The Goal of Church
Posted by Michael | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 26-06-2008
7
One criticism of large churches, or video churches, or ________ churches is that you can’t know everybody. Where did we get the idea that the goal of church is to know everybody? I don’t find that anywhere in my Bible. When Jesus left the planet, he commissioned the disciples with a mission…Go into all the world and make disciples. That’s the mission of the church, not learning every fact from the pictoral directory.
When people start talking about the church getting too big to know everyone, it’s a sign that they are not embracing the true mission of the Church. When a person starts talking about not having the cell phone number of the pastor, it’s a sign that he’s interested in knowing the pastor and not necessarily becoming a better Christian.
By the way, sometimes, 50 person churches are hard to break into, beacause the people there already know each other and a newbie is just an outsider.
People tend to forget that many of the churches in the New Testament grew to be HUGE…some over 25,000.
Great comment about the 50 person churches. Not putting them down. But that can be so true!
When I mention that, I mean ‘the pastor does not know you’. In a church of 3000, the majority of people will never get to know the pastor and vice versa.
For me and most friends I speak to, it’s not about ‘knowing everyone’ (that’s rarely possible anyway), it’s about having someone (a pastor) be able to give you advice (outisde of yourself). And that advice would have to be generic or supernatural if the guy didnt know you.
When you have a good head pastor, awesome staff and incredible volunteers the church is going to grow to be a large church. If this happens what are you supposed to do? Stop inviting people? There are assistant pastors and small group leaders to help everyone grow spiritually. Also Reading/praying by yourself is a must to grow spiritually, and being involved in the church/small groups is important to get to know other partners (members) and church staff, and to grow spiritually. It is very important to have people help you grow spiritually, but the head pastor can not do that directly for everyone.
When Larry was pastor at Mt Carmel Baptist Church, in Samson, AL, he tried desperately to help them grow both spiritually and in numbers. [The church had 50 members and they mostly kept the church open to tend the graveyard.] They absolutely refused. No matter what, it was the way my daddy, my granddaddy, etc., did it before. They wanted the pastor to do everything. It didn’t make any difference that we lived 50 miles away. They wanted us there.
They also didn’t want to grow because it would mean they’d have to do more, This made it very hard for us.
At FBC, New Smyrna Beach, they had the best deacon ministry I’ve ever seen. Larry was ordained a deacon there. They were the ones that got to know the members (about 1,00) a lot more personally than the pastor ever could. As you can see, there are two different ends of the spectrum.
OLC, as a church, is doing what I feel is right by having pastors for different areas of need, small groups that create the feeling of folks just wanting to know each other. In today’s world, you can’t be one-on-one with every person in the church. The pastor (or pastors) would be overwhelmed.
As in everything, just put Jesus first and He’ll have you meet and know the people that you need to know.
i think that when the church becomes too big, IT loses the focus of THE CHURCH. You cant make disciples from the pulpit or from a video screen. Jesus didn’t make disciples of the thousands that came to hear him speak. He took twelve.
If you’re aim is to make disciples, i think you would fair better as a small church, but i think discipleship is a lost art in alot of churches.
also to add to my comment… i dont think it matters what size church is or whether or not the pastor knows everyone… i think you have to ask whether or not the people are being discipled and discipling others. This gets messy and alot of people dont want to bother with it, and that can be a convenience of a big church…. coming in and becoming a number. But i dont think you can be a Christian and just be a number because the mission is too great. This movement is progressive. I think that if you understand fully, you will want to develop others so that the message carries on.
I think a church with thousands of people is a great thing if you can keep the mindset away from the comfort of “blending in” and continually focused on creating new disciples. I think a church of 50 can be equally great and effective if you can stay away from the selfishness that comes with small groups of people that use the word “my” when they refer to their church. You have to understand that being a follower of Christ is a “WE” movement and by developing new disciples, WE carry the name of Christ further. Safety and comfort can unintentionally stop the mission of the church…. from the inside out.