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The worship center at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, is massive yet airy, supported by 12 trusses that converge at their peak and lock into a cross. The cross rises 40 feet above the roof and extends another 32 feet below, holding the entire structure in place. When senior minister Bob Russell stands in the pulpit, he is directly beneath that cross.

Russell accepted a call to Southeast in 1966, at the age of 22. The church, which started in 1962, had 125 members when Russell came. They met in the basement of a home.

Today they gather at a $26 million facility in a sanctuary that seats more than 9,000. More than 14,000 people worship at Southeast each weekend, attending one of three services. Russell heads a paid staff of more than 200. The church publishes a weekly newspaper, The Southeast Outlook, and supports many ministries both in Louisville and further abroad.

In its outlines, we've heard this story before: call it "The Amazing Church- Growth Story." Such prodigious growth demands attention, and there's a vast and ever-expanding literature devoted to explaining why this church rather than that one grows, and what such congregations have to tell us about the state of the church.

Indeed, we've heard the story so often, we're in danger of becoming blase. When Christianity Today was first considering a story on Southeast, a church growth expert told us it is "just another megachurch": a full-service, balanced ministry, the biggest in town, but nothing to make it stand out from many other megachurches. Ho hum.

But do we really know what a "typical" megachurch looks like? (Is there such a creature?) And what about the lessons we're directed to take from the megachurch phenomenon—lessons urged on us by critics, on the one hand, and partisans of church growth, on the other: do they stand up to scrutiny?

A visit to Southeast Christian suggests that the conventional wisdom needs revising. Like most churches, large and small, urban and rural, Baptist, Catholic, Moravian, or "new paradigm," Southeast Christian defies the generalizations served up in jeremiads and Power Point seminars.

• "People aren't interested in doctrine today. They want religious experience, community." But Bob Russell's superb preaching, no small part of the story of Southeast's extraordinary growth, is heavy on doctrine—always applied, yes, but not watered down one bit. Typical was the eight-week sermon series earlier this year in which Russell and preaching associate Dave Stone, who is being groomed as his successor, unpacked what it means to say that Jesus is Lord.

• "All these marketing strategies represent a capitulation to consumerism. And it is all about me, me, me: how are you going to meet my needs?" Southeast employs savvy marketing, but the brochure in the visitor's packet begins with a photo of the cross atop the worship center and a Scripture verse (John 12:32), followed by the church's mission statement:

SOUTHEAST CHRISTIAN CHURCH EXISTS TO:
EVANGELIZE THE LOST,
EDIFY THE SAVED,
MINISTER TO THOSE IN NEED AND
BE A CONSCIENCE IN THE COMMUNITY

That doesn't sound like a recipe for narcissism, and it isn't just window-dressing. The bulletin for Southeast's "Volunteer Commitment 2000" Sunday listed 21 ministries in need of volunteers—and the couple sitting next to me in the pew surprised me by filling out the volunteer form right on the spot, taking turns, one writing while the other held their baby girl. Participation is higher than at many small churches, Russell says, because expectations are high. When I visited Southeast's Leadership Conference, an every-other-year event featuring dozens of seminars and workshops, there appeared to be at least one volunteer for every participant, and as a result the conference ran without a hitch.

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December 4 2000, Vol. 44, No. 14