From Reclaiming the Mission…

Let us recognize there is an unintended tendency within the mega church to make what’s happening in isolated parts of the mammoth organization seem a lot bigger than it actually is. This then generates the buzz necessary to raise (divert?) huge funds towards building things bigger. An isolated 15, 20 stories of individuals being saved and initiated into
baptism (great stuff in themselves!!) gets produced in a video production of Disney style excellence complete with music and plasma screen hyper-reality (the famous baptismal videos), wowing the emotions and sense of everyone in the 15,000 seat audience.

The effect is to make it seem like this is happening everywhere? The effect is to make it seem like this is much bigger than it actually is? Where in fact the same, maybe more per capita, salvation-baptisms are happening in much smaller social bodies having spent a lot less in resourses and activity? The same holds true for local small groupings of megachurches and their work in the neighborhoods. For mega churches take a few great stories of things happening, and highlight them via a produced video.

It makes it seem this is happening everywhere throughout the megachurch. The truth however may be that the mammoth size of the mega organization works against the engaged mature leadership necessary for this to happen in the neighborhoods. It takes organic engaged leadership for this to happen and only so much of this can happen in a church of 10,000. What about a mega church which gives 4 million to social justice but has spent 85 million in the last three years on a building. Sure it’s great that a mega-church gives 4 million to social justice causes. But stacked next to mammoth other budgets, is this really as significant as its sounds?

In truth, anything that happens positively in the mega church gets caught up in the magnifying effects of the mega machine, and makes it seem 100 times bigger than it is. But what if we took 15 or 20 thousand people gathered in smaller church bodies across N. America, spending much less time and energy on facilities, salaries, management, and add up all the salvations, engagements for Christ’s justice, WHICH WOULD BE BIGGER? I want to plead for some sanity in the way we think about success in the N. American church context.

After traveling and talking around the country for 2 years, my tentative conclusion is: per capita, per person, per dollar spent, the really significant impact for salvations, justice and outreach are exactly here in these organic, non-produced, non attractional missional communities emerging all over N. America. I am not asking that all mega churches cease existence. I am just suggesting that denominations and seminaries not get mesmerized by mega-strategy when assessing missional strategies going forward.  (Source, via)

I remember a pastor telling me a story one time about a family that made a very large show every year about a large gift they gave to the church.  Everyone would bow down and thank the family for the gift and the ministry that gift would produce.  Well somehow the pastor found out that their were a number of families that were giving more yearly…much more…than the family who made the show but did so in regular and quiet manner.  Who provided more resources for ministry?  The quiet givers, of course.

The same may be at play here.  Small communities of faith make a greater difference than the large church.  What do you think?