http://amfmission.org/burns/post/a-small-church-pastors-family/

Hope you’ll be blogging again soon. I enjoy the longer, in-depth posts (more than what you can put on Twitter)!

HAAAAAAYYYY-MANNNNN!

Absolutely, Dennis. It’s not the size of the church; it’s the message of the gospel, the attitude of the people toward each other and outsiders, and the other vital marks of a Biblical church. But that’s the point exactly: it’s not the size of the church. The problem comes in when people assume that “bigger is better”, or “bigger is more faithful”, or “bigger is more God-honoring”; that’s the point of the post. So many have this tacit assumption that bigness equals God’s blessing, and that nonsense is perpetuated by many of our denominational agencies and conferences.

A corollary to this is pastors who want to “climb the ladder of success”. Think it doesn’t happen in church the way it does in the “secular world”? Think again; it happens every bit as much. I say the following not to “toot my horn”, but I left a middle-sized church to pastor a tiny one, hoping to help it regain health (and as proof I’m not tooting my horn, it didn’t take). Was I a worse pastor in the tiny church than I was in the middle-sized one that had a significant growth spurt at one point? Were my sermons worse, my pastoring worse, my strategizing and administration and reaching out worse? Or was I the same guy, and in one situation, God saw fit to grant sustained growth, while in the other, He did not?

So we take that out into the larger setting, and simple honesty must compel us to recognize that there are many, many faithful and effective pastors laboring in small towns, men who preach the Word and live it out, who by sheer force of demographics will never have a mega-church ministry. Were they into “ladder-climbing” (and please, I’m not saying that all the mega-church pastors are; that’s certainly not my point), might these guys do an even better job, reach more people, etc.? Are these guys less faithful, less “deserving” of speaking at the convention or conference, etc.?

I go back to my solution: want to rid Christian faith of our obsession with bigness? Have no conference in which the only speakers are pastors with mega-congregations, and include in every conference the wisdom of some guys who have labored long and hard in a field which has produced less-than-spectacular results, but who continue to plow away year after year. Until those guys are given their due, we’ll continue to be driven by this superstar mentality and worship at the altar of the massive.

While visiting churches in my area I attended several “small” long established denominational churches where upon entering no one greeted me and I was given the “look” when I sat down. As if to say why are you here? Or that is Ms.So and So’s seat.

Wouldn’t it be great if all churches were filled with people like the greeter who had just recieved Christ, and were “excited” about JESUS!