As you all recall, I have no real idea what those three sizes actually represent. At least, I didn’t until I started complaining about it online… now I know that tall actually means [sm]all. So the past day or so I’ve been thinking about church size, the “bigger is better” philosphy, and satellite churches.
This whole thing was sparked by Bob Robinson asking about Satellite churches after reading something on Phil Steiger’s blog about them, and a Christianity Today article on the subject. This all started me thinking.
The church I left behind (“CLB”) had a satellite campus… it just wasn’t called that. It was called “one church in two locations.” Years ago we believed in church planting, and planted (or transplanted, whatever) a congregation in another part of the city — I was part of the leadership for said church plant. Ten years later, it remained the only church plant and there was talk of absorbing it back into the mothership (an idea that was ultimately and recently rejected; the “satellite” congregation had never wanted to return to the mothership, it was just an idea the leaders had). Somewhere along the line they seemed to stop believing in church planting, which was news to the church plant. At this same time, they were looking all over at different church models and had landed on this thing about satellite campuses, which it could be said was a fit for what they were already doing. They inserted “G12” into their vocabulary at that point, except now they’re pursuing a megachurch model, with one tagalong satellite. The absolute saddest thing about the whole affair is that these guys have been running small groups within the church for more than 25 years, sometimes well and sometimes not, but continuously for a quarter-century. Rather than look within and extract what they’ve learned about the process over that time that is not only of great wisdom and value but is geared very specifically to their community and culture, it seems they’d rather look for answers in Bogota and other people’s books. Happy me, I’m just watching from the outside now.
Anyway, I had a number of thoughts on this subject while reading and while contemplating yesterday, but hadn’t the chance to blog them yet. This morning I noticed via Stephen Shields (via Darryl Dash, via Steve McMillan) a discussion that still continues on a post from February by Adam Cleaveland. Seems Adam visited megachurch North Point Community Church and wasn’t real keen on the experience. By the way, can we insist that megachurches remove the word “Community” from their names on the basis it’s false advertising? Probably not, but when you read the discussion you’ll find a lot of people who would want to do so… and I might be one of them.
The interesting thing about the North Point Thread is that CEO senior pastor Andy Stanley weighs in on the discussion at the end of August with a sarcastic apology for the size of the church. This appears to be a really bad show on his part, but in fairness if I was part of a megachurch I’d find his comment really funny. This of course gave the thread a spark of new life and more discussion ensued, during which of all things, it became somewhat constructive. Go figure.
I said I had some new thoughts on megachurch and satellite church… and I do, so here they are in no particular order.
(1) Megachurches are well suited to the “bootstrap theology” of the word-faith set, where a “bigger, better, faster, more” mentality would seem to be right at home. If you think that one of the reasons to be part of a church has to do with networking for your business, this is the place for you. Sorry, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time expounding and defending this assertion, it’s just an observation.
(2) An argument for church size has been the pooling of resources for more efficient uses of funds. While I think there may be an element of truth to this argument when churches are between about 75 and 200 people, I think that it becomes less and less true the larger the church is after that. Maybe there’s some number someplace after 5 or 6 thousand where it starts to become efficient again, but I rather doubt it. What inevitably happens is that more money gets spent on maintaining the building and the ministries within the church, and less is available for outreach or giving to foreign aid and mission. These, of course, are the proposed beneficiaries of these fiscal efficiencies — there will be more to give away after our own needs are met in a more efficient manner due to economies of scale. I no longer believe this argument… the untold hidden truth is that scale has costs of its own. If 75-200 people isn’t fiscally efficient, why assume the answer is bigger and not smaller? You know what happens when you ass/u/me.
(3, intro) In starting a new satellite church — and this would track right along with Saddleback form — there’s an apparent emphasis on doing it right, right out the gate. On opening Sunday, you’ve got ushers, greeters, children’s workers, and a full worship team. Put your best foot forward so you can be welcoming and inviting, and in this way you will grow. If you paused to read some of the links provided above, you’ll recall a concern voiced about a new satellite church in a neighbouring community where the concern was that it would simply draw people from other churches who are more comfortable with the new church’s music or method or whatever. It isn’t new growth, it’s the dreaded “transfer-growth.”
(3a) Now, christians know better than anybody what to look for in a church. All of the spit-and-polish that goes into Sunday morning is really going to impress them, and they may be inclined to join. Non-christians, on the other hand, really don’t know what to look for in a church, how could they? Why should they? They do know what to look for in a friend, though. If you want to reach those people, it seems to me you need to spend more time being a friend than being a spit-and-polish church. Just let that sink in a moment.
(3b) If you feel that your calling is to provide a place for already-christians to get together in a contemporary fashion so their needs can be met in the newest ministry model, then there’s nothing wrong with doing it well so you can gather these people and Maslow the Hell out of them. I promise I won’t embarass you by asking you for chapter-and-verse to support your calling. Just don’t call that the Great Commission, and please don’t keep talking about the numbers and the endless ministries and all the campuses — frankly, I don’t care.
(3c) On the subject of people leaving one church for another, and even on the charge of “recruiting,” I’m aware that this has been derided and called “sheep-stealing” and so forth. While I don’t believe it’s ultimately productive to the Kingdom to look to other churches to gather your flock, at the same time, people are going to move where they want to move, and I’ve decided this has been unjustly villified. In stealing sheep, you are taking them away from their owner. Think on that a while, and you’ll see my point. Churches who worry about or charge other churches with stealing their sheep don’t deserve to have a flock at all. In one way this observation is in support of the satellite/megachurch model and in another it’s in support of the church leavers, all of those who like me, have an identifiable CLB and need more than six words to answer the question of where they go to church now (unless they just cut to the chase, say “I don’t,” and leave it at that).
(4, intro) Andy Stanley has a good point about the optimal church size. He says,
Our theory is that a church should be allowed or encouraged to grow large enough to sustain a viable high school and middle school ministry. A successful student ministriy requires critical mass in order to capture and keep the attention of their target audience. So the question becomes, how many aduilts are required to generate critical mass for a student ministry? That depends upon the demographic of a community.
If you are a twenty six year old seminary student with a couple of kids in diapers that may not sound like a great answer. But if you are a church planter with 150 people and one of your elders just informed you that her family is leaving because you don’t have anything for her thirteen year old, it makes painful sense.
Parents will put up with a lot in big church if thier teenagers feel connected to a student ministry.
That’s it. Reaction welcomed. We’re still learning.
Now this is perhaps the best response to the question I’ve yet heard.
(4a) I like Andy’s answer well enough that I’m tempted to let it stand, but I would like to point out that it doesn’t answer the question of how big is too big. This answers how big is big enough by giving a minimum, but it doesn’t provide a maximum. For those who are building in a model similar to his, I do think it’s an excellent response, but I want to question whether it’s the only way to sustain the ministry. What if the middle school ministry were run jointly by a group of satellites in which none were more than 80 people? Ten or fifteen of these could remain relational, neighbourhood-based, outward-focused, and yet still provide enough common draw to support the middle-school ministry and a full-time worker to run it.
(4b) For those of you who know me personally and with whom we’ve had discussions around the whole “what about the kids” issue, this may come out sounding like a directed comment, but it isn’t… this is really just the substance of conversations we’ve already had. My biggest problem at the moment is that if the large institutional church isn’t a good enough model for me, why would it be good enough for my kids simply because it’s bigger and has the requisite number of children’s or youth workers? The answer (at least for me so far) comes down to an uncomfortable mix of taking responsibility to teach my own kids on spiritual matters and of finding an alternate larger expression for them to participate in periodically. For as long as I can remember youth groups that have kids from other churches or no church at all is a perfectly normal situation… no reason my kids can’t be those kids. Still, I continue to wonder about the idea of youth church or a parachurch group or jointly-sponsored group (as described in 4a above) that provides this outlet. Clearly we aren’t there yet… but is it something that’s advisable and attainable?
(5) I refer to an older post where I discuss the fact that the churches in the time of the Apostles were all house churches, and that there’s nothing wrong with that model. Follow the hyperlink trail through that post to the scholarly article on which the observation is based. This of course in and of itself doesn’t invalidate the megachurch model, it’s just that we’ve come so far from the mindset of embracing the small that we actually have to argue it’s validity. Sad. We’re so far from it that we can’t admit it’s a “small,” we have to re-label it a [t]all. There’s a probably-apocryphal story of two pastors meeting at a conference… “And how big is your church?” one asks the other. “Oh, we’re still under 4,000,” comes the reply, the truth being that they’re also still under 400.
(6) Church size – maybe there’s nothing wrong with a MegaVenti church… but I might want to see it divided and poured into about 18 cups so that it can spread out and shared properly. After all, isn’t this the real way of being salt and light in the world? We seem to understand the idea of a big light on a high hill that everyone can see and flock toward… but the weakness with that is that there will always be shadows unless smaller lights shine from many directions. So too with salt… it’s much more effective when sprinkled.
Of course, these are all just my own observations and musings so far, and some of my opinions-in-flux; I could be wrong. Thankfully this is the Internet; if I’m right, maybe 4 people will tell me, and if I’m wrong, maybe 40 people will tell me. ;^)
“maybe there’s nothing wrong with a MegaVenti church” While I understand why you say this, I’m sort of done with that. I’m done trying to come up with a way to say that mega model is a valid Kingdom expression of “church.” Forget the word community for sure. OK, I won’t rag on them. Everyone who is a Christian is my sibling and I’m sure they wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t think it was right and fine – I hope – but of course I’m also not naive enough to think there are not right reasons for keeping 8 thousand people under one ecclesiastical roof. I’m not in that context any more and really don’t have a vested interest in being considered legitimate by those who are, so I won’t come up with an argument against it.
I am firmly convinced that the primary context for Christian community life should be small, relational and unprofessional. That doesn’t mean unstructured, by the way. Anyway, that’s where my conviction lies and that’s what I do. The only think I’d say to someone in that other context (if they asked me honestly) is that if they truly believe there is something core and important about the concept of close Christian community, then they should regather themselves, find 8 or 10 friends who believe the same thing and be the church with them for a long time. Otherwise, to me, you’re sort of walking away from what you say you think is important.
While I believe that programs, techniques, organization, etc can and do serve the vocation of the Body of Christ, I sometimes worry that we feel we need to manifest them in such formalized structures. Whatever happened to the community that is birthed out of natural and genuine hospitality? What happened to generousity beyond the collection plate and “community outreach program”? What happened to (as you say) the informal networking of smaller communal expressions of faith that bring socio-economic, cultural and theological diversity?
Great thoughts, Bro.
Peace,
Jamie
As a “lifer” in emerging generations ministry, I like Andy’s emphasis on youth and middle school ministry. However, how much constitutes “too big” is still an open-ended question.
I suspect that the answer might also have something to do with finding people who are (1) gifted, (2) willing, and (3) mature enough to lead ministry, so that we could keep experiencing church mitosis in a healthy way.
Sometimes, however, people are just not willing to step out and take ownership of their own journey, nor facilitating a group of peers. When I was still pastoring in the Vineyard, we often tried to equip people to lead house churches, only to find that none of them wanted to lead a house church — they just wanted to find the “hottest” house church and pack it out. Until there were so many people that “community” was lost and they functionally killed off the house church due to overcrowding and an unwillingness to embrace change.
As a leader in that church, I found it very frustrating to see how many people were unwilling to be a part of the solution, yet so quick to criticize the leaders if they didn’t think they were being “fed”.
I’ll stop there before this becomes a rant. :)
As I mentioned in the thread over at Cleave’s blog, I also think it is important to acknowledge how much of this dialogue would be altered if we broadened this question to how it relates to the global church. Culture (which includes the wealth, privilege and freedom of the demographs involved) changes the scenario significantly.
Peace,
Jamie
Br Maynard, I must admit this is one of the finer blogs in world history.
I had a big long response, and I’ve deleted it. The issue for me cannot be simply reduced to size — either way. Big is good, small is good. The issue is whether or not the local community of faith is getting the “job” done.
Define the job and then make comparisons. But I don’t think size is the issue.
Dan-D,
Winnipeg Centre Vineyard gives 30% off the top (before bills or salaries) to the poor, both in Winnipeg and in their foreign support of ministry to the poor in Katmandu, Nepal.
Yes, the issue is effectiveness, measured in love and care for the neighborhood in question (and not necessarily conversions), and perhaps in percentage of believers mobilized to actually be involved in living out the gospel in hospitality and self-sacrifice. Its true that small groups are generally more effective, but certainly not always.
But one of the other measures, I believe, has to be the quality of relationships among the believers themselves. “Look how they love one another” was the testament given of the early Christians… and it is definitely more difficult to achieve that quality of relationship as groups grow larger.
I like the comments on salt and light in point six – a thought provoking way of pushing the image further and illuminating a new perspective.
Well,
I think that the issue is effectiveness also. Whatever size it is, we ought to look at ourselves first, “Are we giving 50%, 30% to the poor?” Are we hooked into community, and missional? or are we just pointing fingers at the larger churches that are doing what they think that the Lord is doing? I think that this is a very tense, and precious issue.
Tense, in that the tension between what I think that the Lord is telling me to do may be very different than what the Lord is telling you to do.
Precious, in that we are talking about God the Fathers, children, His Children. I don’t want to pu them down, throw them into a pit, because they have a more colorful jacket, or whatever. I want to be very careful here…
Great post, made me think…about my own methodology and philosophy of ministry.
Well, I guess I have my 4 people to agree with me and not my 40 dissenters… as empirical an indication as that is ;^)
Len, thanks for the Schwarz link – that ties in nicely (but I thought bipolar was a disorder? <wink>) I do think the 500-member mark rings true, which means that for that particular paradigm the ideal size is 200-500 members, though I think that in most cases you could be 350-500 by the time you sustained a vibrant youth ministry, using that measure. I dunno, I grew up in a town where the “big” church might have had 350 people, and the others were in the 200 range or less. My CLB is over 500 in the mothership with under 200 in the satellite/plant. You’re right about relationships being the health-gauge — another of my hobby-horses ;^)
Alan, note that I’m saying the MegaVenti idea is “okay” only if they aren’t meeting together but in small groups only – which is contra the megachurch model. Personally if I had to deal with growth in the hundreds, this is how I’d approach it – whether it would be one church or 40 churches might be academic, as you wouldn’t be able to tell at a glance.
Jamie, I would want to say that the megachurch model only works well in the affluent west, but it also seems to work in Korea and Argentina. It may not work in the slums of Calcutta, it’s hard to say; it does work (allow latitude on the definition of working) in the first and second world, just not sure about the third world. Crusades in Africa can draw those numbers.
Rob, rant away. The biggest problem I’ve seen with house group ministries (maybe read house churches as well) is the lack of people willing to lead them. A shared leadership model seems to help, but there’s something about some people that seems to really want to be laity. Maybe they don’t really “get it,” I don’t know.
Grey Owl, I’ve seen the relational tithe stuff before – good reading, and a bit controversial… in a good way, it’s stuff that needs due consideration. I love the 50%+ idea. As Rob points out, WCV does 30% and my CLB did approximately that – I watched in my years there the giving to mission go from zero to a tithe and grow bit by bit each year up to around 27% (they might be 30% now). I think with perhaps one recent exception, the only years they failed to make their budget were the years that the missions giving did not increase in percentage. Their 30% however did include “home” missions and a percentage of some of the pastors salaries depending on how much itinerant or outward-focused ministry they were engaged in. While I was less happy with the final form of the missions budget, there is a string of more than ten years of an excellent testimony in this regard.
Scot, now I’m all curious about the stuff you didn’t post. I think error is fairly easy to spot sometimes… it’ll be a simple answer to a complex problem. I don’t think the issue is merely size, but I think that size presents a significant challenge that hasn’t been fully grappled with; is it perhaps easier to grapple with such things as use of finances in a smaller gathering? Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that I’m not comfortable with the megachurch model because the inherent problems in my mind outweigh the advantages. The problems in the small expression seem to me to be more surmountable. I don’t see small as an ultimate problem-solver, but I think the problems that attend the small church are more easily dealt with than those that attend the megachurch (oh, er, by “attend” I don’t mean the people who attend!). I’d be interested to hear your further thoughts — one question to explore is whether missional living genuinely or just apparently goes against the grain of the megachurch.
Wulf, I think that one and 3a might be my favorites.
Let us agree that it is not simply size but outcome or whatever you want to call it.
The issue for me is the need to integrate people into the fellowship.
But, even more important is that the focus of the Church has to be clear: why are we the Church? Are we the church so we can put on huge concerts, etc.? Or are we a missional community of faith, in which case, that has to be established as what is going on from the moment one comes into contact with people.
To be frank, my experience is that megachurches are not much more than lots of smaller churches swallowed into one.
You will be happy to know that Willow is now on a huge campaign to establish neighborhood ministry, not as small group evangelistic studies, but as genuine neighborliness! Learn to know your neighbors names, learn to listen to their needs, learn to help out — as a good neighbor. Mr. Rogers sort of stuff almost.
You may know of Xenos in Columbus OH. Neighborhood churches that all get together sometimes into what amounts to a megachurch, but it is really only a collection of neighborhood fellowships.
Now here’s my issue, and I’ll blog on this at my site today or tomorrow: Purple Theology has an ecclesiology that will pursue interdependence instead of independence. Sometimes the small-group, neighborhood, etc. movement fractures the Body as much as it stimulates local ministry.
Well, these are my thoughts. I’m thinking on these things, though, so I’m game for your response.
“To be frank, my experience is that megachurches are not much more than lots of smaller churches swallowed into one.”
This is essentially the conclusion made in “The Tipping Point” also.. that any group larger than 150 becomes multiple groupings because of the “laws” of social engagement.
You know, this is one of those posts I “hate”.. everytime I woke up last night pieces of it were turning over in my head. In part it’s because we had friends over.. he is in his third year DMin, and he says the question that still rankles is “what is the church?”
I think it also rankles in the question “mega-church.” Here are some questions..
“What constitutes a church?”
“Is a large gathering of believers a de facto church?”
“When we speak of effectiveness, how does it relate to any gathering of ekklesia, which purpose in gathering can only relate to the gathering itself and not to missional engagement?”
Even formulating this last question gave me a direction in my answer… that the gathering must relate to formation, which in turn relates to being sent by Jesus into the world. That is, we are really considering one part of a rhythm of gathering and dispersion and gathering again…
But this begs the question of effectiveness of a large gathering in terms of formation. If conversation is as important a part of formation as many of us believe it to be, large gatherings are less effective than small ones. And then there is the culture question. Friedmann points out in “the world is flat” that culture is one of the single largest factors in the ability of organizations to succeed in the flat world. One problem with mega-churches in the west is that they tend to be furthest away from representing an alternative culture. But if they are more addicted to culture than small groups, they are less likely to manifest the life of Jesus. The heavy emphasis on “program,” the “one size fits all” mentality, even their definitions of success inhibit them from the work of the kingdom.
Thinking last night about the first question, I realized that none of the classical marks work for me. “The church exists where the word is preached, the sacraments are administered, and believers are discipled in the way of Jesus.” I’ve been to gatherings where all these things were happening, with the possible exception of the last one.. which wasn’t in the Reformers definition anyway.. and there was no ekklesia present.. because there was no one in the gathering who was in love with Jesus. “Where two or three are gathered in My name” can be a place of death as easily as a place of life. “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
If ekklesia in essence is the presence of Jesus in the world, then there must be carriers of the Presence; bearers of the Incarnation. A working definition of the church includes for me this dimension of mystery and the presence of the age to come in the life and work of the Holy Spirit.. the force that moves us to worship and mission in the first place.
robby – I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the good news I hear out of the Vinyard churches. I should check one out soon, eh?
Brother Maynard – I share your sentiment. And like you said, it’s not all necessarily about “big vs small”, but that is a part of the issue. I think it’s an attitude problem, one that says the church is the hope of the world, not christ (and in which case why not keep 80, 90 or 100% of the money for ourselves?). I was at a megachurch the other weekend and saw a well-produced, hip, sexy worship service, complete with hip-hop/techno video presentation and promises of success and happiness if one became a christian. Reminds me of when http://www.landoverbapitist.com was “offering” a free Playstation 2 if kids gave their hearts to christ… As I mentioned in my blog recently, we are so desperately trying to be cool. And bigger is better/cooler, so that must mean God wants us to do things the way we’re doing, right?
Anyway, I’ll see y’all tonight.
Bro,
You might find it interesting, in the case of South Korea, that no Asian country is more culturally Western than they are. Some anthropologists suggest that it is partially due to the linguistic impact on thinking/worldview, as Korean is phonetic. Most international examples of megachurch models outside the West are found in local Christian cultures that believe that achieving American Christianity is the ideal. The more I travel around the world, the more this disquieting trend emerges. Theological colonialism is far from behind us.
Peace,
Jamie
The rest of the story … I woke this morning aware of a loving, embracing Presence. In my mind I saw a man smiling.. and his face was the face of Love. A phrase echoed softly.. “where two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in their midst.”
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire. TS Eliot
Good perspective, Casey.
Scot, I hadn’t heard that about Willow Creek (et al), but it’s a very exciting / encouraging direction. You attend a larger church, no? I suspect you’ll have some good perspective on this as well. My “CLB” is recent enough for me and I still keep up with what’s going on there, but it’s a very small sample.
Xenos sounds like a decent model. I’ve observed that there’s a very small semantic difference but a huge philosophical difference between a church that breaks down into small groups and a church that is made up of small groups. As with Xenos (from the sounds of it) the small group may be in many ways self-sufficient as a church, and be relationally-based. When joining together with other similar groups, there’s a small appreciation for the scale of the church catholic and there are dynamics present in the large-group worship (for example) that are not there in the small group. otoh, with the focus on the large gathering, the small groups are just another ministry of the whole, and not truly a basic building block for it.
I’m looking forward to seeing more thoughts on “Purple Ecclesiology” on your blog. I do wonder if it isn’t possible (or even likely?) for small/house churches to express more interdependence. When there’s you and four other couples you have a pretty keen sense that you may need outside help and relationships from time to time. This is I suppose a mindset thing… I see it one way, but there are some in the housechurch movement (which isn’t something I’d actually identify with btw) who have this fierce independent anti-structure thing happening… an attitude that is contra-community (and contra-Christ imho) no matter what size the expression.
For the record, I prefer the term “simple church” to “house church” as it relates to our own expression… primary reason being that we (I should maybe speak for myself though) aren’t committed to a particular size but are waiting to see how God directs us at whatever juncture we find ourselves. I’m more committed to keeping it simple than to keeping it small. Simple for me means relative to the size, maintaining little overhead, few resources swallowed by admin, building relationally, and a missional focus away from the central gathering, whatever form that takes. Paid staff, if any, would be a pragmatic concern and the “need” for a “pastor” would be considered largely irrelevant to whether or not to hire the fist one. If we were 800+ people trying to keep it simple, I think it might look like a network of small churches that have between 8 and 80 people in them. If ever there was an 800-member gathering, I would think maybe no more than three times per year.
Len, you’re asking good questions — but you’re providing some thoughtful answers as well, keep it coming! I do like the observation from Tipping Point that larger groups will tend to be a group of groups anyway. If this is the way that relationships naturally flow, it makes sense to make the structure work with this dynamic rather than against it. You can only sustain so many deep relationships, and this is probably one of the things that drives this dynamic; trying to maintain too many leaves you exhausted and/or superficial. Here’s a thought: perhaps “two or three gathered” is enough to constitute “church” because it’s also enough to constitute an expression of the body of Christ… and in this manner he is therefore in their midst. Normally when we grope this text we don’t think to say that “Jesus is here because you are here” we just say he would be inclined to join us if enough of us were present. Now that I think about it anew, I like the incarnational version.
Jamie, ominous words: “Most international examples of megachurch models outside the West are found in local Christian cultures that believe that achieving American Christianity is the ideal…. Theological colonialism is far from behind us.” It’s a generalization of course, but I would venture to guess it’s enough of a trend. One might surmise that this has to do with many of these cultures now grasping modernity and the modern church models of the west… which makes it a bad example to build upon in the postmodern western world. The western worldview was definitely a colonial one.
Generalization, yes. However, it is far more common than you’d think. I have heard of several situations where Chinese pastors of the under-ground churches have been snuck over to Western conferences, where they articulate embarressment with their circumstances and ask in prayer to become like the West. Not all of this is bad, but missiologists have marvelled at the thriving nature of the church in China under their circumstances.
On another note, I think of when Jesus praise the poor woman for give her all, though it was so little. I think this could speak to the size issue a great deal.
Peace,
Jamie
Wow, I’m late on this one huh??? This is the statement that caught me:
“The answer (at least for me so far) comes down to an uncomfortable mix of taking responsibility to teach my own kids on spiritual matters and of finding an alternate larger expression for them to participate in periodically.”
I’m struggling with WHY youth need “youth group”.
I AM A YOUTH PASTOR AND FATHER OF 5 (my two oldest are teenage boys). I get the first part of your statement…becuase the BIGGEST issue I face is Fathers who have basically no clue about how to disciple their own daughters and sons. I’m trying to teach 150 youth how to read the Bible, meditate on Scripture, etc. and it hits me like a ton of bricks that their Dad should be teaching them this NOT ME…but unfortunately, few of them would.
I don’t know that I get the second part of your statement. My boys get the “larger expression” when we gather with other believers at our worship service. Is youth group about having Christian friends and Christain social events? Since when did my kids need friends…they have them at school…and they’re a mix of Christian and non-Christian. They certainly don’t need Christian activities…real activities are much funner.
I love my youth group, but I would love it even more if I saw our church teaching dads how to love and disciple their own kids…and we were just there to kinda ‘keep the plate spinning’ so to speak.
Franklin, my kids are actually too young for youth groups. The older one gets social interaction at school of course, but my youngest is preschool and some social interaction with other kids her age is probably good for her. The oldest is in a christian school right now — still thinking about that one but she loves it there. In order to help get a bit larger sense of the Body of Christ, we try to take in some larger corporate expressions once a month or so… one of our options for this is an Anglican service that has nothing geared toward kids, but she still likes it. At 7, she is already starting to appreciate communion there. They do enjoy Sunday School at about the same interval, but we no longer pin our hopes on that to make sure they learn about Jesus and turn out okay… and we’re looking for Sunday School that’s not merely “a story, a craft, and a cookie” as I’ve taken to summing it up.
I share your wish for parents to take up responsibility for their kids’ spiritual formation. I feel ill-equipped for this because I seem to be going against the grain a little, and there isn’t much out there in the way of resources for this… but hopefully both those conditions will change.
Wow.
Excellent post, Bro.
I was once on the staff of a megachurch–and looking back on it, I am really amazed at how haughty we were about being so big (as if we had it all figured out, and those small churches were not there yet). We’d hold conferences to “minister” to those smaller congregations, since, according to our size, we were the experts.
But at the same time, we in the Discipleship Team would constantly be trying to figure out how to “make a large church feel small”–through adult Sunday schools or small groups or seminars, etc.
The church I attend now falls woefully short of creating community (and yes, “Community is their middle name!). The ministry is mostly about the Sunday service, the Wednesday night seminars, and the speical seminars (Rick Warren-style) that will “walk you through discipleship.”
Since when do I grow spiritually in a classroom of people listening to a speaker dump a bunch of information into my head?
I shared your thoughts with my readers at vanguardchurch.
Bob, your deep dark secret comes out, eh? On staff…
You’ll have noted you’re the one who got me started thinking about this again. It’s been a longstanding subject for contemplation, maybe someday we’ll come up with some answers!
I think I’ve always pictured the church as a worldwide thing, and its just divided up into different sizes depending on what Holy Spirit leads people to assemble and do. Maybe some jobs need 2 people, maybe some need 2 million. That I’m not content or at peace with being in a large church I think just means that God wants me somewhere else for the moment, but I think that one day it would be fun to be part of something much bigger. So as long as we are where we are supposed to be, thats the important thing, not what our neighbors are doing unless of course they are clearly leading others astray.
Sometimes the definations of things are confusing too. In a megachurch I wouldn’t call teachers and adminstrators pastors, I’d call the small group leaders the pastors but thats just me.
I like the idea of a small fellowship group that has a much larger network of family that is just as important as their individual expression. That they have people to share gifts with, to celebrate with, to learn from and share with outside their own small group. I like the fact that the small groups of mega churches don’t lose sight of the fact that they are part of something bigger and have resources to do big things and others they can gather with. But I also like the freedom and individuality of house churches where people learn to lead and to use their talents fully. So maybe there is a happy middle ground where house churches voluntarily submit to and serve a larger expression of the worldwide church and mega churches that release small groups to make their own choices and discover that there is a higher calling then just enlarging their particular churches territory.
In the end though, I have to just bring the theology home and ask myself where does God want me, who am I supposed to serve, who am I supposed to submit too and am I using my life fully for his glory. Now I’m off to a pep rally for sorts for a new church plant so I hope God gives me some direction on where I supposed to be. I’m a fellow winnipeger myself (I think you are at least) so I just thought I’d drop by and say hello :)
Chris,
I agree – the typical megachurch “pastoral staff” is often likely to be comprised of a CEO, a CFO, a CAO, an executive assistant, 2 activities directors, plus the easily-identifiable 4 janitors, 6 clerical staff, and host of volunteer pastors who aren’t recognized as pastors.
When I speak of a megachurch in this post, I’m really seeing it split so many ways it isn’t identifiable as such, functionally or practically. Ironically, I think that the smaller expressions more easily identify with the church catholic than do the megachurches, who easily identify with themselves.
I’m still looking and wondering if we can determine what positives the large expressions offer, and then find a way to incorporate that into smaller gatherings in some way, perhaps cooperatively between groups.
Anyway, I think you have a good perspective here, thanks for dropping by — and yes, I am in Winnipeg… perhaps we’ve been in the same gatherings somewhere.
I like the discussion here and the thoughts generated. But as someone who still sees the need for the established church (multigenerational and at times multicultural) I have a few concerns about smaller being better. My question being “how small is too small.” With the central concern being the isolating and insolating nature of ongoing small groups/house churches. The benefit of size is diversity which allows for personal spiritual growth. If the kingdom is beyond our own generation and our own culture shouldn’t the church reflect that. I guess my concern is that I don’t see great strides being made within the emergent church in the area of multicultural and multigenerational relationality. I do see a few examples among established churches however. So how about it anyone willing to pick up the guantlet and answer the question “how small is too small.”