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This is a list of the largest
megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...
es in the United States with an attendance of more than 10,000 weekly, sometimes also termed a ''gigachurch''. According to that The Hartford Institute's database, approximately 50 churches had attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000 in 2010. The same source also lists more than 1,300 such
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
and
Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
churches in the United States with a weekly attendance of more than 2,000, meeting the definition of a megachurch. As the term ''megachurch'' in common parlance refers to Protestant congregations; although there are some
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
parishes which would meet the criteria, they are not listed. St Ann's in
Coppell, Texas Coppell ( ) is a city in the northwest corner of Dallas County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is a suburb of Dallas and a bedroom community in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its population was 42,983 at the 2020 census. A small area in t ...
, would be near the top, with almost 30,000 registered parishioners in 2013. St Matthew's Catholic Church in the
Ballantyne Ballantyne may refer to: People * Charles Ballantyne (1867–1950), Canadian politician * David Ballantyne (1924–1986), a New Zealand journalist, novelist and short-story writer * Edith Ballantyne (born 1922), Czech-born Canadian executive sec ...
neighborhood of
Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...
likewise has been described as a Catholic
megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...
. with nearly 36,000 registered members in 2017 and 11 weekly masses. However weekly attendance figures may be lower than the number of registered parishioners, and the differences in way the churches operate and the way attendance is counted are given as reasons for not including Catholic churches in lists of megachurches. Membership numbers of the following churches give only a very rough indication of size. They vary from year to year. Also, some churches report typical Sunday attendance while others report the number who are listed in church records or make financial contributions, which may be higher. Some of the larger churches are
multi-site church A multi-site church is a specific church congregation which holds services at multiple geographical locations, either within a specific metropolitan area or, increasingly, several such areas. Characteristic Within the multi-site approach, both the ...
es. Many churches deliver their message through
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
or other media, sometimes reaching much higher numbers than those who physically attend the church.


List

Note that the attendance numbers are often provided by the church itself, and may be unreliable.


See also

*
List of the largest evangelical megachurches This list of the largest evangelical megachurches contains only evangelical Christian megachurches related to the following currents: Baptist, Pentecostalism, the evangelical charismatic movement, neo-charismatic movement and Nondenominational Chr ...
*
List of the largest evangelical church auditoriums This is a list of the largest evangelical church auditoriums. The list is based on the human seating capacity of the evangelical church auditoriums. Characteristics The building of an Evangelical Christian megachurch has a main auditorium for ...
*
List of largest church buildings in the world Churches can be measured and compared in several different ways. These include area, volume, length, width, height, or capacity. Several churches individually claim to be "the largest church", which may be due to any one of these criteria. C ...


Notes


References

{{Religion-related lists of superlative buildings *
Megachurches A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...
Megachurches, United States
Megachurches A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...