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This is awesome. I have been pastoring for only five years and did not understand why God did things that He did in my life and with the Church. We have more 'members' outside around the world on mission fields and more faithful supporters of the mission field who sow into our church than we have weekly 'members'. We are truly a church without boundaries. We lost members when we were on a drive to get a bigger building and God had us to use the funds to purchase two community mission houses for missionaries. We also give temporary refuge for those in need.

Never made it to the mega church mentality and theme of adding numbers. We are Church of Philadelphia in Durham, NC and we are standing (almost alone in this area) as a church on a mission to fulfill Christ's commission. We know that God is with us. A am excited about the move to discipleship… again. First century passion!!!

We never bought the building. Hallelujah!!! Almost all of our money received, outside of paying for a 1200 sq ft space, goes into mission support, sending people to the mission field and getting into the local community in shared projects.

This is so encouraging. God continue to bless you Pastor.

Gordon Cosby has stated that despite the Church's being almost 55 years old, they have never had more than 150 members. That is in part because of what it takes to become a member, and also intentional — once it got too big, they divided and would break off like cells and replant in the area. The philosophy of this church is found in this PDF, which is very informative: http://www.pottershousedc.org/files/journey.pdf
A large size church, Cosby insists, is actually a less effective ministry, at least outwards towards the community — megachurches (my interpretation) tend to feed themselves with bowling alleys, children's schools, Sunday school curriculum, etc. but these are people who wish to go to church, not be church. A large church contributes to “depersonalization” and “institutionalism”, leading towards a lesseningi commitment. An interesting perspective in an age when you have consultants who are paid by churches as far as how they can increase their numbers, get more pews filled, and fill their coffers, in order to be considered “blessed” and “successful.”

I have to agree with Saul. I found the Lord in a megachurch but I did experience this depersonalization that he talks about. I left the church and came back 3 months later and people had not realized that I had left at all. They just thought they hadn't seen me for a while.

I do get concerned about “driven” churches that are focused more on numbers of people that how people are actually growing in Christ.

As to the method of the article being a satire…isn't this what we do all the time as visionary leaders – we imagine a different scenario that answers our problems and disilusionment with the status quo.
Didn't that greeat church leader from early times do this with His church in 70 AD – He completely dismantled his church. It seems that he gave people about 30 some years to get used to the idea that a change had been implimented – then one day they went to go to the Temple and it was gone. Some people are still complaining about that bad leadership decision and have yet to embrace this new thing called The Way.
I admit, I am dissilusioned with many aspects of church and long for change.
I dream about things like what this story presents. I knew it was not a real story when it claimed only %30 fallout.
Don

Ouch Don. Is the fallout that bad?

Hi Jonathan
Is the fallout that bad? As in a higher % or as in “So what if we have a little fallout?”
We have just had some very spirited discussions this week related to a similar idea. We are a small church of about 120. Due to the mass exodus brought on by summer holidays and weekend camping trips we presented an idea to shift from Sunday services to a mid week service just for the summer. Our goal was to maintain closer relationships during the summer and engage with the ryhtms of the culture. Our plan was to encourage people to invite others over or to go to the beach and spend Sundays engaging with neighbors who would not come to church. We set up discussion groups thorughout the week for people to engage and dialog around the idea. We did not realize how deeply people felt about messing with their Sunday Church service and rythms of sabbath rest. We soon found out. 3/4 of the people were strongly opposed to the idea. Had we been committed to follow through – I think the fall out would have been over 50%. In trembling fear of mass rejection we have aborted these plans.
But…we made a great discovery. We could see peoples passions and values clearly demonstrated in their dramatic responses. This gives me hope for future change. We as pastors may have wrestled long and deep with our discontent. We may be ready for change but our people can't and won't change until we help them establish new higher values. God brought an image to my mind of a deeply plowed filed. Plowing is a violent act. God used this issue to plow us. He exposed roots so they could die. He prepared the soil for new seed. We (leaders) were reminded to love the people on the journey. As we regroup I think we are one step closer to change. Fallout so far is 0%, but our neighbors will have to wait.
Is fallout that bad?

Don

My wonder was your first version. Thanks for your willingness to shift.

Which “church” are you referring to?

Which “church” are you referring to?