The Hartford Institute says there are roughly 370,000 churches in the United States. According to its data, about 1,650 of those churches qualify to be classified as "megachurches."

What Defines a Megachurch?

For clarification, a megachurch refers to the number of congregants in a church, not the physical size of the building. To be classified as a megachurch, the church must have a minimum weekly attendance of 2,000 people. Gateway Church is considered the largest megachurch in the United States, with over 100,000 people attending weekly.

If only 1,650 of the churches out of 370,000 are classified as "megachurches," what does that say about the rest? The average church in America has a weekly attendance of 60 people. So, most of the churches in America do not fall into the category and the microscope of the question pertinent to this article.

However, all churches need to practice holiness and reflect the character of Jesus Christ, the One they represent.

The Rise of Scandals in Megachurches

Since 2017, the "megachurch" has been in the news often. It would appear that a network of pastors, especially high-profile megachurch pastors, have been experiencing moral failure or scandal in their churches.

It is important to remember in this discussion that "megachurches" have more than one "pastor" on their staff. The average megachurch has between 20 and 100 pastoral staff. This means the average megachurch potentially has more pastoral staff than the average church in America, which has people attending its congregation.

So, the dynamics of the inner workings of a megachurch are comparable to the entire size of the average church in America. This certainly poses many internal challenges and obstacles to overcome and address for the health of the leadership to maintain proper balance and accountability.

Leadership Structures in Megachurches

It appears that many megachurches have a leadership model with a single Lead or Senior Pastor who is focused on vision and teaching to the congregation. Within megachurch models, there are a myriad of models that manifest themselves, from multi-site with online teaching to multi-teachers at multiple locations to single-location megachurches with massive media presence.

Regardless of how these megachurches execute their vision and teaching, it does appear that many of them follow a model that involves an elder board and overseers who are responsible for the Senior or Lead Pastor of the megachurch regardless of its structure or organizational chart.

Gateway Church, the largest megachurch in the United States, seems to mirror a model that churches like Lakewood Church in Houston, Potters House Church in Dallas, Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama seem to model.

Megachurches have elder boards usually constructed with the Senior Pastor, other high-level pastors on the church staff, and a mixture of business and spiritual advisors, with lay or volunteer participation from a few of the board members. These boards generally do not have ultimate authority or control over the Senior or Lead Pastor of the church.

These megachurch models usually implore what is often referred to as an "Overseer Board." This board is usually made up of senior or Lead Pastors of other churches or CEOs of para-church organizations. The flow of meetings, the accountability process, and the pathway for communication to these "Overseer Boards" are often cryptic and cloaked.

Supposedly, the Oversight board is responsible for hiring and firing the Senior Pastor, ensuring discipline, salary and benefits, and maintaining this leader's moral and character accountability.

Now, it is important to realize that the generalities of the megachurch leadership model are the focus here and that there are always exceptions to every general model. But for the sake of this discussion, the generalities will remain the focus.

The Accountability Gap

In the general megachurch leadership model, the Senior Pastor is usually sovereign over the church. The Elders rarely have the authority to remove the Senior Pastor. The Overseer board is usually responsible for the conduct, character, salary, and benefits of the Senior leader. This detached model from the church organizational chart certainly gives the Senior Pastor the authority to lead the church, but it creates an unfortunate vacuum between the elder board and the Overseer board. A vacuum that often the Senior Pastor lives in by themselves. Rarely is there written evidence of the overseer board meetings, and rarely, if ever, is there evidence of it occurring.

The communication between the elder board and overseer board is often boiled down to the Senior Pastor's communication to each. This does not mean that the model can't work, but what it does mean is the Senior Leader is forced to create a measure of accountability that will not and does not exist apart from them intentionally making it happen on an ongoing basis.

The Bible says that wisdom is found in a multitude of counselors. If the Senior Pastor pushes themselves to seek and interface with the counsel between these two boards, it seems to work, but the moment the Senior Leader has a weak moral moment, this model creates flexibility to hide the truth about themselves, their decisions, and, sadly, their moral downfall.

The Role of NDAs in Church Culture

This model, in conjunction with the acceptable norms of using nondisclosure agreements like Gateway Church, New Life Church in Colorado Springs, whose pastor came from Gateway, and other churches like Hillsong in Australia to silence objectionable conduct of senior leaders, tends to lend itself to a culture of secrecy that isn't discovered for many years that leads to massive scandal and incredible destruction to the mass number of churches in proximity to their practices.

This tends to inflate the view that "all megachurches are corrupt" and creates a sense of association of guilt for those in proximity to them.

Possible Solutions

Is there a potential solution or principle that could govern megachurches that could stem the tide and reverse the perception and, sadly, sometimes the reality of megachurches being seen as corrupt?

It begins with a willingness to function not with NDAs but with a desire to have appropriate full disclosure from the Overseer board and elder board to the entire congregation who associates with the church as members regardless of how membership is determined. When a leadership knows that its congregation is going to be brought into this process at some point, it changes how the organization functions at the top.

Secondly, when megachurches refuse to use NDAs to silence sex abuse victims and those who have been harmed by the leadership of the church in whatever capacity, true healing occurs.

A Biblical Approach to Church Leadership

Scripture emphasizes confession, accountability, and transparency—qualities often lacking in megachurch leadership structures today.

James 5:16 says, “Confess your faults one to another and experience healing.”

Churches heal when leadership confesses to them the failures of their leadership.

Paul told Timothy how to handle leaders who had sinned. In 1 Timothy 5:20, Paul said, “Rebuke them in the presence of all, so the rest may stand in fear.”

Sadly, during these seven-plus years of massive megachurch pastors falling, there is evidence of churches and elder boards that still refuse to acknowledge or admit the sins committed by their leaders for fear of destroying the organization and the success of that church.

This grieves the heart of God and the Holy Spirit who oversees the church, Jesus’ Bride.

Pastors are charged to teach that God has not given His people a spirit of fear, but it appears the spirit of fear governs a lot of the megachurch models and leadership today.

The True Measure of Church Success

In the book of Joshua, God differentiated between "success" and good success. Success in the world's eyes has more to do with the size of the budget, buildings, and sadly butts in the seats. But good success, the kind of success the God of the Bible calls churches to have, is born out of confession, character development, and obedience to Christ's commands.

Probably one of the saddest things to come out of the scandals of this megachurch movement will be the pastors and elders who must give an account for stewarding God's church in unholy ways to maintain the "success" of their churches. See, when God builds His kingdom, faith governs it, not fear. And when faith governs it, secrecy and NDAs to suppress criminal activities are not needed, ever!

Corruption is a deceptive seed planted in secrecy and sadly exposed in public.

As God said to King David 2 Samuel 12:12, "What you did in secret, I will do in front of all."

Final Thoughts: A Call For Integrity

Megachurches do not have to be corrupt any more than smaller churches, but the temptation to hide the truth to save the success will sadly create massive examples of corruption that will lend themselves to the perception that megachurches are more corrupt.

But it doesn't have to be this way; the issue is not the size of the church but the inner workings of the leadership.

If the leadership has nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.

May megachurches live with true accountability and full disclosure instead of nondisclosures!