There has been a lot of criticism of larger churches going around over the past two weeks of class and I’ve been struggling with what to think of the issue.  On the one hand it seems as if larger churches would have an easier time making more of an impact on the community and attracting a certain type of persons to church but on the other hand we’ve seen that smaller churches can have an easier time being missional and reaching people personally.  In class today we heard how the community in Portland was hesitating to begin meeting in a large public building, but kept their gatherings to small house churches, and with good reason.  In Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways he speaks of how the church he started began as simply a community largely focused on mission and it was very exciting.  However because it was such a great community and exciting many Christians moved to be part of the church and it grew rapidly, but unfortunately not everything was good about this growth.  The larger and more stable the church grew, the busier the people became with church stuff and ironically the less missional impact they actually began to have.  This can be the danger of larger churches, I believe, not that larger congregations necessarily prohibit mission and a following of the word, but that larger churches can result in more internal activities for people to get wrapped up in.  We have to be careful we don’t get too busy and involved in church functions and concentrate more on living missionally outside the church building.

Tim