Mission Centers and Large Churches | Nazarene Presence on the Arizona Sun Megaregion (1917-2017)

​Again, pretty straight forward information from this infograph. 

Tucson is the midway point between Hermasillo and Flagstaff, right around the 400 km mark. 

About half of the churches are 75 or more in attendance, and so they could plausibly support a pastor. 

A trend is developing among the megaregions studied so far (Northeast, SoCal, Great Lakes, Cascadia) including Arizona Sun. About one quarter of Nazarenes in this megaregion are being discipled by a small segment of the churches. In this case,  three-percent of the local churches are making 25% of the disciples called Nazarene in the Arizona Sun megaregion.

Churches that run 600 in worship attendance or more are designated (by me, at least) as missional centers, serving as a base for missional strategy, training, and resourcing. They give missional support beyond finances to the other churches in the megaregion, if they wanted to. This megaregion does not have this luxury. There would need to be a strong contextual, outward orientation. Is there a missional base here? I really do not know.

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​These blog posts on Nazarene presence in megaregions are meant to be descriptive of a snapshot in time, to give a starting point for further questions, to assist those making prescriptive decisions in the megaregion, to be used by those setting missional strategy. So, the need for missional centers is something to think about.

One element to the missional strategy of the Church of the Nazarene is to go where they church is not yet present. I think it also includes places where the church used to be. I would also add: it is where current churches are not yet oriented. This is a megaregion with four distinct polities of organization within one context. How long will it take to re-orient to such a diverse context? Five to twelve million people (see below) are dying to know if the news will be good for the Arizona Sun megaregion.
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How long will it take to re-orient to
​such a diverse context?

Resources:

• Large Churches & Missional Centers | Great Lakes
• Large Churches & Missional Centers | Cascadia
• Large Churches & Missional Centers | Southern California
• Large Church & Missional Centers | Northeast 
• Nazarene Presence in the Northeast Megaregion (1887-2017)
• Nazarene Presence in the Southern California Megaregion (1895-2015)
• ​Nazarene Presence in the Cascadia Megaregion (1905-2015)
• Great Lakes Megaregion and the Church of the Nazarene​
• Megaregions and the Church of the Nazarene in North America​​