I've often been asked if it was advantageous to be in a large mega church (more than 1000 people) or to be in a small church (100 or less). All congregations are different, of course, but it's pretty safe to make a few generalizations about the situation.
Mega churches are efficient - they have professionals who take care of everything - from the facilities maintenance to the accounting. They have higher standards of excellence in ministry - they have to be in order to maintain the numbers they have. Bigger populations require more organization, order and policies. And as a matter of statistics, having a lot more people to draw from allows the members of a large congregation to focus on 1 skill, be good at it and not have to worry about everything else they're not as skilled at. Large congregations also take in a lot of moneys and when administered by the right people with the right heart, can make huge impacts in social or political causes.
There is some disadvantage to all of this, of course. When professionals do all the little things that are required to keep a mega church going - that leaves the ordinary person to do nothing. This is why in larger congregations, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In addition, large congregations always have the effect of making you feel lost in the crowd - and unless you are the type that initiates contact with others, you'll almost always feel like you are not significant in the sense that the church will move on without you. There are ways to overcome these disadvantages, of course, but that's not the subject of this article. And this is not to say that no mega church can make you feel warm and at home. That's a different discussion for a different time.
Small churches have some advantages, too. The small number of people makes it feel more at home, due to the informal setting. People usually all know each other and it's generally "warmer" simply because of a more intimate setting. There is a lot more tolerance for unskilled or below-par work simply because there's nobody around to do skilled ministry. Workers, musicians, teachers who would otherwise not even be considered for service at a mega church find themselves becoming critical workers in a small church. There's also a higher feeling of significance and ownership for each member because anyone's absence can be felt (i.e. the smaller the total number of attendees, the larger the effect of one person not showing up).
Problems that small congregations experience are pretty common. Typically, it's less organized. Workers perform double or triple responsibilities (i.e. it is not uncommon for the usher to also be the Treasurer and the lead musician at the same time). Workers muddle through ministry areas for lack of staffing just to get through the day. Activities rarely run as smooth as they are supposed to run. Policies and strict operating procedures are often set aside replaced by trust and relationships, which could lead to abuse or lower expectations. In addition, a huge amount of time is spent just trying to meet legal obligations instead of focusing on actual ministry work.
The best place to be, as with anything in life, is right in the middle somewhere. You want to be in a church where it's big enough to drive some momentum in the community, yet small enough to feel like it's a family gathering. You want to be big enough to require some level of excellence in your ministries, yet relational enough that you don't need professionals to perform them. You want to have enough people giving to the ministry that you can support your full time workers (such as pastors) and fixed costs (such as facility rentals) but still small enough to know that your contributions are actually an integral part of the church's budget. You want it big enough to generate excitement at activities and have enough workers doing only small portions of the overall work, but small enough that you don't have to resort to legalism or salaries to manage the people.
Now let's say you belong to a community of believers whose desire is to serve your community. If you are too small in number, you will spend a bigger percentage of your resources (time, money, skill) just getting yourselves up and running and meeting legal requirements. Instead of pouring time and effort with the actual vision of what you want to do, you get exhausted just making sure your i's are dotted and t's are crossed. Those who are employed to do ministry work become the legal owners of the organization by default and are pushed into administrative work or have to shoulder the burden of making the whole organization work – let alone get the actual ministry work going.
Now, being in a faith community means you need someone to nurture you spiritually while you are pursuing that which is your vision. Any resource you spend trying to support employees and keeping your organization intact will take away from you actually doing what you want to do. That is to say - you will be spending a lot of time with overhead.
Imagine, then, what you could do if you had the opportunity to become part of an organization that already has people taking care of overhead. Would it make sense to become a part of that organization? What if that bigger organization actually believes that what you are passionate about is actually something that's good - something they could also learn from and impart to them? So now, not only is your overhead problem solved, but now you have more resources to draw from for your ministry passion and more potential to expand your actual vision.
Isn’t that the same as being in a mega-church? Not necessarily. Joining a mega church may take care of your overhead but you have to deal with some of the disadvantages. However, if you could get close enough to meeting some of those small church advantages with some mega-church positives – you’d be in the sweet spot.
But wait - what about the name of our organization? Don't we value carrying that name? Isn’t there value in being independent of others so we can do as we please (or as we believe the Lord leads us)? When the question comes down to whether or not you can continue to do the work you are passionate about and just keeping an organization's name for the sake of keeping it - which would you prefer? Nothing is free – the price of independence and carrying a preferred name could be less efficacy and more cost in resources (again due to the price of overhead).
Anybody can swing either way – usually, it all depends on timing and the overall need of a group at the time any opportunity presents itself. At NWCM-FW, we are at a point in our ministry where we are passionate about serving the community. But because of our size, we are spending too much resources on just keeping the organization together and taxing the skillsets of its members for the sake of the organization itself, rather than for the sake of reaching the community. We are also in need of a full-time pastor who can oversee us and lead us to “green pastures” as scripture describes.
This essay simply describes the advantages of merging with a more stable group from a congregational size point of view. We are a group of around 20 committed church people trying to stay afloat keeping up with our overhead – in terms of time, resources (both human and financial). What would you do if you had the opportunity to reduce your overhead and yet pursue your passion for ministry? Merging with a more stable congregation will enable us, in our small size, to continue doing and focusing on those works that we are already involved with and still be a part of a larger community where our spiritual needs are met.
Other writings revolving around our transition will come...
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