the organic church and numbers...
How does a church remain organic, even as it grows in size?
Yesterday was mother's day. Last year mother's day was our 6th service ever as a community. We had 16 people. I was a bit freaked out.
We had started small intentionally, eschewing the "big launch." Our feeling was that the big launch was more psychologically damaging in the long run for our community. We were fairly sure we could get 70 or 80 people there for our first week, if we invited all our friends and all their friends, etc.
The problem was we knew that only a quarter of them would come back in the following weeks, and I seriously did not think I could handle seeing a big crowd and then... not.
It just felt right to start small and see what happened. So, our first gathering had 31 people. Even so, the next couple of weeks were in the 20's and then... Mother's Day.
I remember feeling just plain awful... I'm really nervous and thrown off my game when a ton of people unexpectedly show up. It's just as bad when the same ton of people unexpectedly fail to show up!
16.
I think the issue, as a "young" church, was that everyone was at their "home church" with mom... We figured, on processing that sunday, that we might see this pattern around the holidays, of people disappearing and going home. We thought you probably have to be around a bit longer as a church community to see an influx of people on the holidays.
I guess we're now safe enough to bring mom (Starla did!) :)
Anyway, we had 87, a record for us, yesterday. So, Mother's Day 04, our "smallest" gathering ever. Mother's Day 05, our largest.
For me, the question I've been processing this morning (and in fact this whole last week) is how do we remain organic? How do we let the people drive ministry with the "leadership" acting as catalysts and resources, not as dependency-creating "experts" who start everything, recruit everyone and manage the whole shebang?
The artists in our community have become a self-organizing group, and are beginning to really click and produce good stuff. Is it possible that as we grow, I need to take the temptation/energy I feel to "start things" and turn it not to programs, but simply towards getting people together and letting them talk about various areas of ministry to, through and out of our community and see what happens?
That feels right to me. It seems that if my main focus as a shepherd is people, and if the key to success and not selling out (this according to Mark Driscoll) is doing the same things when you are large that you did when you were small... then even as we grow, the focus needs to be people. So, how to do people relationships in such a way that ministry is started, sustained and flourishes...
Yesterday was mother's day. Last year mother's day was our 6th service ever as a community. We had 16 people. I was a bit freaked out.
We had started small intentionally, eschewing the "big launch." Our feeling was that the big launch was more psychologically damaging in the long run for our community. We were fairly sure we could get 70 or 80 people there for our first week, if we invited all our friends and all their friends, etc.
The problem was we knew that only a quarter of them would come back in the following weeks, and I seriously did not think I could handle seeing a big crowd and then... not.
It just felt right to start small and see what happened. So, our first gathering had 31 people. Even so, the next couple of weeks were in the 20's and then... Mother's Day.
I remember feeling just plain awful... I'm really nervous and thrown off my game when a ton of people unexpectedly show up. It's just as bad when the same ton of people unexpectedly fail to show up!
16.
I think the issue, as a "young" church, was that everyone was at their "home church" with mom... We figured, on processing that sunday, that we might see this pattern around the holidays, of people disappearing and going home. We thought you probably have to be around a bit longer as a church community to see an influx of people on the holidays.
I guess we're now safe enough to bring mom (Starla did!) :)
Anyway, we had 87, a record for us, yesterday. So, Mother's Day 04, our "smallest" gathering ever. Mother's Day 05, our largest.
For me, the question I've been processing this morning (and in fact this whole last week) is how do we remain organic? How do we let the people drive ministry with the "leadership" acting as catalysts and resources, not as dependency-creating "experts" who start everything, recruit everyone and manage the whole shebang?
The artists in our community have become a self-organizing group, and are beginning to really click and produce good stuff. Is it possible that as we grow, I need to take the temptation/energy I feel to "start things" and turn it not to programs, but simply towards getting people together and letting them talk about various areas of ministry to, through and out of our community and see what happens?
That feels right to me. It seems that if my main focus as a shepherd is people, and if the key to success and not selling out (this according to Mark Driscoll) is doing the same things when you are large that you did when you were small... then even as we grow, the focus needs to be people. So, how to do people relationships in such a way that ministry is started, sustained and flourishes...
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