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• megachurch •

Pronunciation: me-gê-chêrch • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A church with attendance of 2,000 or more; some 1,200 currently exist in the United States.

Notes: Mega- (meg- before a vowel) is almost a word, for terms like megachurch, megabucks, megaton behave much more like compounds than prefixed forms. Grammatically speaking, as a prefix, mega- should be limited to attachment to Greek stems as in megaphone and megacephalous "big-headed", but it attaches freely these days to native Germanic stems like church and ton, even agency and city, pretty much any other noun you would wish to attach it to: "Yeah, well all the megabytes in my new computer took a megabite out of my wallet!" It should be attached, however, not hyphenated or written as a separate word if possible.

In Play: The days of the quiet little country church seem to be fading into the background as larger and larger congregations are assembled by radio and TV: One famous megachurch is the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, designed by Philip Johnson in 1980 for the televangelist Reverend Robert Schuller. Portions of the exterior walls open, allowing congregants to remain in their cars while viewing the worship service. There are many hidden advantages in megachurches: "Leslie likes the megachurch she attends because she is less likely to be noticed when she doesn't show up."

Word History: The prefix mega- comes from Greek megas "great, large". The Greek word is one of many derived from the same PIE root found in Indo-European languages, including Scottish mickle "much, many", Russian mnogo "much, many", not to mention English much itself. In Latin it emerged as magnus "large", a word that appears in many English words and phrases such as Magna Carta, magnum, and magnify. Of course, Hindi maharajah is made up of maha "great", from the same root + rajah "king", a word from the same root as French roi "king" and royal "royal". (Today we thank Warren Bird megamuch for suggesting such a Good Word to us.)

"Leslie likes the megachurch she attends because she is less likely to be noticed when she doesn't show up."

Indeed! Of those 1200 churches, not a one seems to have noticed my absence.

"Leslie likes the megachurch she attends because she is less likely to be noticed when she doesn't show up."

Indeed! Of those 1200 churches, not a one seems to have noticed my absence.

Nice!

Don't feel bad. They haven't noticed my absence, either. The church I go to averages between 40-50 in the whole congregation. If I miss a Sunday, I have at least half the congregation calling me wondering if I'm sick and can they bring a meal over. I'm not joking.

Mega has a more precise meaninag than large when prefixed to a quantity such as megaton or megabyte. There it means one million. In the case of computers it often means 2 raised to a power of 20 which approximates a million.

Thanks for the additional information gwray. Welcome to the Agora.

That's why I like this site so much. I learn something new almost every time. Thanks, gwray.

There are three megachurches within a one mile stretch
here.

welcome gwray.

I would have to travel about an hour and half to attend the nearest megachurch (another reason they haven't noticed my absence). On the other hand, I'm about 12 feet from one. That's the approximate distance from my couch to the television. Funny how the televangelist hasn't said anything to me about my lack of donations.

You'd better be careful he may read this, and you'll
be getting a letter with return envelope.

Ha! Good one, Luke! When it comes to people wanting to get my money, I'm afraid he'd have to get in line and wait.

You and me both: I've had at least 20 begging
requests since the beginning of December.
Unbelievable the things they send as well, and that has
to cost money to produce. One wonders if they
make any money in their "fundraising".

I once studied direct mail since as a pastor I wrote a lot of it. They were happy if they got about a 2% return. Quality of mailing lists is critical, so you can mail as much as possible to those likely to respond. So if you give to one cause, they may sell yr name to another. Also why some stores get yr name and address when you buy something there.

Most interesting, thanks. I always suspected one
place sold the names to others.

Not to sound too paranoid, but no doubt Big Brother is everywhere. I think I read somewhere that all of us are on at least one or two (maybe more) megacomputers. I know I once responded monetarily to an Easter Seals solicitation (a good charity, by the way) and was subsequently bombarded with solicitations from a boatload of charities. Surprising the amount of stuff they send (mostly preprinted address labels, calendars and notepads). No doubt my name was sold to whoever asked for it. Alas, I quit responding to any and all solicitations. I keep and use the labels, however. I have enough to last a lifetime.