Evangelical Churches in the US: Growth and Consequences

In recent years Evangelical churches have become more and more popular in the US. With churches containing a weekly attendance of more than 2,000 people, the Evangelicals have steadily taken over as the majority in US religion. Joel Osteen, pastor of the biggest church in the country located in Houston, Texas, can definitely feel this growth, as he himself has been a big part of a movement that now brings 30,000 people to his weekend services. This growth is also a result of a slick television broadcast produced every Sunday of his sermons on national television with 7 million people tuning in to get their Sunday-church-blessing. But what is the reason for this massive interest in Evangelical churches in modern time, and what are the consequences of rise in Evangelical Christian religion?

A lot of people would think that the number of Evangelical Christians would be decreasing with the great amount of democracy and technological rise in the modern world. However, this is not the case. Evangelical churches have used different strategies and tools to lure the Christian people intro the churches every weekend. Lakewood church of pastor Joel Osteen offers free financial counseling, cheap food and even a fidelity group for men with sexual addictions. The offers from the church are a good way to help people in need of these things. But how does this Lakewood Church manage to attract new “customers” to their churches? In July Osteen will open his new 16,000-seat church-arena, which is estimated to hold an incredible 100,000 people each weekend. However this is not a tendency that is only applicable for Houston churches. In all of the United States pastors, or rather businessmen are seeing the potential in the Evangelical churches’ market. Therefore more and more churches are renovating, creating Sunday Schools comparable to Disney World and church cafés the look like Starbucks in order to attract young people and families to the Evangelical churches. Most of the Evangelical churches offer upbeat preaches that resemble the older message that the Evangelical Christian religion represents in order to make the churches relevant and interesting for the newcomers of the churches. The churches are willing to do everything they can to cajole their local people. The Southern Baptist Convention even has “cowboy churches for people working on ranches”.