Do Christians Become Wimpy as their Church Grows Larger?

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081015/do-christians-become-wimpy-as-their-church-grows-larger.htm

[The Christian Post] 16 Oct 2008--There are lots of church stereotypes out there. A new book, What Americans Really Believe, uncovered a bunch of surprises which will debunk a number of myths. I was most interested in chapter 5, whose subtitle is "supersizing the faith."

Author Rodney Stark is an academic with very impressive credentials. As part of a national research project done through Gallup, his university surveyed a bunch of Christians and then sorted the findings according to the size of church they attended. He then compared the two extremes: churches with attendances under 100 and churches with attendances over 1,000. He also notes that no interpretation would be changed if congregations of all sizes in between were included in his analysis.

It turns out that as church size increase, people's beliefs are more certain. For example, on the question of whether heaven absolutely exists, 92% of people in larger churches said yes, while 79% in smaller churches said yes. Does hell absolutely exists? The replies were 90% and 69%.

What about people's practices? Those in the larger churches attend services weekly or more often (46% and 39%), more of them tithe (46% and. 36%), and more of them attend a Bible-study group (52% and 43%). So personal commitment is higher with church size.