movement has now moved beyond its original missionary phase and even its early American phase. The church-growth movement has come into its own in a third phase, through the highly popularized form of the megachurches, which have everything to do with modernity. Beyond that, it must also seem a little excessive to critique the church-growth movement with the global category of modernity—an exercise that is rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. But in fact the whole importance of the