Disclaimer: The data in this post is approximate and not 100% verified or factual.

Click the chart to enlarge

I did a previous post on the Top 20 Megachurches and noticed while researching the pastors that, boy, have they written a lot of books! Holy cow. I thought it was just Joel Osteen, but I was wrong. The graphic above is the approximate number of books written* by the pastors of the top 50 megachurches according to one ranking list I found**. 476 books total! How do they have so much to say to write 10, 15, 30 books?! And are they writing these during work time when they should be doing other things for their church? Are they getting rich off these books? Tons of the these churches or pastors have an online store on their website to sell the books and dvds and study guide companions, which is a huge turn off for me. The whole thing just made me groan. It’s such a business and kind of feels like a scam. I doubt Jesus would have wanted it this way.

Keep in mind, these are just the books by those 50 pastors. There are thousands of other Christian books out there. In some cases, it definitely seems like overkill and they aren’t really saying anything new or revolutionary.  Just looking at the titles of some of the books makes me roll my eyes- we’ve got “Fresh Start: The New You Begins Today” by Osteen, “You’re Supposed to Be Wealthy: How to Make Money, Live Comfortably, and Build an Inheritance for Future Generations” by Creflo Dollar, and “Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together” by Marc Driscoll and his wife, a book I’ll never read after Marc’s comments insinuating that women were made to be penis homes for men (branches of the church started shutting down after that). Almost every cover of Joel Osteen or T.D. Jakes’ books is filled with a picture of them and their pearly whites.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent Christian books out there explaining the details and history of the Bible a lot better than your average Sunday school teacher and I’m grateful for that. Some that are truly motivating and inspriring and have made a difference in people’s lives. But I’m going to finish with a line by a local news reporter named John Matarese- “don’t waste your money!”

*I got the number of books mostly by examining Amazon, Goodreads, the pastor’s website, their church’s website, and wikipedia. It is by no means exact for many of them, but if the number is wrong, it’s more likely too low. It can be difficult to count when they have written so many and have different versions written in other languages, or a second edition with a companion study guide, DVDs, etc.

**Source: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/database.html