I am trying to figure out if this is now standard terminology, or if the New York Time has invented a new pastoral position description that we need to consider for the Book of Order (tongue firmly in cheek).

This is from the controversy around President-elect Obama’s choice to have Baptist pastor, the Rev. Rick Warren, give the invocation at the presidential inauguration.  The Times article begins with this:

President-elect Barack Obama this morning defended his choice of
evangelical megapastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at next
month’s swearing-in, saying that although he differs with the
conservative pastor on social issues, he wants to have diverse voices
at the ceremony.

So, what we have in Rick Warren is not a pastor of a megachurch, we have a megapastor.  So, if we are going to write this into the constitution, alongside pastor, designated pastor, associate pastor, etc., what are the requirements and qualifications?  Is it the size of the church, or the size of the shadow?  I’ll have to think about this.

Anyway, if you want to look at this controversy a bit more seriously, there is a nice wrap-up of several of the different news reports at GetReligion.

UPDATE 12-29-08:  I should have done my research first.  A quick check on Google reveals that the term “megapastor” has been around for at least a couple of years and while the term seems to get applied to the Rev. Warren the most, a few others (who you could probably guess) get the term applied to them by the mainstream media.  Writing popular books seems to be a common thread as well as having multi-thousands of attendees at your church.