Good Question: Is there a “best” size for a church?
Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 10:22AM We see that the Jerusalem church described in Acts grew to be thousands of people. There are also plenty of indications that Paul’s churches that he planted throughout Asia started off small and some probably remained small in size. In America and even within a 30 minute drive of Buckeye we see all different sizes of churches.
There are many different reasons why churches achieve a certain size. Certainly spiritual/moral strength is vital. Beyond this obvious characteristic we can also see the attitude, commitment level, friendliness, work ethic, and faith of the congregation playing a role. Of course the Pastor and the ministry team’s effectiveness as leaders and the clarity of their vision for the church is huge. Timing, location, and resources can also be a factor. However, one other factor is crucial…it is the will and willingness of the church to grow. It means understanding that no matter how much they accomplish, there are still more needs and more unsaved people within their area of ministry influence and asking ourselves, “are we willing to work hard to reach them?”
So an important question I want to ask you is, “do you want us to grow and why?” Let me turn this question a little bit to help you think about it concretely. If we grew to be a church of 500 souls what would that mean to you…would you be excited and why? I know my answer to this question, but it might be different than yours. Imagine MVCC soon becoming a church that hasn’t changed any core values and has in the process grown to have two worship services of over 100 adults; a Chicano ministry of over 50 adults; a youth ministry of over 50 teens; and a children’s ministry of 200! This is exciting to me for many reasons…why are you excited about being a church of 500?
Reader Comments (1)
Wow! The idea of us being a church of 500 is really exciting! It means our family has grown... that more people have discovered that Jesus is real and together we are now part of God's family forever. And that is worth getting excited about especially when I imagine all of us praising Him together. I can sing of God's goodness by myself but I love it when there's a big crowd... there's more love, more power and more glory to God.