertheless, there will be some who will complain that money is even brought up and that there is an offering. This complaining can't be avoided and if I were pastor of a church, I would most certainly steal what Eagle Brook used to say before the offering word for word.

But recently the church has taken the offering out of the service, leaving people with possibilities of tithing on line or in the back of the church at kiosks.  This is ideal for reaching that person who complains about churches wanting money, but I wonder if donations are going down as a result. I suspect that Eagle Brook may return to the old way of handing out money bags for the offering if what they are trying doesn't pay.  However, I am impressed with their attempt to reach those who need Christ, taking chances that few churches would dare.  It is a testament to their passion to reach people for Christ.

THE PRAYERS

Prayers at Eagle Brook are short, sweet and to the point.  For a church this size, that is good.  Furthermore, in any church of any size, if someone drones on and on up front in some personally centered prayer to God, my sleep apnea and snoring might kick in at a most unfortunate time.

CHURCH HISTORY AND OTHER CULTURES

Eagle Brook services and messages seem to ignore other cultures and church history. Creeds, traditional hymns and even denominational background (Baptist General Conference) are gone from every part of church services.  Ultimately I learn about myself, and can sing for my pleasure and God's glory, but I don't hear much about other times or other people.  I understand that this is a mirror of our society that focuses so much on the present and cuts away from the past.  I am reminded of legend of George Washington boldly cutting down his father's English Cherry tree (note that the Cherry tree was an English Cherry tree) and proudly acknowledging his deed. Modern readers see this as a lesson in telling the truth, but in fact, it was more a lesson in cutting down the past.  Cutting down the past is not just a church thing of the 21st Century; it is an American thing that has been with us in every generation since its beginning as we have left families and homes to come to the U.S. and build better lives.

Because we have such disregard for the past, it is only fitting that many churches follow the culture in this respect.  Is this wrong?  Studying missions in college and in graduate schools, I learned that although the Gospel is universal and unchangeable, we can change the clothes it wears.  As witnesses to Christ, we can adapt to different cultures and different ways to reach out.

When I was in the Congo for 3 years, I adapted somewhat to the culture, the music, and the ways of the Africans.  The Apostle Paul admitted that he himself was all things to all people that he might win more.  His gospel of Jesus did not change - only how he presented it and how he lived among the people.  Having said this, I don't want to get into debate taking this to extremes one way or another.  My point is this - Eagle Brook like so many other churches trashes the past in order to bring the gospel to more people who likewise are not tied to the past. 

THE PEOPLE

 

Eagle Brook is almost all White and seems to be middle class.  I remember studying Church Growth at Fuller Seminary and C. Peter Wagner telling the class that with rare exceptions, large (and growing) churches prefer uniformity in culture and race, because people are attracted to their own kind.  I cannot and will not fault Eagle Brook for doing and being this.  I am sure, the leaders know this is true and probably talk about it once in awhile.

As White as it is, Eagle Brook has a wide range of ages.  I have witnessed other growing churches with multiple campuses in the Twin Cities that are not only 99% White, but are filled with 20 and 30 year old people with few if anybody much older than that.

Should Eagle Brook make an effort to reach out to other groups?  I don't know if that is in their mission, but if they want to start a church downtown, in Uptown or some other places in the Twin Cities besides the outer suburbs, they may want to think about getting a little more diverse in hiring pastors and leaders.

REVIVAL

For many years in Seminary I studied past national and world revivals.  They fascinated me.  On one evening I had dinner with the world's foremost authority in and Father of the Church Growth movement (Donald McGavran) while at the same time taking classes with the world's foremost authority on spiritual revivals (J. Edwin Orr).  Both of these teachers had their differences.  Orr focused on spiritual renewal that came in waves from preaching and/or prayer that effected entire regions or countries; while McGavran took a business-like look at what works and what doesn't when building large churches.  Both of these men felt that God used their particular findings to help further His kingdom.

At the time, I believed that Church Growth by nature was not revival (I discussed this with Donald McGavran and he disagreed with me).  I felt that Revivals were shorter lived and effected more people in and out of different churches.  Church Growth seemed only to effect those coming into the church and Church Growth seemed less spiritual and more social science / business related. 

But I have since realized that God works very well in both and that both can be "revival."   There are a lot of people becoming Christians at Eagle Brook, so I think God is very much at work and I would consider this a modern day revival.

STEALING FROM OTHER CHURCHES

Smaller churches lose many of their people to churches like Eagle Brook.  Losing members to larger churches is also common in other cities as well.  This can be compared to Walmart coming into a small town and stealing customers from the local downtown businesses, thus shutting down entire downtown areas.

However, when smaller churches lose their members to large ones, smaller churches often call this sheep stealing, seeing their numbers dwindle and feeding their people to the bigger churches with many more resources, bigger budgets, TV screens, rock bands, and so on.  In a very real way, large churches like Eagle Brook are not unlike the Walmarts of God's kingdom.

The typical response I have heard from other big churches in other cities is that people aren't getting fed in their Catholic / Lutheran / or other churches.  So these people come to the big church to get what they lack and what they need spiritually.

Many smaller churches fault the bigger ones for being less personal, saying that people want to quit the smaller churches because they can be less responsible and less noticed in the bigger ones.  Although this might be true for some, I think  a lot of people joining big churches like Eagle Brook get involved in Bible Studies and service for the church.  So it is not all that different from the smaller churches as it seems.

I will mention briefly that there are very active Christians who leave smaller churches because they burn out in the smaller ones.  These are often people who could never say "no" and carry too many responsibilities in the smaller churches.

I was a pastor of two small churches - one in the country where I brought people in from around the church - the churches in that area didn't compete or steal; although I was told that there was a group of people who wandered from church to church - they, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were a wandering nomadic tribe of believers.  The other church I pastored was near Minneapolis where there was a lot of competition, but our focus was on things that larger churches in the area didn't do.  We had cultural diversity and ministered to the local Sudanese Refugees by sharing with them a big part of our church.

Smaller churches should stop beefing about sheep stealing and find ministry that they can do well.  God doesn't want every church to be big and we all have different ministries.  Serving Refugees was not glamorous and definitely hindered my church from growing; but it served God's kingdom and in a way that few others could.  Although we did not grow in Minneapolis, our church was affecting tens of thousands of Sudanese overseas.  So I would say to smaller churches: "Find what God is giving you and pursue it wholeheartedly - serve your community in ways that larger churches can't or won't - and get over the number game."

THE SERMONS

I teach at a local University in all things Bible, so I love sermons that are saturated in the Bible.  I want to learn new things and grow in my knowledge and understanding of the Bible.  Besides evangelism, that is my passion and that is the direction God has given me in this life.

We all have gifts that God has given us, and those gifts differ.  The preaching pastors at Eagle Brook will speak better than I do.  Their delivery is impeccable.  There are no "ums," and no going off on tangents or getting sidetracked in their messages.

The pastors are also marvelous at giving and using illustrations.  Having said that, I do want to mention, that Pastor Bob Merritt will use a lot of illustrations about his hunting experiences.  The illustrations fit well with the messages, but some of us are not hunters and don't relate much to the excitement he feels hunting birds and animals.

I like the vulnerability in the sermons that comes from the pastors - especially the lead pastor Bob Merritt, who openly talks about his humanness, illustrating sermons with stories from his less than perfect life.  His vulnerability connects people to him, helping them to see that pastors and godly people are real people.

The preaching at Eagle Brook is so consistently professional that I wonder how many hours each pastor puts in to preparation to get to the level they are.  I know some famous preachers of old spent 20 to 40 hours for every sermon; I spent 6.  For me to get to the level of an Eagle Brook pastor, I would need 12 to 20 hours per sermon.

The Apostle Paul did not consider himself a great preacher because his messages were filled with fear and trembling, without enticing words and leaving him looking weak.  But he knew that a message needed God's Spirit to speak through him. This was more important than delivering great messages. I often hear the voice of God in sermons at Eagle Brook - and there is no better critique than that.  Having said all this, there are one or two issues I do have.

First of all, I feel like the substance of many sermons is dictated by Pop Christian psychologists / writers / mega church pastors rather than the Bible itself; and for those sermons, I feel that Bible verses are brought in occasionally to support the message presented rather than the other way around.

I understand that Sunday morning may be designed to bring in the lost (much like the seeker-friendly services of Bill Hybels near Chicago) but when I started a small group for Eagle Brook, I was given a DVD by Andy Stanley to show to the group and to discuss.  This was hardly a deeper look into the Bible.  For my taste, Andy Stanley's messages were very much like the pop self-help messages on the "poppiest" of church service messages.

I don't speak for all the small groups, because I only led one group for about a year 10 years ago (the material I was given was what all the groups had).  And I don't know if small groups have changed in the past 10 years.  Also, although there are some weekend messages that are solidly built up in the Word of God, it is hit or miss at Eagle Brook. Some messages are rooted in the scripture and some seem to be more rooted in some Christian self-help book.

So the first issue I have is the lack of in-depth Bible teaching in all too many messages.   The second issue I have is that in two different messages, a certain Eagle Brook pastor confused stories from the book of John.  The pastor clearly did not know the book of John very well.  As a teacher of the Bible, and a dedicated member and supporter of the church I grieved a bit inside when I heard that pastor mix up the stories of the Bible. (update) However, having attended hundreds of services and listening to as many messages, this was the only goof up I have seen.

Although the pastors are great preachers, it is kind of obvious that some Eagle Brook pastors know the Bible more than others.  Still, I would like to see all of them submit their sermons each week to someone or panel to look for any scriptural discrepancies, add scriptural references, and help the pastors ground their messages to the best of their abilities in the Word of God.  In the book Galatians, Paul submitted his message to Peter and the Apostles for their approval when he visited them in Jerusalem (I am sure this was not easy for Paul to do - it may even have hurt his pride).  Even so, submission would help each message to be better grounded in the Word of God.

Secondly, I would like to see sermons focus a bit more on the source of our ethics, morality and decision making as Christians.  The Apostle Paul dedicated a huge proportion of his letters to the cross of Christ, explaining how that cross and the resurrection form who we are and how we should live in Christ as Christians.  Eagle Brook's messages encourage us to change toward a more godly lifestyle and acceptance of who we are - and that is good, but I would like to hear more about how that change is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the Word of God, and in his death and resurrection.

Update: 

I recently talked to one of the speaking pastors and asked him how many hours the pastors put into their messages.  He told me that they put 26 to 30 hours of work in for each message and Bob Merrit has recently told the church that he puts 40 hours a week into a sermon.  It shows.

TODAY'S EVANGELICAL ISSUES AND EAGLE BROOK

Eagle Brook seems to avoid some Evangelical issues of today's world such as homosexuality and abortion, but bring up pornography from time to time - maybe too much.  When I Googled Eagle Brook Church, I found discussions on homosexuality where some Gays felt comfortable and welcomed in the church; where some people felt the church ignored the subject of homosexuality; where some people said that there was plenty stated about the subject; and where some Gays were upset with Eagle Brook for something some pastor said.  In other words, there was no clear stand one way or the other on the issue that everyone heard.  As for me, I have never heard a message on any of these topics.

When I was a pastor I avoided those subjects because they were and are hot issues that divide the church, create hostility on both sides, and send people packing.  I know some out there will say, "So what? We need to preach the Gospel no matter how much it offends."  But the issues I have mentioned are overstated by many well-meaning Christians trying to make the world a better place.  Biblically speaking, these issues were not as central to the Bible as they are said to be by many today, who use and misuse the Bible to support one or the other doctrine.  That does not mean that these topics are not important and should be ignored entirely.

I am thankful that the pastors at Eagle Brook do not openly side with one political party or another, although I suspect they are Republicans - that's just what most Evangelicals are.  I could start writing more about this issue, but it would take too long and I have written elsewhere about Christianity and Politics (including the Principalities and the Powers).  I would only mention in passing that in politics, we are dealing with powers of this world that change and will change with the times. Furthermore, they will pass away.  But God's kingdom will endure forever.

Personally, I am glad they don't bring up these topics.  I have heard enough from well meaning Christians using rare verses that may or may not apply to today's issues, while ignoring hundreds of passages and verses concerning the care of and service to others less fortunate.

SERVICE TO OUTSIDERS

Eagle Brook sends a lot of money, people and resources to others in need throughout the world.  They are following what is important in the Word of God - part of what Jesus called "the weightier matters of the Law."   On the other hand, the religious leaders of Jesus' day focused on the small details of the Law, making them much bigger than they should have been.  Jesus told the rulers to re prioritize while not neglecting the smaller details.  As far as I can see, Eagle Brook more than passes in this area.

CONVERSIONS

Some will say that Eagle Brook makes conversion too easy and has very little follow up.  I disagree. 

I was raised in a nominal Christian environment and it took me time as a born again Christian to change and outwardly live as was expected (although I still don't get the outwardly right all the time). I think some are looking for young Christians to be all grown up right away.

Jesus gave a parable in three of the gospels telling us that when the word of God is planted, some grows and some die for different reasons.  It's like that everywhere in the Christian world.  I expect to see some Christians fall away.  I don't want to see it, but it is going to happen.

There will be shallow Christianity practiced by others.  I am not happy with that, but that's reality.

And there will be others who leave the church entirely.  That's the way it is.

On the other hand, there will be some who will continue in the faith and get involved.  Some will even become pastors, missionaries, witnesses at work and strong Christians.

My point is this: Complainers want to find bad things about big churches and will find bad things that are normal in all churches.  If those complainers won people to Christ, they too would find that a lot of their winnings will eventually leave the faith and others would judge them and point out that they too are less than perfect.

ON LINE MESSAGES

I have not been a fan of attending church by internet, but will have to admit that in my family it has been a great tool.  My son-in-law is in the music business and tours a lot in (and sometimes out of) the country.  Through Eagle Brook's internet site he is able to get a church service (the message anyway) on the bus or in some hotel.  My daughter who is in the entertainment business also travels a lot and is able to catch messages when she is not able to get to her church in NYC.  So for them and for so many others who cannot get out or get to church, I am thankful for Eagle Brook's on line messages.  But, ultimately, the Church is something that should be experienced in person.

CONCLUSIONS

Although I have studied church growth to some degree and have been to dozens of churches, my comments about Eagle Brook in this blog are only from one spectator's view.

Because Eagle Brook has so much going for it, I would send any seeker or new Christian to it before any other church.  Likewise, if my kids were still teenagers, and I was a die hard traditional hymn singer, I would still transfer to Eagle Brook for my kids' sake - no question about it.

But if someone wants a deeper level of Bible in the church services and messages or if they want more tradition and good old fashioned hymns, I would send them somewhere else.