I think it depends on how far people are driving to get there. I have known people to drive 2 hours to another state to go to church every sunday because they liked the preacher. You cant serve a local church that is that far away. Since our churches have become a source of entertainment we will go to the church that entertains the best.
A church is tooo big when:
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Salty, Feb 17, 2007.
?
-
100
1 vote(s)2.8% -
150
0 vote(s)0.0% -
200
6 vote(s)16.7% -
300
2 vote(s)5.6% -
500
6 vote(s)16.7% -
750
1 vote(s)2.8% -
1000
1 vote(s)2.8% -
other answer
19 vote(s)52.8%
Page 2 of 2
-
Now you have touched on one of the very things that make me so uncomfortable with big churches. When did production values replace fellowship in Christ?
-
preachinjesus Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
the purpose of church isn't about coddling Christians, but in welcoming the unchurched and growing beyond its walls.
the church isn't about Christians...it's about reaching non-Christians.
any church that isn't growing is, imho, disobeying Christ's commands.
thanks for the post :) -
Thanks for the post. :) -
Church is not JUST for worship or JUST for outreach. Our church has identified 3 roles for the church:
(from our church website - www.nbc.org)
The three great aspects of our calling...
1. Reaching Up: Loving God Passionately--As believers, worship is our highest calling. It is expressed through public expressions of praise and private acts of devotion and service.
God seeks worshippers. John 4:23
2. Reaching In: Loving One Another Authentically--The church is a special community of those Christ has called to Himself. It is a place of devoted love and dedicated service, a place to encourage one another toward spiritual maturity.
Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up...into Christ. Ephesians 4:15
3. Reaching Out: Loving Our World Sacrificially--We have been called to demonstrate the love and grace of Jesus through our lives and words-both here in our community and around the world.
He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. II Thessalonians 2:14
From our worshipping God and honoring Him for who He is, the natural overflow of that is the fellowshipping with one another. When you are worshipping God and someone else is doing the same thing, then you want to share the experience. Now, as the two of you are sharing and ministering to God and to each other, you will begin to turn and want to reach out to those outside the fold to bring in more to show them God's glory. Think of it as a fountain - the top trough is worshipping God and from that overflow, we flow into fellowship with the fellow believers. From that overflow, we flow into outreach and reaching those outside the fellowship.
That is my understanding of what church is all about. -
-
Maybe a church is too big when the pastor doesn't know each member personally and many members don't know each other.
We had about 75 in our worship service today. When we get to 200, we'll evaluate things at that point. And at 300, 500, and 750.
I'd like the opportunity to determine if we're too big at 1,000. -
-
-
In the NT, we learn that Christians gathered together once a week for reading the letters, fellowship, sharing a meal.
That is the one time that was NOT for outreach. We have the rest of the week to do that. Church, for me, is the gathering together of brothers and sisters in Christ for encouragement, worship, fellowship, learning (not necessarily in that order). It is the ONE time during the week when outreach is not primary as far as I am concerned. The rest of my life and week is spent in caring and showing Christ as much as possible.
Churches that specialize in milk because they are always or primarily outreach end up with permanently baby Christians. We need meat in church, and it needs to be a place for us to gather together and learn together and BE together. -
DH and I were talking about this recently because we're finding a lot of the youth prefer the kind of churches where there's good, modern worship and messages geared to them. The problem is that when they 'outgrow" that kind of "milk" messages, there needs to be a place for them to go naturally where they will get meatier sermons. Our church is a meatier kind of place (with moderately modern worship - heading towards more modern soon) and the kids are finding that the messages are a bit above them (they say that - the messages are awesome and even my own 16 year old loves them and is learning a lot - I think it's more the kids, probably. They're so used to getting carried through life nowadays.). We were saying that just maybe a church needs to have both - a service (maybe Sunday evening or along side the regular service) which would be good for new believers and outreach - that would be more "milk" sermons and then people would "graduate" to the Sunday morning sermon.
I don't know - it was just something we were mulling through - and this is the summary of a 3 hour talk. Yeah - we get in depth with this stuff! LOL!! The joys of being a pastor and his wife who have a heart for these young people and want to reach them - but also don't want to just "baby" the message down for them. It's a difficult situation with dealing with the young people nowadays. -
Personally I like a smaller church where it's more like a family, although I have no idea what a family is really. However, I prefer a church that is between 150-200, and 300 is too many. Since my ministry in the church is music, I need a church where I can use that talent. A large church wouldn't need my talent since they would have more than enough talented people. I was in a church where I could only sing a special once a month and never led the singing. I have been in the music ministry for 4 decades, and God has blessed me greatly. Most of the churches I've been in needed my talent as a singer and song leader, and I used that talent every day that I was there. Where I am now we have less than 200, and I still rarely get to sing there because we have many good singers in that small church, and I rarely get to lead the singing.
-
-
I don't know if there is a set number. The churches in the New Testament met in homes in small groups. What was referred to as a "church" was basically all the Christians in a particular community, but generally, they didn't all meet together at one time, they met in small groups in people's homes. So the "church" at a particular place may have been made up of a dozen small groups.
The sense of community in the church to which I belong is really found in the small groups. We meet together twice a week in a small gathering of 12-15 people to worship, minister to specific needs through prayer, study the scripture and fellowship. In that sense, it wouldn't matter if the congregation did number 3,000 people because "church" happens in the small group. When one of our small groups reaches about 15 regulars, two or three couples go off and start another group. -
-
Effective "Big churches" grow smaller.
You're only gonna know a couple of hundred people from church...If your church is 200, you'll know most all of 'em...if it's 3,000, you won't.
When someone asks "how big is your church?" We don't "count" our Sunday attenders...we feel like when someone is involved with a small group Bible study, then they're involved.
Page 2 of 2