Hi Bob,

You make a good case for intentionally keeping churches small through multiplication, and I agree with much of what you wrote. I just want to offer some rhetorical support for larger churches, since “one size doesn’t fit all” applies just as well to small as to large.

First, I for one am not bothered if a megachurch spends $75M on a facility. Assuming that’s a church of about 25,000 people, it’s equivalent to a church of 200 people spending $600,000 on their building. That sounds reasonable to many people. The issue here, if anything, might better be whether churches “should” have dedicated buildings at all. If it is legitimate for a church to have a building to enhance its ministry, then it is reasonable to expect a church of 25,000 souls (entire towns are smaller) to need a more extensive facility.

Second, while recognizing that programs can be used in insensitive and cumbersome ways, I would highlight what you have already acknowledged—that large churches can offer programs that are beyond the means of smaller churches. A new church is often limited to just one “professional” of any kind, and must rely on a small pool of members for such things as teachers, musicians, or janitors. Many church planters prefer teams for this reason, but then “have to” reach a certain size to be “viable,” or else deal with other limiting factors. A small cell group can make sure someone carries a handicapped person upstairs to the Bible study, and a megachurch can install all the elevators and special facilities people in wheelchairs need, but many churches in between have areas that are just inaccessible. A small cell group can reach the neighborhood; a megachurch can reach people groups.

10 churches of 200 working together can do a lot that any one couldn’t do, but I think there’d still be more overhead between them than a single church of 2,000. If each 200 church had a preacher, a secretary, and one other staff member, that would be 30 paid positions for 2,000 people; that church of 2,000 might have 25 paid positions, but they’d probably include a wider variety of specializations. Also, once the smaller churches are working together, we’re right back at the problem of the pastors not knowing all of the 2,000 members (of the 10 churches) working together.

Third, rather than having a harried pastor who has no chance of connecting spiritually with thousands of members, large churches just as often have dozens of pastors who can focus on shepherding groups of people that they can name. The preacher may even be one of them. In fact, quite often it is easier for a pastor in a large church to engage in spiritual care/nurture/teaching than for the pastor of a small church. That large-church pastor has a personal secretary, a staff person to worry about the bulletin, a maintenance team to change lightbulbs, a nursery to look after the baby, and a facility designed to enhance whatever ministry task he faces. Many small-church pastors must engage in spiritual care/nurture/teaching after working an 8-hour day, calling around to let everyone know the meeting this week is at the Smith’s because Mrs. Jones is sick, making sure George gets a ride, and filling out some sort of form the government is sure to require.

You mention your calling in this regard—I think that’s a separate issue than programming or church size. Of course, if you’re called to minister to people personally church-wide, then it doesn’t make sense to retain control of a church that keeps growing and growing—but it could still make sense to have a restricted role within such a community if you could look at those you don’t know in the same way you’d look at those you don’t know in 9 other churches of 200 with whom you’d network.

You mention a friend who had to wait two months to get a meeting with his pastor. I would just say I doubt that pastor was “his” pastor—it looks like a case of confusing title with function. “Senior pastor” is not a biblical term, but rather a reflection of one cultural expression of “church.” Using “pastor” they way many do, to refer to the guy we pay to preach and lead (or the guy we found preaching and leading) is also a cultural use. We tend to equate “trained professional church person” with “pastor.” I think that if we equate “spiritual shepherd” with “pastor,” we’d find many unrecognized, not formally trained, unpaid pastors at churches large and small.

Fourth, while people fall through the cracks in large churches, they’re often just different people than those who fall through the cracks in smaller churches. In a home church, it may be a certain age group that can’t relate to what everyone else is doing. In churches of 100, it may be teachers burning out or always giving care and not as often receiving it. In churches of 200, it may be people who work on Sunday mornings. One could make the case that there are more “slots” a person could get plugged into in a larger church, more potential friends, etc.

Regarding the measure of health, many proponents of larger churches define health, in part, by the involvement of their members in small groups where they can get their individual spiritual issues addressed. Numerical growth is also often considered a measure of health, under the theory that churches should naturally grow. (Hiving off members to start new churches, or sending out members as core groups, would factor in here.) Bigger churches are more susceptible to some health risks than smaller churches, but the reverse is also true. It is best to compare ideal big churches with ideal small churches, or dysfunctional big churches with dysfunctional small churches, rather than dysfunctional big churches with ideal small churches.

In conclusion, I probably agree with you more than this response seems to indicate. I led one church-planting team when several of us were feeling pretty burned-out, and our way of dealing with that was to reject being program-led. We vowed not to have any program (be it Sunday-school, worship team, youth group, etc.) unless God provided workers and ministry leaders. I’ve networked with other church planters to pool resources such as trained counselors and specialized, er, programs. And the churches I’ve helped plant have supported missionaries and church plants at the expense of their “own” programs. I guess I just don’t think there’s a single “optimal” church size. I disagree that large churches use more resources (human or financial) than a network of small churches adding up to the same number of people, but I agree that (if I had to choose) multiplying churches is more important than growing my church ever bigger.

Chris