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Does Size Matter? (Part 3)
Yesterday, we talked about one option for those who prefer small churches:
Pray like crazy that you don’t reach new people, so your church will stay small–just the way you like it!
Here are some more options:
- Start new churches. Instead of trying to bring people in, let’s send some people out.
- Start or participate in a network of house churches. (In some ways, that’s how I see our church. The purest form of the church is the LifeGroup. My LifeGroup is in many ways my church. Then all our groups meet corporately with the larger body.)
- Start new campuses.
The bottom line is, we must remember that the church doesn’t exist for us. But we are the church, and we exist to glorify God and to reach the world!
Other thoughts?
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“The bottom line is, we must remember that the church doesn’t exist for us.”
I wonder what the modern church would look like if ALL the “members” showed up on Sundays (or Saturday nights if that’s an option) not with the intent of attending but rather serving? What if they didn’t even make it into the auditorium except to offer assistance in finding a seat for a non-member/attender? What if each “member” took it upon themselves to be personally responsible for their own spiritual growth and maturity - through daily personal time with God, His Word, prayer, accountability/mentoring relationships, and community with other believers - rather than relying on a “spiritual fix” each Sunday from their pastor? How do we mold the flock into this mentality? How can we inspire them to use Sundays (or Saturdays) as an opportunity to give to those who do not have? Of course, I am a chief offender, but I’m thinking…
Theme of the day - Vulnerability
This morning in staff devotions we talked about the fact that a community of believers needs to be just that - a community of believers. It needs to be a place where everyone helps everyone else, no matter how small or how large. Yet so many times …
Kyle, you nailed it with your quote that the church doesn’t exist for us. We have been taught and trained this mentality that the church exists so that we can feel good. God’s grace exists so that we can feel comfort. God’s love exists so that we never have to feel stretched. (I am not saying God’s love and grace are bad things!
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We desperately need to get our of consumerism and into service. While compaines that make the customer #1 are great, they are still feeding into the thinking that I always have to be the #1 customer all the time. What if we lived by the lifestyle that these companies are living by? The customer is #1, therefore any employee is second to the customer. I know that churches aren’t “companies” and attenders aren’t “customers,” but if our churches can get into the mindset that everyone besides myself is #1 and I am always second to everyone else, I think amazing things would happen. I’m guilty of it as well, and definitely need God’s help here.
Hopefully that made sense
a big hearty A-men to that, CG!
I love the idea of planting micro or house churches…truely reproduction at it essence.
It somewhat ties in with one of the things I read in a cuurent book (The Seeking Heart by Charles Ringma), “Embrace the spirituality of downward mobility; this is a willingness to modify our career, change our location, or whatever other sacrifices we are called to make, for the sake of following Christ in the service of others”.
Michael, Thanks for the book recommendation. Sounds interesting.
Craig, In the Bible, Jesus talked to multitudes of people, would he have ever said, This is too many, I need a smaller group or church? Don’t think so!
Tom, You have a great heart for the lost! I appreciate you more than you know!
YES! Busting out the praying for no growth…
Dear God! I hate people and love controlling my church…so would you please just leave us alone so we can continue being the church…
ughhhh Amen!
“Start or participate in a network of house churches”.
We are in the process of doing just that using the LifeChurch open resources. The neighbors(churched and unchurched)are gobbling it up. I’ve never seen such a response. They are calling themselves Neighborhood Life Groups. What is ironic is now some(the Churched)are asking, Why can’t we start our own LifeChurch campus here?
The answer. Lets not put the cart in front of the horse. Do we really want to create another audience?. What we are doing is working better than anything we have ever experienced because of the participatory process, it originates from the neighborhood itself and we use great resources of an already established ministry.
Is it not better to have 100 people participating in spiritual transformation process than just having an audience of 1000?.
The time will come where the need and demand to have a celebration gathering is so great that it will gives us almost no choice in the matter. At that time the emphasis and purpose of the new church plant should be simple, outward, and function as a team concept. Just like the Neighborhood Life groups do.
It’s not the size that matters, but whether the majority of your audience is facilitating spiritual transformation outside of the weekly event. Are we who do ministry assimilating people into internal church life habits or outside the walls kingdom life habits?
What is happening in our neighborhoods is proof that LifeChurch is doing it right.
Here’s a wacky thought:
I wonder what it would be like if only active participants of Life Groups, a Neighborhood life group network or House church network had access to the weekly celebration so no audiences would form. Everyone in the groups could bring guests but the guest would have to go to a neighborhood group first. Hmmm. Yep. Thats wacky.
Our church has a similar concept with your Life Groups, except ours are called Home Cells, which are basically smaller cell groups (or churches) that meet on one of the nights during the week.
We’ve also started Life Groups this year as well (before I found LifeChurch.tv). This is where people with similar interests come together to fellowship and build each other up.
Through these small groups it’s a great time for people to really get involved because of its (small) size. I think it gives people a sense of belonging and community, because in smaller groups you can focus on certain issues alot easier than if you were to address a thousand people.
I agree totally that the people make up the church (body of Christ). So in order for the church to be effective, each member of the body must be doing its part. It’s like asking, which would you build with, a 1,000 bricks or 1,000,000 sheets of paper?
I have a couple of questions regarding the decision to have multiple campuses… I wanted to e-mail it, but I couldn’t really find a link for that. I found this post, so I’ll ask here…
Our church is considering starting a second campus at the moment.
The bottom line is, we must remember that the church doesn’t exist for us. But we are the church, and we exist to glorify God and to reach the world!
Other thoughts?
What else is there to say…. that says it all!!!
We need to be reaching people for Christ any way we can. Nuff said.
The last thing Jesus told us to do before He left, was to go out and make disciples and baptize them. It is impossible to keep your church small and obey this command because the only way you will be baptizing people is if unsaved people are finding Jesus in your church. Seems we just want to disciple the ones we have so we can stay comfortable. Breaks my heart to see this because I came to a church 13 years ago unsaved! Thankfully one that understood Jesus’ last words. Great series of posts Craig!
Craig…I was at the Catalyst One Day in Baltimore MD this past Monday. I just wanted to personally thank you for your passion and transparency! I thought both you and Andy ROCKED! I appreciate you and he building into others and the next generation.
Religion just keeps trying to find a way to control the Move of God. When the church gets her eyes off herself and focuses on God and what He wants, then things will truly change. The seeker friendly concern that is controlling the church right now is just a ploy to quench the Holy Spirit. If we will unite in prayer and allow the Lord to change each of us from the inside, we will begin to manifest all of the aspects of God that will draw the world to Him. The primary attributes are love, joy, peace, humility, and all of the fruits of the spirit. These are irresistible to those who are seeking the Lord and confounding to the world. It’s not the structure of our churches that will usher in the Great Awakening, but the condition of our hearts and the degree to which we welcome the Holy Spirit to move among us both inside and outside the walls of our churches.
Matt, Thanks so much. It was awesome to be in Baltimore. Thanks for taking your time to join us.
Jeff, I think I’ve done some writing on the questions you’re asking about on the blog. You might search multi-site. Sorry I can’t spend the time answering them in detail. I”m walking into meetings now.
I grew up in large church, love large church and am building a large church. The key for me loving it however, was I got INVOLVED. Getting people involved in whatever capacity they desire is the challenge.
Who are we to decide how many a church is to reach and when we have reached our limit? Didn’t know God put a quota on the church. Totally agree that Lifegroup is the very essence of church. I can miss an experience on a weekend and be okay, but missing Lifegroup is almost too painful.
Hey Jeff I would be glad to help with your questions on Multi Site. We have six campuses. Don’t have all the answers but I am happy to share what I’ve learned. jccatkinson@gmail.com
Same conversations happening within the H2OChurch.tv network - are you spying on our conversations??
As a pastor my job is to lead our church to be everything God intends it to be. Size is up to Him.
Sorry I didn’t make it to Baltimore. Prayed for you several times on Monday. Hope to see you again soon. Keep leading well, you are making a difference.
But, if the church doesn’t exist for “me,” then who’s going to make sure I’m happy?
Okay, just kidding there…
Actually, I think it has to do a lot with your view on worship. If you’re viewing worship as a “lifestyle,” then you’re running as fast as you can to make sure your church is growing.
The problem is, most of us aren’t looking at worship through that lens. We tend to think of it as a “diet from sin.” We live our “real lives” all week long and then come to church on Sunday morning, where we confess to God, experience closeness with Christ, hang out with our friends who are living life just like us, and walk out the door to our “real life.” We let God wash off the sin for an hour or so and then we spend the next 6 days and 23 hours binging on whatever makes us feel good.
If that’s how you view worship, then you don’t want your church to grow because it messes up the environment you’re comfortable in and it forces you to change what you know. Because people will always DO what they KNOW. If you don’t know how to worship as a lifestyle, there is no way it will happen.
You will find things to criticize and tear down, instead of ways to encourage and build.
Let’s redefine our definition of “worship” and then we will see our churches grow.
It’s funny to me that most people that say numbers don’t matter are the ones without any numbers or no measurable growth. When I read the book of Acts, which I love to do frequently, the result of people sharing their faith and sharing the Gospel was “people being added to their number daily”. I think many churches are started, not because of a call from God, but because it’s the cool thing to do.
One of the biggest challenges (if not THE biggest) I have faced in trying to revitalize a nearly 100 year old traditional church is wrapped in the last sentence of Craig’s post - “The bottom line is, we must remember that the church doesn’t exist for us. But we are the church, and we exist to glorify God and to reach the world!” I have been amazed at the overwhelming attitude that church exist to serve and accommodate Christians. For most older churches to have this perspective means they were taught it, or at least allowed to believe it without challenge. How did we ever arrive at the conclusion that says the church is exist primarily for the believers who attend that church? How did we ever morph into this thinking when Jesus (and the Bible as a whole) is explicitly clear about the purpose and mission of the church?
I love what’s being said. Great stuff, I just found this blog and greatful for another place to be able to read and discern thru tough topics like this and when questions like this come up when talking with other believers or non. Thank you for leading us Pastor Craig @ LifeChurch.tv and all the others who post here for some good insight. Thanks!
As a christian who has been through a lot of movements over the past 30 years in primarily in small churches I see the biggest potential for growth and spiritual development within the small group format. The challenge in that environment is to keep connected with the rest of the body of Christ. Craig I agree with you that we need to continue to be connected to a larger group of believers on a regular basis. The risk we take when we do not connect is that we become ingrown and set ourselves up for discontentment and false teaching.
We need to grow our hearts with the Word and reach out…Then they “Will know we are Christians by Our love…” We ARE the church…you are THE church…I am the Church…simply, Be what you ALREADY ARE!
I liked Tom’s comment (from 2007) relating to what Jesus would have done. Large, small, on the front porch, in the boat, etc., it doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s in your cheerful heart.
Exactly what I was thinking, thank you!
“The bottom line is, we must remember that the church doesn’t exist for us.”
I think I’ll take a contrary viewpoint to just about everyone who has commented and say the church DOES exist for us. The church is a place for us to get and to give, to exist with one another in a community and meet the needs of fellow believers.
I grew up in a congregation of about 300 and we were the closest knit group of people. “Church” was everyday - delivering meals, hospital visits, witnessing through works, etc. You could count on the members of the church in ways I’ve seldom seen elsewhere.
But I think its a trade off of sorts. On the one hand, a larger church allows you to do more (i.e. financially) but you invariably attract people who just show up for the donuts. On the broad scale, do these half-hearted christians do the message of Christ a disservice by giving a witness that does not accurately reflect Christ?
I had a youth leader who told us his prayer was to have the smallest youth group by the end of the summer. Not that he wanted people to leave, but that he desired a group that were complete disciples of Christ. A quality > quantity sort of arrangement. I don’t know if thats the right way to view church, but its certainly the opposite of the collective views from these posts.
So now a “would you rather” question…
Would you rather have 12 disciples who would die for you, or 1000 followers who didn’t know your last name?
My thought is that there is an unaddressed discrepancy between “normal church” and small groups. Why is it that churches recognize the necessity for smaller group interaction for spiritual transformation but seemingly cannot wrap their heads around the idea that perhaps they don’t need a “normal church” service.
If it is small groups that make transformation possible at the deepest level, then meet in small groups. Why waste time, money, energy, and resources on putting on a good weekend service if the best that can be hoped for is getting people into a small group?
Luke 14:25-34. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turns and tells them the cost of being a disciple.
John 6:60-71. People desert Jesus because his teaching was too hard.
I do think that Jesus once in a while looked at the huge crowds following him and decided “I need to prune out the fakers” every once in a while.
I think the concern from some in the small church movement is whether we’re making disciples or filling seats. They may be wrong, but they’re intentions are far better than we give them credit for.
Good stuff, just started reading this blog again and love it. At the end of the day, we must be building people who are not about convenience but conviction. ‘Small church’ or ‘large church’ is not really the issue.
The issue at hand is an element of focus.
4 Life,
Josh Reading
LifeCity Church, Civic and Tuggeranong