According to The Hartford Institute a mega church is defined as:

The term megachurch generally refers to any Protestant (see below regarding very large Catholic churches) congregation with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2000 persons or more in its worship services. 

Most discussions of megachurches focus on very large Protestant Christian congregations in the United States - of which there are over 1200.

Likewise, there are significant numbers of megachurches throughout the world, especially in Korea, Brazil, and several African countries, although no exact count exists for this worldwide phenomenon.  The largest megachurch in America averages 30,000 in attendance; however, several churches in Korea claim over 250,000 attenders. 

Although very large congregations have existed throughout Christian history, there has been a rapid proliferation of churches with massive attendance since the decade of the 1970’s.  As such, some researchers suggest that this church form is a unique collective response to distinctive cultural shifts and changes in societal patterns throughout the industrialized, urban and suburban areas of the world. 

I understand Mars Hill is a mega church on the west coast of the US, headed by a visionary type A personality pastor-to-pastor entrepreneur named Mark Driscoll. I’ve only read him a few times, mega isn’t something I personally am comfortable with. Especially when it comes to church. Driscoll has 5 kids, obviously a very patient and competent wife, and he is on the go constantly. He is paying a price, a price a lot of Reverends inadvertently find themselves paying. Burnout rates are high in every size of church and ministry, Driscoll is a step away from being another statistic.

On top of a pile of unending responsibilities, Discoll writes a column, and this one is painful.

Of Brokeness and Buddies

I write this blog while flying somewhere over the United States late on a Thursday night heading home from a conference in the great nation of Texas. I have blogged very little thus far in 2007 as I have been playing hurt in terms of my health. I have been pushing it for ten years since Mars Hill Church opened up, and the end of last year was a particularly rough patch. I was looking forward to a few weeks off after Christmas to catch up on sleep. Sadly, what happened is that I would be very tired and go to bed at a decent hour only to wake up a few hours later, unable to return to sleep. I was not stressed out or thinking, but it seemed something was physically wrong. Even sleeping pills were of little to no help and by the end of the holidays I was exhausted, having slept an average of perhaps three hours a night. A naturopath said I had overextended myself and worn out my adrenal glands (which regulate my sympathetic nervous system).

I’ve read it carefully a couple of times and I have one word for this pace and level of expectation and disjointed assistance to someone crying out for help.
Insane.
Our sympathetic and parasympatetic nervous system is designed to warn us that our lifestyle is out of whack. And when we don’t pay attention, we pay the price. I’m sure Driscoll will get hundreds of tut-tut emails, and people letting him know they are praying for him.
He needs help, good medical help. He serious, mature people stepping into his life  and into their responsibilities at his church to provide him with what he and his family needs, not what he thinks he wants.

ReformedCatholics says it better than I can.
Mars Hill/Mark Driscoll - wiki

via such small hands is a post by Kenny (a minister) blogging at The Thinklings. He isn’t running a mega church, but he is juggling too many expectations and responsibilities. 
These kinds of schedules and these levels of activities do not lend themselves to pastoring.
I think pew sitters and church boards don’t understand pastoral pressure unless they are told and I admire Kenny and Driscoll for their transparency.
Congregations need to stop wanting to be entertained, get over some of their leader worship, cultural expectations, and me-ism, (selfishness) and step forward to help to take care of the caretakers.

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you, you’ve been going through the motions your soul has departed; you’re a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.” - Sam Keen