I was recently drawn to look at this post:
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2009/12/church_size_and.html
After reading this post, I realized that our desire to be a “smaller” church has to do with “us”! Wanting to remain a smaller church is pretty self-serving. Now, don’t get me wrong. Maybe we ARE to remain a smaller church. We’ve been a church for 40+ years and have never seen significant growth. Steady, yes. And the typical rise and fall as pastors come and go. I’m not saying that just because Barna has “proven” that larger churches may be more mature/on target scripturally that we should strive to attain that magic 1000+ member status. But neither should we wish to remain small to serve whatever needs we feel are best met by that type of fellowship. I was recently in a church meeting where 2 IT type guys didn’t really even know another IT guy who has been going to our church for a couple of years. So, small isn’t necessarily drawing us closer anyway. We find the people/cliques we want to hang with and don’t branch out from there anyway. And we call ourselves a small church!
I’m not exactly sure how to resolve this in my mind. It seems that we should “go” for something. A 450 member church, a 1000 member church or whatever. Or should we plant a church? Many churches talk of planting once they get to “X” number and I don’t see that done much. There is a local church who I know has planted a couple of other churches. We can argue that they “just” created other versions of themselves albeit at different locations. But then, what’s wrong with that?
Our church has been bantering around an idea of acquiring a local vacant grocery store building. I haven’t put my finger on why this seems to make sense and why it evokes excitement. I can see the church becoming a congregation of a thousand there. In our present location, it just seems….ugh. Can you explain this to me? Is it just because the grocery store is “shiny”? I was compelled to pray for that today. Not exactly sure of what I am praying FOR. But, praying nonetheless.
The statistic will show that the majority of people attend churches of less than 200 people. Our church is already above that! So, maybe we can already call ourselves a megachurch! I have no desire to actually draft a target number and try to reach that. Likewise, I don’t want to put limits on that just because it makes me feel happy inside for some reason. I think our church is working through some good stuff right now. It’s hard. It’s taxing. And it’s exhausting. But, it’s rewarding.
Amen.
