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!