Chi Alpha | ΧΑ, is an international and interdenominational, coeducational Christian fellowship, social club, student society, and service organization founded in 1953 on the campus of Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. Chi Alpha is sponsored by the Assemblies of God USA, a Pentecostal denomination established after separating from the historically African American Church of God in Christ in 1914 over race and administration.
Willow Creek Community Church is an Evangelical nondenominational multisite megachurch based in the northwestern Chicago suburb of South Barrington, Illinois. It was founded on October 12, 1975 by Dave Holmbo and Bill Hybels, who was its longtime senior pastor. Willow Creek has seven locations in the Chicago area; their Spanish-speaking congregations, Willow Español, meet at South Barrington and South Lake in Lincolnshire campuses.
William Hybels is an American church figure and author. He is the founding and former senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, one of the most attended churches in North America, with an average attendance of nearly 24,000 as of late 2018. He is the founder of the Willow Creek Association and creator of the Global Leadership Summit. Hybels is also an author of a number of Christian books, especially on the subject of Christian leadership.
Sovereign Grace Churches is a group of reformed, continuationist, and confessionalist Christian churches primarily located in the United States. Sovereign Grace believes that churches should exist in a close partnership with one another and describe themselves as a family of churches. In addition to the U.S. congregations, there are also congregations in Mexico, Australia, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Great Britain, Germany, and many other countries.
Jack Frasure Hyles was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.
Hyles–Anderson College (HAC) is a private Independent Fundamental Baptist college in unincorporated Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana. As a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, it focuses on training pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers to work in Independent Baptist schools. It was founded in 1972.
Prestonwood Baptist Church is a Baptist multi-site megachurch based in Plano, Texas. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. It is one of the largest churches in America, with a membership of over 45,000 and a weekly attendance of around 17,000.
John Steven Gaines is an American Southern Baptist pastor who has served as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He resigned as senior pastor on September 22. 2024, to pursue an itinerant preaching ministry at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, one of the largest congregations in the Southern Baptist Convention and has visited Israel 16 times. On Sunday, July 10, 2005, the Pastor Search Committee of Bellevue Baptist Church presented Dr. Steve Gaines to the church congregation. At the conclusion of the services the Bellevue family overwhelmingly voted to call Steve Gaines as the seventh Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church. Gaines succeeds the longtime Bellevue pastor Adrian Rogers.
Hillsong Church, commonly known as Hillsong, is a charismatic Christian megachurch and a Christian association of churches based in Australia. The original church was established in Baulkham Hills, New South Wales, as Hills Christian Life Centre by Brian Houston and his wife, Bobbie Houston, in 1983. Hillsong was a member of the Australian Christian Churches – the Australian branch of the US-based Assemblies of God – until 2018, when it separated to form a new denomination. The church is known for its contemporary worship music, with groups such as Hillsong Worship, Hillsong United and Hillsong Young & Free with many musical credits and hits and a series of scandals and criticisms.
The Meeting House was an Anabaptist church located in the Greater Toronto Area suburb of Oakville, Ontario. A member of the Be in Christ Church of Canada, the Canadian branch of the Brethren in Christ Church, at its height it consisted of nineteen regional sites that met mostly in cinemas, each of which had a lead pastor with a team of elders and part-time staff. It was started in 1985 by Craig and Laura Sider and a board of overseers. From 1997 its senior teaching pastor was Bruxy Cavey during whose tenure the congregation grew to an average weekly attendance of around 5,000—ranked by the Hartford Institute of Religion as the third-largest church in Canada—and expanded to multiple sites in southern Ontario. Cavey stepped down in late 2021 after claims of sexual abuse were substantiated against him. The church paused all public ministry in late June 2024 as it had been denied coverage for abuse liability insurance and employment practices liability. It ceased operations at the end of August, with its remaining sites rebranding as the "BIC Church Collective", a loose association of churches that that shared preaching and support functions.
James Robison is an American televangelist and the founder and President of the Christian relief organization Life Outreach International.
Kari Brooke Jobe is an American contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter. Since her first album in 2009, she has received two Grammy Award nominations and ten Dove Award nominations, six of which she won.
Church of the Highlands is a non-denominational evangelical Christian multi-site megachurch based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is the largest congregation in Alabama with an average of 60,000 attendees every week as of 2023. The senior pastor is Chris Hodges.
Robert Morris is a former American televangelist pastor who founded Gateway Church, a megachurch based in Southlake, Texas, in 2000. He served as senior pastor at the church until 2024, when he resigned after allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct with a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
Brian Charles Houston is a New Zealand-Australian former pastor and evangelist. He was the founder and senior pastor at Hillsong Church, based in Sydney with locations around the world. He was the national president of Australian Christian Churches, the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God, from 1997 to 2009.
Ronald Wayne Floyd is an American Baptist pastor, and a former Southern Baptist executive. Ronnie was the Senior Pastor of Cross Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch located in Northwest Arkansas, and served as the 61st president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2014-2016. He resigned his post as Senior Pastor in 2019 to become the full-time CEO of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee and run the day-to-day operations of the denomination. His resignation on October 14, 2021 coincided with mounting pressure in the wake of the SBC sexual abuse scandal.
Gilbert Bilezikian is an American Evangelical Christian writer, professor, and lecturer. Along with Bill Hybels, Bilezikian is a co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. In 2020, Willow Creek announced that allegations of sexual abuse had been made against Bilezikian.
NewSpring Church is a Baptist Evangelical multi-site megachurch based in Anderson, South Carolina, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Timothy Bruce Cavey, known as Bruxy Cavey, is a Canadian author and former pastor. He is the author of The End of Religion and Reunion. Cavey, along with Greg Boyd, has been an important voice in recent discussions of Christian nonviolence theology in North America. Cavey has been a guest professor teaching university-level courses around North America, particularly Tyndale University, Messiah College, and Fresno Pacific University Biblical Seminary. He was a pastor at The Meeting House church in Oakville, Ontario, for 25 years, but was asked to resign from his role as teaching pastor in March 2022 after a third-party investigation revealed his years-long sexual abuse of a member of his church. According to the Toronto Star, a church official stated that the investigation found his conduct to be an abuse of power and that it amounted to sexual harassment. In June 2022, Cavey was arrested and charged with sexual assault.
Widespread sexual abuse cases in Southern Baptist churches were reported by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News on February 10, 2019. The report found roughly 380 clergy, lay leaders and volunteers had faced allegations of sexual misconduct, leaving behind over 700 victims since 1998. The extent of misconduct is further complicated by work within the Southern Baptist Convention to move sex offenders to other communities and resist attempts to address the culture of abuse.
