The other day I was talking with another church planter here in Portland and the topic came up in which we both see a fairly major shift in church philosophy looming on the horizon. For the past 20 years the goal of most evangelical congregations has been to get as big as they possibly can. Many in my generation have this pervasive feeling that that mindset is evidence of the church buying in to the “bigger-is-better” attitudes of most of America.
The trend among 20-somethings in most places in America is a desire to be a part of smaller, more organic/natural, communities that emphasize simplicity over big production worship services. When I was in Grand Rapids, I attend Mars Hill Bible Church several times. Each time, attendance was drastically lower, resulting in an announcement the last time I was there that they would be ending 1 of their 3 services. I suspect a number of mega-churches around the nation are experiencing similar struggles in keeping the current college and young-adult group around. Much has been said about this. Conversely, the house-church movement is growing and more small church plants are thriving and doing a better job of producing disciples than the big churches with their big budgets.
I have to admit that I frequently find myself wishing for a large congregation; day-dreaming about what it would be like to start a church and become the next Rob Bell or Francis Chan. We have to admire these men who are able to pull together just the right mix of people who go out and take their communities by storm. I have no doubts that God has worked through these men and that lives have been transformed by their preaching of the Gospel.
However, as I was talking to this other planter, I was telling him that I really didn’t want to be all that big. I want to grow because growth is a sign of a healthy ministry, but I don’t have much of a desire to reach the several thousand member status. Instead, I would actually be quite happy with a congregation that nearly topped out at about 200, but had a strong commitment to planting other congregations and was constantly sending people out the door to ministry somewhere else. I want a revolving door…
But the trend begs an interesting question: If churches get smaller – with fewer financial resources – what happens to the trained leadership? While I’m no expert or prophet, I suspect the most common solution – and one of the best – to this potential problem is two-fold: simple, multi-site congregations.
I wasn’t a big fan of multi-site churches when I first heard about them – it sounded a little too exclusive to me. But there are a variety of ways in which multi-site can be done. The way I envision a multi-site congregation that I might head-up, is that each site functions more as its own location. Essentially, it would operate more as a network than a single congregation; but a network that pools its money and functions more socialistically. Planting churches in this way drastically lowers the cost of church planting. It also allows for some locations to grow significantly, while others remain smaller. Maximum flexibility and diversity.
Simple church is an approach to structuring a congregation around need. However, need is defined in slightly different terms than in the past. Congregations seek to integrate their members into the community as much as possible, and resist previous tendencies to establish Christian alternatives within the community. A classic example is youth ministries. The traditional thinking is that every good and healthy congregation has a high school ministry. But what if there are youth organizations that already exist within the community. The Gospel does not require a church in order to be preached, and so it would be far more beneficial for church members to get involved in community organizations and preach the gospel amidst the messiness of life. That’s salt and light. The result is a church with a very small paid staff, a large volunteer/leadership staff, and an incredibly real impact and ministry in the community.
When you combine the two, what you get is a network of congregations of various sizes that pool their money together in order to ensure that they can support a well-trained professional leadership (i.e. pastors). Where one location may be quite large, another is quite small. Both are entitled to quality preaching and pastoral care, but the smaller one may not be able to support the needed leadership on their own. People are out in the community, yet each site still has the bare-necessities of what is needed to be healthy. My budget is your budget is their budget. Everyone wins, the gospel is preached, and heresy is kept at bay…
Filed under: Church, Church Planting, Discipleship, Leadership, Ministry
