Western Pa.'s megachurches aim for small community feel

Steve Mihalacki watched as his tiny Catholic church slowly withered away in Johnstown, a steel town decimated by the collapse of the manufacturing industry.

Now as one of more than 11,000 members of St. Ferdinand's Catholic Church in Cranberry, Mihalacki said attending Sunday Mass is more like “going to a minor league ball game. You have to plan ahead, plan for parking,” though he said the analogy does not apply to Mass, where he is accompanied by wife Shannon, 35, and children Jack, 7, Abby, 4, and Ben, 2.

“There's more outreach here,” said Mihalacki, 35, of Cranberry. “There are more programs, more choices to be included.”

While many churches struggle to keep members, others are booming — exceptions to the norm — counting thousands of members who attend services each week.

In Cranberry, St. Ferdinand and St. Kilian parishes each have nearly 11,000 members; St. Benedict the Abbot in Peters counts close to 11,000 members; in Mt. Lebanon, St. Bernard numbers more than 10,000 parishioners. The median size of a Catholic parish is about 1,950, according to the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

Among Protestant denominations, Mt. Ararat Baptist Church in Larimer has 7,500 members. Pine-based North Way Christian Community has about 5,000 members; and in Murrysville, Cornerstone Ministries has about 2,500 people attending services on a typical weekend.

The large numbers take problems common to many churches and put them through a loaves-and-fishes multiplier — having enough parking and space in church, and traffic flow when services end. There can be more personal concerns, such as ensuring worshippers don't become a faceless name among thousands.

“Everything you can do to make the church small for people is important,” said Randy Blincow, executive pastor of interdenominational North Way Christian Community.

The church, with 50 employees, hosts various ministries and services, including prayer ministries, recovery groups and a professional counseling center. Each of its five worship sites has a campus pastor.

“We try to drive people into small groups,” Blincow said. “Deeper relationships come when you have 12 people right around a circle, with a leader who has spiritual maturity, and get deeper into the word of God.”

Delivering the message

St. Bernard Parish, which is so large it schedules optional Sunday Masses in the church basement, fosters ties among parishioners by forming “neighborhoods,” named for New Testament cities such as Tyre and Jericho. Each has an annual Mass, said the parish pastor, the Rev. David Bonnar. The church hosts an annual picnic and serves coffee and doughnuts after Masses to help people interact with one another.

“In a big place, it's very easy to remain anonymous,” Bonnar said. “It's a challenge all big communities have to face.”

According to a 2010 study conducted by the Hartford, Conn.-based Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership, a multi-faith group of religious researchers and faith leaders, most congregational growth historically has been associated with newer suburbs, but that's changed. Growth can be in rural or suburban communities, downtown, central city areas, the study found — as long as the host neighborhood has growing families.

Congregations with a mix of ages tend to grow, while those with half their members 50 or older are unlikely to grow, the study found.

“It's hard for a church of older people to adapt to a culture that would attract younger people,” said Dr. Donn Chapman, senior pastor of the nondenominational Cornerstone Ministries in Murrysville. Church officials said their members range from older members to younger families with children.

“The message hasn't changed, but the way you deliver it to the next generation has,” Chapman said.

He said his church tries to get worshippers involved in at least two activities a week — a worship service, educational classes or other events.

The church also has a cafe where people can mingle.

“You have to believe that every member is a minister, and put people to work,” he said.

Catholic parishes struggle

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as having about 2,000 people in weekly attendance, and there were nearly 1,700 such churches in 2011, the most recent figures available. Megachurches grew at a rate of about 8 percent a year.

As the nation's population increased from 225 million in 1980 to nearly 309 million in 2010, the number of congregations rose by nearly 19,700, and members by more than 13.5 million, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives.

In Western Pennsylvania, the numbers tell another story. Between 1980 and 2010, more than 45 denominations lost 424 congregations and 649,547 followers, according to the report.

Local pastors said that, on average, 25 to 35 percent of parishioners attend services regularly.

In river towns hit by the steel downturn in the 1980s, Catholic churches are struggling, said Bishop David Zubik of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Churches in areas with a growing population, including Cranberry, are doing better.

He does not see a trend toward consolidating parishes into megachurches, however.

“The message that I want people to hear is that the church needs to be where the people are,” Zubik said. “There are some small areas where you still have to have the presence of a Catholic church.”

Zubik noted that St. Kilian, with nearly 11,000 parishioners, is about to embark on construction of a $10 million church. The parish has a small church in Mars and has held Mass at other sites, including nearby Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School.

Enlisting staff, volunteers

Larger churches are able to hire more staff to keep parishioners involved, Zubik said.

“Everybody in those busy parishes is able to feel like they belong,” he said, adding that it's important that a priest is able to handle a large congregation.

“While it would be ideal to have the same relationship with an individual in a large community as in a small one, there's just no way one person will do that,” said the Rev. Michael Sikon, pastor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg's St. Barbara Parish in Harrison City, the largest in the diocese with nearly 7,600 members.

The church relies on its staff and a core group of about 350 people who volunteer with ministries and services to “keep me aware of what's going on in the community,” Sikon said. “We're recognizing that simply going to church and then going home, that's just not a model that sustains us.”

St. Benedict the Abbot has about 11,000 members and space for about 1,100 at Mass and 1,200 children in Sunday school classes.

“As we get larger, we can hire better people and bigger staff. But still, in the end, we want to be personable with people, and that's a challenge,” said the Rev. Robert Miller, its pastor.

‘That's our little church'

Some of the 150 congregations within the Pittsburgh Presbytery, which covers all of Allegheny County, band together so they can afford to do projects, such as relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy in 2012, said Sheldon Sorge, Presbytery executive and general minister.

“Small churches are able to engage their community more knowledgeably than larger churches,” Sorge said. The Presbytery has about 30,000 members.

“We value the neighborhood outreach of a congregation that can be lost if consolidated into a large congregation,” Sorge said.

The Presbytery has lost several congregations in the past several years, but Sorge said it has started about a dozen churches since 2000.

Georgio and Kathleen DiPaolo have been members of large and small churches. Size is not an issue, they said, because they sit in the same spot and get to know who sits around them.

“We don't float, so that's our little church right there,” Georgio DiPaolo said of his family with three young children, pointing to their usual section in St. Bernard, which seats about 800 people.

“Wherever two or three people are gathered, that'll be the church,” Bonnar added. “It's not so much the size as it is the spirit.”

Bill Vidonic is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach him at 412-380-5621 or bvidonic@tribweb.com.