Let’s get bigger?

We were away looking after a small church for a couple of weeks.

It enabled the pastor and his wife to take a holiday. There we met a great Christian couple who had experienced tough things in their lives, been part of a number of larger congregations and had now joined the little church. The wife said: ‘The trouble is, when you go along to larger churches they tend to deal with you as a category – a young person, a senior, a single, a young married, with or without children, etc. – but overlook you as an individual. O the joy of coming to a little church and being treated as a person again!’

Growing churches

Every Christian should want to see churches grow. But these remarks indicate that perhaps a church can grow too large and become a bit of a machine, rather than a family. It’s all about necessary efficiency rather than people. So, though we want to see churches grow (by conversions by the way, not simply by taking Christians from other churches), perhaps we need to contemplate the idea that once we reach a certain size it really is time to step out in faith, make the sacrifice of dividing and plant a new church or revitalise another needy congregation. We want not only to spread the kingdom, but also to preserve the family nature of God’s household (1 Timothy 3.15).