Great Harvest

It began in 1957 as a Sunday service for just five families and rose to become Wisconsin’s biggest church, with nearly 7,000 members. Brookfield’s Elmbrook Church left traditional pastors casting covetous glances and naysayers predicting its appeal would fade.

But today, Elmbrook is bigger than ever, with eight spin-off churches. They range from 1,200-member Eastbrook on Green Bay Avenue, started in 1979, to 250-member Metrobrook, founded in 2005 in a rented hall at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where it serves Downtown residents. “It was like a field waiting to be harvested,” says Elmbrook facilitator Celia Dodge.

Their success has reaped a re-examination of practices by more traditional churches. Elmbrook’s converts come largely from Roman Catholic and Lutheran backgrounds. Like most megachurches, Elmbrook is evangelical. Its members believe the Bible is GodÕs word and salvation is achieved only by grace.

Since 2000, the number of North American congregations with 2,000 or more weekly attendees has more than doubled to 1,210, according to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research. The Midwest has fewer megachurches (just 14 percent of those in the nation), while Wisconsin only had one-fourth the number found in Illinois, Michigan or Ohio.

Because megachurches are independent from old-line religions, they may attract baby boomers, who were notoriously anti-establishment in their youth and remain cynical about traditional denominations, given recent scandals. “The word people use all the time is ‘authenticity,'” says Elmbrook Senior Pastor Mel Lawrenz. “That our leaders are real people.” Not cogs in a large church bureaucracy.

Casually dressed ministers and some less-rigid doctrine may help out, too. “I don’t want to throw Mel Lawrenz into the pit fires of hell,” says Pastor Daron Lindemann of Milwaukee Grace Lutheran Church, which is affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. “In some ways I’m jealous. But let’s be honest, nondenominational churches have a – I don’t want to say diluted – but a broader belief system, so you appeal to more people. Catholics and Lutherans have a specific belief system that appeals to a narrower base.”

Megachurches are also strategically located: Nationally, half are in exurbia, where they often function as social hubs. Elmbrook offers sports leagues, ballet, craft and fitness classes, with ministries for the divorced, young singles, even bikers.

The biggest myth is that these churches do anything to get the numbers, Lawrenz says. Elmbrook requires newcomers to complete a 12-week course in the basics of the faith. Then, they must renew their membership annually.

But that hasn’t stopped the growth. Last year, Elmbrook’s collection plate supported a $7.5 million annual operating budget, a staff of more than 100 and a $2.5 million mission budget. Even 23 pastors couldn’t accommodate all the wedding requests.