I saw this post over at Church Marketing Sucks. It appears that The Church Report has released this year’s list of 50 Most Influential Churches. You can view the article here (PDF), which also explains how the list is compiled. The article didn’t really appear to define what it means to be an influential church, but they mention that the “churches are recommended by other church leaders as congregations that represent the passion and sense of mission mandated in the New Testament.” Perhaps that translates into influence.

As I looked over the list, I looked for couple of different things that interested me personally. First, if my current church is on the list - and it is. Since I’ve only been there a few months now, I haven’t done much to be a part of that influence yet, but look forward to doing so in the coming months and years.

Second, I was curious to see if any churches from my heritage - Churches of Christ - were on the list, and there was one: Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, which is pastored by popular author Max Lucado. I would like to have seen more than one, but I personally believe that day will come.

As for how the list was compiled, you can make of that what you will. Some are pastored by very well-known and popular people (I’ve already mentioned one), and some of the comments at one of the links suggested that perhaps the churches themselves get more recognition because of influential pastors and may or may not be as influential as others. That, I suppose, is up for debate. Since I don’t know that much about most of these chuches, I have no idea how influential they really are. Nevertheless, it is an interesting list. You can also see the full list at Church Relevance, which includes links to their websites.