When you attend Woodcrest Chapel’s Sunday service for the first time, it is easy to think that you have walked into a rock concert. There is a band wearing blue jeans and playing Christian rock. While the band plays, the crowd of around 2,000 people is standing and singing along with the music. Robert Callahan, an assistant professor of American religion at MU, said this kind of vibrant scene is a common part of the Sunday service at most megachurches.

“Megachurches offer a way to live a life parallel to the wider popular culture but is still completely Christian.” Callahan said.

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, the word “megachurch” refers to any Protestant congregation with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2,000 persons or more in its worship service. There are more than 1,200 megachurches in the U.S, according to theinstitute, which keeps the only constantly updated database of megachurches in the U.S. Woodcrest averages around 2,200 people at the Sunday service, giving it the classification of megachurch.

Pieter Van Waarde, the senior pastor at Woodcrest, said being classified as a megachurch is both good and bad.

“On one hand it means that many people find what we do helpful, and we can offer a wide variety of ministry programming,” Waarde said. “The downside is that we can be seen as promoting the idea that bigger is necessarily better and for some it actually only makes things feel less personal.”

Woodcrest began in 1987 when a small group of Columbia’s residents decided they wanted a church that would stand out. They wanted a church that was exciting but that could also give messages that were relevant to people’s lives. Van Waarde said the church stays relevant by paying attention to people’s concerns.

“I believe one of the greater challenges around the church is that we tend to answer questions no one is really asking,” Van Waarde said.

Woodcrest first met in the founding pastor’s home. It wasn’t long before its numbers outgrew the home and it had to move to the Holiday Inn Executive Center. At the Holiday Inn, it was able continue increasing its numbers, but the building limited what it could organize.

Woodcrest decided to purchase land at the intersection of Nifong Boulevard and Sinclair Road in Columbia so that it could build a permanent residence.

In April 1990, it held its first service in the new building. Since then, Woodcrest has continued to grow and expand its membership. It has even added a Jefferson City campus.

Callahan said megachurches experience rapid growth because of the way they communicate and their deomographic. “They use modern advertising, and popular media," he said. "The people that they are reaching out to are members of the community that were already seeking out something different in religion.”

Van Waarde said Woodcrest doesn’t do a lot of traditional advertising because there are better methods at bringing people to the church.

“Our best advertising is a satisfied customer,” Van Waarde said. “We prefer to spend our energy on making it is easier for our congregates to bring their friends and family to church.”

Woodcrest’s ability to communicate to the community has made it one of the largest churches in the area, but Van Waarde said having a large membership is not always enough to have an impact.

“If it is simply a large group listening to some good music and a good talk, then it is only an event.” Van Waarde said. “If in the midst of the listening a positive spiritual transformation takes place in the lives of those people, then a lot of really wonderful things can happen when the people leave that experience.”

Van Waarde said Woodcrest plans to continue growing through video-rebroadcasts of its weekend services that are shown in smaller communities around mid-Missouri. The church started a video campus in Jefferson City three years ago. About 150 people meet in the Capital Mall.

With Woodcrest’s plan to reach out to even more people, Van Waarde said it does face challenges because of its size.

“Perhaps the greatest challenge is constant communication with the membership,” Van Waarde said. “When you have so many people involved, it is hard to get the right information to the right people at the right time.”