size matters...
I'm sure I've blogged on this before, but...
Another pastor once said a few things to me on the issue of size.
1st he said, "Don't make a moral issue of (church) size."
But I can't help it.
If it's not a moral issue, what is it?
Is it moral for a church to spend $55 million a year on their TV ministry? Close to $90 million to renovate a sports arena to house an out-sized congregation? At a certain point it simply becomes how many people can you fit into a room.
Alright- I have no idea of the hearts and motivations of those doing this stuff, so I can only tell you how we have chosen to do things.
From the beginning, we put a limit of the number of people we would have in our community. After that, it's just planting churches. And planting churches. And planting churches.
I hope we will always be growing, but the fact is, when you get over a certain size, the pastor is no longer pastor. I suppose you could call the head of a huge, corporate sheep farm a "shepherd." But if he or she spends all day in the office looking at numbers and talking "strategy", never works with actual sheep, in fact has fifteen layers of managment between himself/herself and the sheep... I just don't think that person should be called a shepherd.
So, if I want to do that which God has called me to do (pastor), then I must, out of necessity, limit the number of people I'm trying to shepherd. I know, I know, there are ways to "make a church smaller" even as it gets larger... I'm just not sure if I buy that anymore. And beyond just me personally being able to know the people in my care, even more importantly is the issue of the community being small enough that people can know, love and care for each other.
Can that happen in a huge church? Sure.
Is it harder? You bet.
Should we avoid making it harder if we can? I think we should.
So, we've said- at 200 we better be ready to plant a church. When we hit 250, we better be ready to send 50 of them off with their own pastor, worship pastor/team, etc. And then we do it again. And again.
Multiplication.
2nd, that pastor that was telling me a thing or two said: "The way to avoid 'selling out' is to do the things when you get larger that you did when you were small."
The things we are doing now involve individualized approaches to spiritual formation, dialogue and discussion on Sunday mornings, and a non-programmatic approch to ministry.
I just don't know how we'll do any of that over a certain size.
So, I'll take the second half of the advice, even if I can't take the first.
I'm not saying that everyone should see it the way we do, or do it the way we have chosen to.
But if you approach growth unthinkingly... if your strategy for growth is simply "bigger is better!" I would urge you to spend some time thinking, praying about and discussing this with your community.
Ask youself:
Do we want to plant churches and multiply?
At what size can we no longer do the things we are now doing that make this community special and engaging?
At what point do we lose the ability to move, react, change course simply because our size has gotten too large to allow for fluidity?
At what point are we spending more of our resources on maintanence and upkeep than on being missional?
Another pastor once said a few things to me on the issue of size.
1st he said, "Don't make a moral issue of (church) size."
But I can't help it.
If it's not a moral issue, what is it?
Is it moral for a church to spend $55 million a year on their TV ministry? Close to $90 million to renovate a sports arena to house an out-sized congregation? At a certain point it simply becomes how many people can you fit into a room.
Alright- I have no idea of the hearts and motivations of those doing this stuff, so I can only tell you how we have chosen to do things.
From the beginning, we put a limit of the number of people we would have in our community. After that, it's just planting churches. And planting churches. And planting churches.
I hope we will always be growing, but the fact is, when you get over a certain size, the pastor is no longer pastor. I suppose you could call the head of a huge, corporate sheep farm a "shepherd." But if he or she spends all day in the office looking at numbers and talking "strategy", never works with actual sheep, in fact has fifteen layers of managment between himself/herself and the sheep... I just don't think that person should be called a shepherd.
So, if I want to do that which God has called me to do (pastor), then I must, out of necessity, limit the number of people I'm trying to shepherd. I know, I know, there are ways to "make a church smaller" even as it gets larger... I'm just not sure if I buy that anymore. And beyond just me personally being able to know the people in my care, even more importantly is the issue of the community being small enough that people can know, love and care for each other.
Can that happen in a huge church? Sure.
Is it harder? You bet.
Should we avoid making it harder if we can? I think we should.
So, we've said- at 200 we better be ready to plant a church. When we hit 250, we better be ready to send 50 of them off with their own pastor, worship pastor/team, etc. And then we do it again. And again.
Multiplication.
2nd, that pastor that was telling me a thing or two said: "The way to avoid 'selling out' is to do the things when you get larger that you did when you were small."
The things we are doing now involve individualized approaches to spiritual formation, dialogue and discussion on Sunday mornings, and a non-programmatic approch to ministry.
I just don't know how we'll do any of that over a certain size.
So, I'll take the second half of the advice, even if I can't take the first.
I'm not saying that everyone should see it the way we do, or do it the way we have chosen to.
But if you approach growth unthinkingly... if your strategy for growth is simply "bigger is better!" I would urge you to spend some time thinking, praying about and discussing this with your community.
Ask youself:
Do we want to plant churches and multiply?
At what size can we no longer do the things we are now doing that make this community special and engaging?
At what point do we lose the ability to move, react, change course simply because our size has gotten too large to allow for fluidity?
At what point are we spending more of our resources on maintanence and upkeep than on being missional?
1 Comments:
you know, you hear all the time about church splits, how ugly they are, how they revolve around certain cults of personality, etc. maybe the negatives of church splits are just positives waiting to happen? maybe you've got to build them into the process? so, as it would turn out, the folks who rival you bust off and start their own church after finishing with you. I'm not saying play follow the leader to an extreme, but let just cause the split to happen and build it into the process. trying to think how this would work, but it would definitely involve you're preaching and teaching about the ministry of discipleship and encouraging others to plant a church.
or you could all become catholics with me.
;)
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