Bob,

Thanks for your heart in this and I too think that if size is the measure of success we are off course. You are right that size does make it more difficult to do the sorts of things you talked about (meeting at the pastor’s home, etc.) but it does not make them impossible. One of the things we have found is that we can connect people to groups in their community and form lasting relationships and facilitate spiritual growth.

I think we may be dealing with two issues here: Size (which the real issue isn’t size but being known) and Spiritual Health (how is it defined and is program a part of it).

Size
I think the issue of size has more to do with the abuse of size than size itself. When size becomes the primary driver of all that you do as some kind of corporate measuring stick for whether your church is doing well or not, then you are off course. But I would not say we should just abandon anything that has size because of the abuses of some churches. It is going to take many different sizes, styles, etc. of churches because each of us lives in a different context with different sets of issues. I also think that at some point we all want to grow the church through new people deciding to surrender to Christ and we can’t limit size So there is a definite tension with looking at size and it has alot to do with motivation (size for size sake or size through). I agreed with your earlier comment that the church should be a place where people are known. I happen to be in a place where that is happening. Not perfectly but people are known in this place if they choose to be. There are some who could hide but I think we need those spaces for people to explore in anonymity. If those places disappear then we are saying that one size should fit all and I don’t think we want to make that point. I grew up in a small church of around 200 that grew to 700. I knew people and I was known. I have been in a few larger churches 1,000 to 3,500 before and I was known there. So I don’t think size in itself is the issue I think it has to do with the focus and heart of a church in deciding to major on attendence figures. Also, I don’t think it is up to us to say how big our church will get because we won’t turn anyone away. The issue is how do we organize to make sure every person is know no matter what the size of our church is. We can get so cynical sometimes (not saying you are just making a general comment) about numbers because of their abuses that we forget that behind each number is a person with a story.

Spiritual Health
Spiritual health is a facinating one to tackle because of the customizable piece you mentioned earlier. I think one thing we have to be cautious about is reacting so much to size or modern methods of defining or program that we dont’ define it at all. One of the biggest issues we see is that more people see the church is irrelevant and people are looking for practical spirituality. So where we choose not to define and equip people to live a christian life we are not helping them to grow. So I guess I just want to be careful that we don’t let our reaction against programs drive us to being irrelevant on the other side. That said, I think there are ways to define the spiritual life that help people see the direction and begin to move toward Christlikeness. Our church happens to use 5 purposes in helping people seek balance in those areas. I have seen others use disciplines, etc. I think it is vital that we are able to contextualize the faith to our community and describe what it looks like in a practical everyday sense. It doesn’t mean these things have to be wooden as they will overlap in many ways. But it does mean we have to do the hard work of contextualization and create tools to help people work through these issues in their own life. Just like our teaching of people is a tool (we hope) to helping them look at the scriptures in a new way and integrate them into their everyday living. So customization is good as long as we know what we are aiming at to make the customization effective (I hope I am making sense :)).

Bob, Don’t feel like you are stepping on my toes, offending me, or anything like that. I love these kind of discussions because they stretch my thinking and keep me in change mode which is how I grow. I know from the outside, people may think the church I serve at is an institutional church entrenched in what it does. But we are not that good :). In fact I have found the only thing that does not change here are the purposes. I have been here two years and have seen 2 reorganizations based on what the needs of the community are at the time. Changed lives is what drives this place not number of attenders. Unfortunately whenever something is put into a book it is seen as crystalized from the outside instead of principles to be contextualized. These are exciting times. Thanks for the conversation so far. Maybe we should start a new thread on defining the christian life or spirituality in a practical way for today. How are you doing it?