The Church: Is bigger better?
The Ambassadors from Redeemer have visited nearly 50 churches since we were locked out of our own church.
We started with congregations near us, close to the city. Most of our early visits were to small congregations.
As we drifted toward the suburbs, we found congregations to be a little larger. But in all our visits we have visited only three or four churches with more than 100 in attendance (all but one on significant holidays).
As a general observation, the larger the church the more similar things are. The liturgy is more set in stone. The hymns choices are more predictable. You have the organ. You have the choir (with paid section leaders, in some cases). The involvement of the people is more standard. People file out of the sanctuary in groups that don’t interact much. The bulletins look alike. The list of activities could be cut and pasted from one to the other.
Smaller churches are unpredictable, more likely to be innovative in their worship, more diverse and more inclusive. They are livelier and more spontaneous. More people are involved — sometimes in unusual ways. There is more going on between the people, even in the worship setting.
No wonder most people belong to small churches! That may not be where the money is, but it is where there is a lot of action. And still the attention of church leadership is on bigger congregations — that overall fewer people will join—because most people choose to belong to smaller churches.
How do we grow small churches without forcing them to lose their personality? How do we tap their energy and ideas? Or are we most interested in tapping their assets? That’s a real question. There is an economic dichotomy in the Church that is the source of a great deal of church conflict. The economic model that the Church aspires to is not the economic model that people support with their hearts or their pocketbooks.
Most of the economy of churches revolves around the ability to pay clergy and support hierarchy, but that’s not necessarily where ministry is most effective.
But that’s how the Church measures success.