The “Your church is too big” argument
Occasionally since arriving at CFCOG and especially in my days working for Purpose Driven, I heard an argument from people that smaller churches are better than larger churches. The reasoning was smaller churches could; better meet the needs of people, offer more personalized plans for spiritual growth and people can have deeper, more meaningful, relationships because everybody knows everybody.
My argument has always been in favor of larger churches…the reasons for which I won’t get into know, but most of it was subjective based on my own personal experiences in both large and small churches. Now however, a new book has come out What Americans Really Believe, by Rodney Stark that backs up my claim. Rodney with the help of the Gallup organization surveyed Christians throughout the country and broke the findings into two categories…Churches under 100 in average attendance and Churches over 1000 in attendance.
Chapter 5 is entitled, Super-sizing the Faith and here are a few of the findings:
|
Under 100 |
Over 1000 |
|
| Believe in heaven |
79% |
92% |
| Believe in hell |
69% |
90% |
| Attend church weekly |
39% |
46% |
| Tithe |
36% |
46% |
| Attend small group or Sunday School |
43% |
52% |
| Have close friends in the church |
25% |
41% |
| Have no friends in the church |
22% |
12% |
| Have shared faith with friends in the last month |
52% |
83% |
| Have shared faith with strangers in the last month |
35% |
53% |
| Volunteer in the community |
31% |
40% |
| Volunteer in the church |
34% |
41% |
So when it comes to personal beliefs, acting out your faith and personal connections, it would appear that the bigger a church is the better off your faith will be!
Random Thoughts on a Wednesday
- As you can see from the pic…Lisa’s car hit 77777 on the odometer on the way back from small group last night.
- Not sure why we found this so fascinating.
- Yes we realize how dorky we are.
- Honestly I’m not in a good mood today…haven’t been for a couple of days.
- Would appreciate your prayers that I snap out of it.
- Keep remembering Paul’s words that I quoted on Sunday and that we heard again in this week’s small group lesson…”Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
- I was hoping that blogging would be theraputic but I don’t have anything else to share right now.
- Have a great week…see some of you tonight and others of you on the weekend.
- If you have a chance, check out our booth at Applefest on Saturday in downtown C’burg.
Inside Today’s Experiences
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Another great day!
- We never knew until late on Monday that Aaron would be availbable to lead us for the first time so we our team had quite a busy week.
- Tuesday they got all new music…of which 4 were songs we’ve never done.
- By the end of Thursday nights practice, everyone was stressed but as usual, God came through this morning and they did awesome.
- Great to have Aaron up there doing his thing.
- Hard to top last week’s Experience, so we threw in a lot of different wrinkles and it went well for the most part.
- Had lots of people come up and tell me that they told anyone who would listen about last week’s entrance in the casket.
- Must have convinced some to come visit…at the 10:45 Experience people kept coming in and coming in, until we ran out of chairs…the ushers had to go and start taking some from classrooms to keep up with everyone.
- Seriously…if you currently attend at 10:45, please consider moving to the 9:15 Experience.
- This is only October and the crowd size will only continue to grow between now and Christmas, so please, I’m begging you move over to the early time period.
- As for the day itself, set-up went well this morning with only a few minor glitches.
- We packed a lot of stuff into such a short time period this morning, but I thought everything flowed smoothly with a few minor mistakes.
- Got to meet a lot of great new people to the church…it’s awesome to see so many new people and hear their stories of how God is changing their lives.
- Tonight I’ve got a Council Meeting but in the meantime, I’ll watch the 2nd have of the Redskins game then take a quick nap.
- Have a great week…don’t forget to invite someone to come along with you and don’t forget to come at 9:15 next week…thanks!
Meet Drew Betz
Drew was born and raised in our church. He is 11 years old. Drew inspires me!
About 6 weeks ago his parents, Terry & Cindy, said that Drew was interested in sound equipment and wanted to know if he could come observe one of our Thursday night practices. I said yes and made sure that Drew not only got to watch but got to “play” with some of the equipment and go on stage during rehearsal to see how some of the behind the scene’s stuff works. His eyes were as big as saucers…he loved it!
The next week he shows up again and I show him how to actually run some of the equipment. Then he shows up again…and learns some more. Now for the past few weeks he has been running all of our projection equipment on Thursday nights checking for errors in lyrics or song sequences. Then at the end he has learned how to pack everything up so it can be put away.
My point is this…he’s 11 years old and has a heart to serve…what’s your excuse? Drew is storing up for himself treasures in heaven…how about you? There are plenty of ministries at United and CFCOG that need your help. Shoot me an e-mail (gilbert@unitedworshipexperience.org ) to indicate that you’re ready to start serving…Drew’s in the game…how about you?