Big always comes across as better and successful in the American culture.  With a growing nation, there are going to be growing churches.  Do big churches grow at the expense of small churches?  Some do and some don’t.  Are some small churches “stuck on small?” Yes.  Can you find community in big and small churches.  Yes.  I have been a member of a church of 2,000 and a church of 12. 

One thing mega-churches do well is that they become “hiding places” for people who are hurting and leave a small church.  This is not always the small church’s fault.  I have known couples who were experiencing the process of divorce quiety leave their small church of many years and go their separate ways to mega-churches.  Just one example.  There are more dynamics in play that this article attempts to describe.

Leonard, I know you are speaking in generalities.  I guess I did not attend those churches that fit your “generalities” as my experience was different.  You do make one solid point - we cannot control the desires and wants of the “consumer” - but we can control what we do.  Jan’s take on small churches fits my experiences.  We don’t have youth programs or singles programs or much more than worship and Sunday School.  We our best to engage the singles, youths, and seniors in creative ways.  We were losing children in our Awana program when they reached the age of ten so we surveyed our children.  We had a very successful VBS and decided to ask what they liked about VBS.  We took their ideas, scrapped the Awana program, and now have a children’s ministry that keeps children up through junior high.  All without compromising the Bible teaching necessary for their growth.  As a result we have added a couple of new families each year because we care to listen and engage the children.  Being a small church has helped because our culture now is able to be flexible and adjust to meeting changing ministry needs.

“Get the spirit” (comment 2) - you really articulated a fantastic synopsis of what I have observed as well.  I served for years on staff in a rather small (250-300) church that had been plateaued for the majority of its history, and now serve in a growing body of around 2500 (mini-mega? .  Your points are dead in line with my experience in both situations.

Another interesting thing I have observed is that the larger church has held staff for longer tenures.  We have had 4 pastors in 50 years, and many of the current and past staff members have served over a decade - half almost two decades. 

While I expected the working environment to be more stressful at a larger church, in general, I found the opposite was true for me.  Greater staff allows for more specialization - this helps at least a little bit to stave off quick burnout.  I don’t have to be all things to all people like I did in a smaller church.

There is alot more activities in the larger church, but that’s to be expected as you grow.  Most ministries are started out of a sincere desire to reach folks and/or serve the body.  Just because a group of members is having a Tuesday night Sweater Knit for Third World Poodles doesn’t mean you have to attend.  Now in a small church they’d be asking “Where’s the pastor - doesn’t he know that the missionary’s poodles get cold in Romania?” Tsk, tsk.

The comments to the OpEd I wrote have been very interesting.  Those of Leonard, in particular, have been of great interest to me (a very insightful guy, although I am certainly in disagreement with some of what he says).  One thing I have observed, however, is that the response of some has been to automatically criticize smaller churches.  If someone wants to write an article that is critical of small churches that is fine; there are plenty of things to criticize.  I have been the pastor of my small church (150 - 200 worship attendance) for over 15 years and I can give you plenty of ideas.  But criticizing small churches in the context of discussion of my OpEd still does not address the issues that I raised.  To criticize small churches wanders from my original question of the implications of large churches.  Small churches may also have spiritual consumers, but when you find it on the scale of megachurches, that has greater implications for the gospel, for the Kingdom of God and for how society views churches.

Leonard:
Sorry but I can’t let you get away with this one:
“But of the small church is not reaching anyone for Christ, yet sustaining numbers even despite the loss of people to the mega church, where are those people coming from.”

Our little church of 40 has seen over a hundred individuals make decisions for Christ in the last 6 months.  Too much generalization in my opinon.  Area and culture make a big difference.

We are in a post-modern affluent community.  It is like pulling teeth to get someone to walk in the door of the church.  So, our small church does a lot of transfer growth, new people go and then move out the door for somewhere more inexpensive to live, as more come in the door.

Or we have loooooong term ministry.  It has typically taken about 3 years from the time someone makes a decsion to the time he or she walks in the church doors.

Thanks Jan,

I appreciate the conversation.  As for me, those statistics do not come from me but from the web site I linked and other peoples work on churches.  I stand by the figures.  We have had over 225 people make decisions for Christ in the past 30 months.  Your church nor mine is the norm.  Statistically speaking the average church is about 85 people.  statistically speaking about 1 per 100 people in attendance make a decision for Christ.  1 - 100, 2 -200, 3 -300 and so on. Statistically that means less than 1 persons per church in this country makes a decision for Christ.  Over half the churches in this country did not lead anyone to Christ in the past 12 months.  That is over 200,000 churches reaching no person for Christ.  When they grow, where do those people come from?  Other churches.  What this means is that small churches maintain and or grow by and large off the people that come from other churches. 

The article states that large churches suck people out of little churches and I believe the word was damage.  Truth is all churches gather people from other churches.  There is a re-alignment of the sheep going on all the time.  I am not judging the re-alignment but too often the small church pastor does.  I am judging the lack of impact.  For crying out loud, the king of the universe lives inside us, the creator of everything seen and unseen is our master, the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is at work within the church and over 200,000 churches did not reach anyone for Christ.  No wonder Mark Driscoll cusses (insert a winking, smiley face here)

If pastors and Christ followers who make up the majority of the church in this country would stop whining about the mega-church and it’s damage, quit debating over labels of emergent , modern, missional and the likes in order to simply ask, no beg, God for the privilege of sharing Christ with someone we could literally change the world.  But what do I know, I didn’t go to seminary. 

I say praise God for your church and for it’s impact.  May that kind of church increase.

I appreciate the reactions to my OpEd piece on megachurches, although I believe many people have misunderstood what I was trying to say.  To imply that I was engaging in public whining or just reacting with sour grapes has been very distressing to me.  It’s obvious that we are going to have some disagreement on this topic, but unless I am asked a question directly I am going to try and stay out of the remainder of this discussion.

Leonard –
I did not say there were no direct questions; I said that I was not going to respond unless asked any more direct questions.  In response to your most recent post, here goes –

First, I believe you are arguing with me, which is fine if that’s what you want to do.  I sense that you are wanting to make a point about small churches that goes beyond the issues I have raised in my OpEd, which are about megachurches.  I again emphasize an earlier statement I made that criticizing smaller churches is really not a response to the issues I have raised about megachurches.  If you want to criticize smaller churches I encourage you to write a post specifically about that issue.

You write – “One reason I am going at this is that for a long time blame has been set at the feet of large churches and never once have I read a smaller church pastor say, ‘I might be to blame or at least a big part of the reason we are not growing.’”
Are you wishing to wring some kind of apology or confession out of small church pastors?  Would you like a small church pastor, such as me, to make such a confession?  Personally, I will do no such thing.  For one, our small church is growing.  There are many reasons why, and I will not take the credit (although plenty of people want to blame pastors when churches don’t grow, as your posts demonstrate).  During my tenure, our church has more than doubled in worship attendance and added many new ministries to our community.  The assumption is made – far too often, in my opinion – that small churches are not growing.  This is simply not true.  One of the issues that must be taken into consideration here are basic demographics.  A church in a small rural community of, for example, 200 people is not going to become a megachurch.  It is reasonable to conclude that a church in a city of half a million or more will have a chance to become a megachurch because demographics can work in their favor.  And when we compare small churches to megachurches, let’s compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges.  Our church, for instance, in a comparison of worship attendance to population drew almost 23% of our community to worship.  The closest megachurch compared at a little less than 8%.  Our per capita giving was about 2 ½ times that of the closest megachurch.  So are they more effective because they have larger numbers or are we because we have better percentages?  I’m not trying to say we’re more effective than our neighboring megachurch, I’m just saying there are other ways to look at whether or not small churches are growing or reaching their communities, as you seem to be implying small churches are doing neither.  And why are you so insistent on wanting to blame small church pastors?  Over the years I have watched with great sorrow as many dedicated and Jesus-following pastors have been abused and mistreated by their congregations.  The reality is that probably no pastor can grow some small churches as they (the congregation) are so lacking in vision and love for their community.  I believe that strong pastoral leadership is of incredible importance, but a church can grow even if it is lacking such leadership.  I am sorry if a church blamed you for a lack of growth.  If they did, I would say that they did so unfairly.  It’s very easy for a church to blame their pastor in order to avoid taking any responsibility for their own lack of vision, love, etc.

Do I think words such as “damaging” “the decimation of countless smaller churches” and the “creation of the religious consumer” are too strong?  No.  Our neighboring megachurch has at times aggressively sought to take our members.  If people from our congregation want to go to the megachurch that is their choice, but we do not target members of other churches and I believe it is wrong for any church to do such a thing.  Furthermore, I do believe that the move in our society toward consolidation, which is what much of the megachurch movement is, has created some damaging dynamics that we must begin to consider.  Ten or twenty years down the road, when the megachurch movement has aged a little more, we may see other dynamics that move us away from megachurches.

“Do you think that the local small church is much more responsible for it’s impact and growth than the mega church?” I believe every church is responsible for its impact and growth, no more or less than any other church.

“How responsible is strong leadership for the size and impact of the small church?” Strong leadership is incredibly important in any size church, and it is important to have strong leadership among pastors, staff, and lay members of the church.  The leadership dynamic is different in small and large churches though.  In small churches, leadership is generally very pastorally oriented while in the megachurch it is more like that of a CEO directing a large company (and I’m not saying that in a negative way; simply as a way of finding a comparison).

“How does a strong pastor with a strong vision from God impact a small church?” A strong pastor with a strong vision from God is going to have an impact on any size church, although the dynamic for how that vision is shared and carried out is going to be different in large and small churches.  The pastor of any church should be a person of vision and engage in vision casting on a regular basis, but it’s a vision that cannot simply be of the pastor but must be one that is in keeping with the vision of God as demonstrated through the life and ministry of Jesus.  I’m currently preaching a series called The Dream of God, which is a series about vision and I’m using significant events from the life and ministry of Jesus to give us insight into the vision of God.

This is a long reply, and I have yet to respond to your previous post.  I was out of town last week and did very little responding to anything but will respond soon.  Right now I am out of time and will have to respond to the other post later.  I realize some of what I have written here may sound abrupt, but I am trying to answer as directly as possible.

shouldn’t all churches strive to become a big church… big churches are better just because of the fact that means more members meaning more people in church versus out of church.

small churches remain small mostly because of there so called community… it is like marrying in to a family, awkward and scary. accepting your a sinner can be scary enough shouldn’t we create an atmosphere where an indiviual can participate without feeling a disconnection from the community..

community does not mean everyone knows everyone or is related it is a sense of working together for a cause meaning to see people saved and establish a relationship with Jesus Christ. this post is very niave and shows exactly why the small church is “small” because they are to worried about everything else and there “community” to see what really is important. the lost.

this is very well putt.