Being part of a large church
Last weekend 2 people asked me if I was concerned that Crossroads would "get too large" once we relocate. Quite frankly, I don't know how to answer that question. It never crosses my mind that we could get too big. I don't see "bigness" to be an issue. Read the book of Acts. The early church started out real small (120 people). But by the time you get to Acts 2 (Pentecost) 3,000 people repent of their sins and start following Jesus and the church immediately becomes a mega-church. They continued (regardless of their size) meeting in homes AND gathering together at the Temple.
I like to think of it this way--limiting the size of the church for our sake (comfort/convenience, having access to the Pastor, knowing more people, being in control, etc.) is a sin. As long as people are out there who don't know Christ we have to reach out. Growing bigger is not an option. I'm so glad the early church didn't say, "We're big enough. No more reaching out to those Gentiles." If they had thought that way, we may not be Christians today.
The church has to get its arms around this truth: we exist more for the people who are still far from God than for those who have drawn near to God. When we understand that, size ceases to be an issue.
Pastor Phil
I like to think of it this way--limiting the size of the church for our sake (comfort/convenience, having access to the Pastor, knowing more people, being in control, etc.) is a sin. As long as people are out there who don't know Christ we have to reach out. Growing bigger is not an option. I'm so glad the early church didn't say, "We're big enough. No more reaching out to those Gentiles." If they had thought that way, we may not be Christians today.
The church has to get its arms around this truth: we exist more for the people who are still far from God than for those who have drawn near to God. When we understand that, size ceases to be an issue.
Pastor Phil
posted by Pastor Phil Print at 1:44 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the comments. Stats show that most people cannot get to know more than 75-100 people at a church regardless of the size. So whether the church is 100 or 10,000, you'll still know the same number of people. As long as we keep birthing Life Groups we will be able to "grow smaller as we grow larger"...just like the church in Acts. It's a beautiful model that has worked for over 2,000 years.
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