Many of you know that I've been involved in our church's 125 Anniversary project. My role, specifically, has entailed video taping our monthly "History Moments" and working to make them fresh and entertaining. (No small feat, I tell you.)
During the process of putting together the video we're running next Sunday, I happened on an interesting thought with regard to our church's decision to move its location in the 1950's.
Sometime near 1950, the decision was made to move our church, located in Lufkin's Downtown area, to an area on the outskirts of, what was then, "town." It was heated debate, apparently, with many upstanding members of the congregation being very vocal about why the church should or shouldn't move.
During the process of interviewing church members who were teenagers during that time, one of our staff members asked,
"Why did the church want to move?"
The elderly lady responded casually...
"We was running out of room. There's wasn't any parking, the sanctuary was filled and we didn't have enough space for everybody. We just had to move."
I find it interesting that a few decades ago, churches moved when they got full. They didn't add services. How many churches today look at their overcrowding problems and think, Well, I guess we gotta' move, now.
It's as if those churches of old cared way more about worshipping TOGETHER than enduring a little financial stress in moving into a bigger space.
Do churches today care about fellowship in that same way? I don't think so. I understand this sounds weird coming from a guy who leads a "second service," but I think it's an honest assessment. I believe alternative services have their purpose and place, but I do think the creation of extra services and video campuses and other assorted multiplication moves speaks of a potential problem in our houses of worship. How important is community, really?
What do you think? Are extra services a bad idea? Always? Sometimes? Make your voice heard.
Monday, July 09, 2007
You've Come A Long Way, Baby...
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11 comments:
When there are several hundred people in attendance, is it really "fellowship?" I lean the other direction. If you're too full, time to plant another Church.
Ultimately I think that a church's direction is wherever God leads them. For us, it was add more services to avoid building as long as we could. Not because we didn't have the resources but because we feared that a big new building would detract from what we were doing.
So in the fall we'll have 8 total services (4 of which are video) at two different campuses.
I agree with Johnny on the fellowship thing - we have anywhere from 500-700 in a service and nobody really knows more than a handful of people. You can't "do life" with several hundred people. John Wesley's idea was once a church got to about 200 then a new one should form. Far from current Methodist practice ;-)
We've done 2 church plants and had plans for a 3rd in Denton until we felt God leading us to be a dual campus church with a second campus in Denton. Even with the plants there are still too many people in each service to have any kind of real fellowship which is why we do small groups. Many models out there, we use the "the church is made up of small groups" model. We've got hundreds of them and it seems to be working decently.
Oh goodness. Todd, i'm trying to pretend like i didn't read this. you know these are the kinds of conversations that get me all revved up.
the easiest answer for me is that i agree (as usual) with Johnny.
My longer, not-so-easy answer is about 4 and half minutes long, in the key of B flat.
Hey, I found another thing on which I can agree with Wesley!
Ross' long answer is better than any of mine.
I, too, tend to agree with Wesley's idea of church planting. So, let's twist up the question a bit - why don't more churches plant in order to maintain smaller numbers in their fellowships?
I think the easy answer is that churches don't want to shrink. They want to be known as the church w/ 2500 members or whatever. But do you guys think there are other reasons why churches don't plant?
And what about the South in general? Aren't there enough churches already?
i feel that somewhere along the way that church started becoming more about the people inside the walls instead of about Christ. I've seen it on both spectrum: large churches with way too many people and it's not personal; small churches with less than 50 people that literally only open the doors and flip the breaker switch for a few hours on sunday. I do feel that smaller church sizes ideally is the way to go. i also like how the village church is set up as a church of small groups. i think every church needs an effective small group system. i don't see the multi-thousand congregation churches ever going away in our society. whats the solution? church plants? small groups? both? going back what i first stated, i think that too many churches take things into their own hands instead of relying on where God is leading there church.
Bottom line...WE NEED JESUS.
i think this is the longest comment i have ever written on anyones blog. i'm gonna get myself a cookie.
I just miss having fellowship and true community with other believers. Ok, I really miss my friends.
People want the big Church because they like belonging to something big, they like the programming, they like the preacher (he ain't a Pastor at that level), they like the big show...many like to be able to remain anonymous. Westerners are also drawn towards large power structures. We like centralization because of our humanistic brainwash---er, upringing.
Small groups are only necessary where the Church is too big to be involved in one anothers' lives. Most megachurches are a diocese under one roof, and small groups are the real Churches.
Also, Churches like to hold onto their "brand." That's why there's like a gazillion Second Baptists and stuff.
I don't think that planting a new church when you reach a certain size is necessarily the best solution. Sometimes it's not feasible to plant another church as often as would be necessary. If a church is growing at a rate of 1000 per year that would be 4 church plants every year which would be 4 pastors, 4 worship leaders, 4 youth ministers, etc.
As Mike hinted at, I don't think we can directly associate smaller, independent churches with greater fellowship. I led worship at a service that averaged 25-30 and they wouldn't even sit next to each other.
We look at the early church in Acts 2 - 3000 believers were added in a single day! There were thousands of them and they were living life at an intimate level - this was a "mega church" and yet they met daily in the temple courts and shared meals in each others homes.
As Johnny mentioned, small groups become the real churches when implimented right - and I don't think that's a bad thing. Imagine meeting a few times a week with a small group of 10-15 sharing meals, prayers, Holy Communion and then meeting up on Sunday's to corporately celebrate and worship with other small groups.
Granted it doesn't work out that beautifully haha - but there's hope!
"14,000 members and me...."
If we are essentially saying that "small groups are where it's at!" then I think we could also say "small churches are where it's at." Right?
sure, if the small churches are willing to unite with their sister churches and recognize that they are truely 1 Church.
From my limited experience I have seen much more unity among small groups within 1 church than among small churches of even the same denomination.
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