Big Church - May 10, 2023
As I promised in the sermon on Sunday, I want to share some thoughts on Mountainview as a big church. The average Canadian church is about 75 people; we are about 500 people. Church growth experts talk about passing the 250 barrier, which is recognizing that you need a different system when you grow beyond the number where everyone knows everyone else. We are well beyond that reality here.
Now, I am not suggesting that anyone doesn’t know that we have a lot of members. I am not insinuating we have a counting problem. What I do want to suggest is that we sometimes act and think with a small church mindset.
So what I would like to do is share a few things that I consider the benefits of being big. And then I will note some challenges we need to be aware of.
The biggest benefit of being big is what is often called “economy of scale”. It is more efficient to do things with larger numbers. Efficiency isn’t everything, but when it comes to things like paying the heat and hydro, it helps. For example, every church has had to update their bylaws to meet new Canadian standards. Say this costs $500. For our 500 members that is a buck per person. For a 100 member church that is $5 each or 5x as expensive. For a lot of practical matters, this principle applies.
Large churches can have staff teams. I think this is a huge benefit as it allows us to have a variety of skill sets and styles on the same team instead of expecting that the solo pastor have it all. Being a big church allows us the ability to lead a variety of ministries with specialists available to guide them. And when we run those ministries we have enough people to serve in all the roles. Recently I was talking with a colleague about our Sunday morning kids ministry. Our monthly roster of volunteers to make Sunday mornings happen outnumbers my friend’s entire congregation.
Another benefit is variety. We have a variety of people with a variety of gifts so that the same people and ideas don’t have to be in the same place all the time. We have many different people who can serve on council, for example. We also have a full range of age groups. A smaller church can easily lose an entire demographic, while as a large church, we are almost guaranteed to have some of each age.
However, there are also challenges to being big. First off there is the challenge of connection. Nobody can have 500 close friends. As a big church, we need to find ways for people to connect in smaller communities whether neighbourhoods or small groups or ministry groups. A related challenge is that as we emphasize connecting with your small group, it may be hard to also look around and welcome new people or those on the edge of the community. It is easy to hide in a large community. Even though I spend much of the time looking out at whoever is present on Sunday morning, I am always surprised by who I see after the service in the foyer or fellowship hall. There are just too many people to see everyone.
Large numbers also limit some of the things we are able to do. I was surprised how often I heard that people really enjoyed doing communion gathered in circles around each section of pews because we could see each other. The reality is, however, that we were “fortunate” that a good number of people were away for March break at the time. With our present usual in-person attendance, that kind of intimate activity is hard to do.
Another challenge we experience is connecting with new people. For many people, some of the long-term members are still “new” to them. So how do we know who is new and who we need to reach out to? This may require that we take some risk and connect with someone simply because they are new to us. I am personally in the regular habit of asking people with mild embarrassment, “Have we already met?” It is worth the risk when you get to connect (or re-connect) with someone.
The point of all this is to simply remind us that as a big church with a large number of people, there are adjustments we need to make to do relational ministry well. So thank you for wearing name tags when we ask, for doing your part to welcome those you bump into along the way, and for finding smaller groups with which to find community.
Pastor Erick Schuringa