Monday, February 14, 2005

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT BIG?

We don’t really do big in the UK. When I hear about churches in America that are considerably larger than my home town my mind has a great deal of difficulty wrapping itself what that actually means. I sometimes attend one of the oldest Christian conventions in the world – the Keswick Convention. Keswick is a little town that makes a lot of its living from tourism. Keswick people have a love-hate relationship with the Convention. They love it because it fills the guest houses and hotels. They hate it because the visitors don’t drink enough alcohol and crowd the streets with people who keep the law and don’t swear. It is all a bit surreal. I enjoy the Convention. I enjoy listening to top rate teachers and singing to a highly professional band and feeling the group dynamics of being with thousands of other worshippers. It is the only big I do in my Christian life. Yes – big is attractive.

I suppose mega church is like living in the middle of a continuous Keswick convention. I don’t suppose Rick Warren is worried about the central heating pump or if Mrs Jenkins will turn up to teach the 6-7 year-olds on Sunday. I bet Bill Hybel's phone never goes to tell him the organ builder says the f sharp above middle c will never work on the Cornopean and the whole rank will need replacing and he could do it when the great to pedal coupler is being renewed – whatever all that means. Big is attractive. All those tasks I have to beg, plead, cajole and threaten in order to get done; all those things which I was not trained for at college (why do we not get lectures on photocopier maintenance? J, D, E and P have a lot to answer for!); all those Sundays we sing Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war whilst thinking “Here am I Lord, send someone else.” Mega-church would make all that a thing of the past. Yes – big is very attractive.

On a really bad Sunday – say the fourth Sunday in a row when the offering has been way below budget, and Mrs Jenkins (yes – it’s her again) has said she really does want to stop teaching Sunday School at the end of this year and the caretaker says the electrician says the lighting will need to be replaced if we don’t want to see the building burning merrily (quick panic – has the treasurer paid the insurance premium?) – on a Sunday like that I yearn for big. Not Big big – just a bit bigger. Maybe an extra 50 or 75 people (and Lord, if one or two of them were really generous givers …) would be nice. I suspect many of us think that if our church was just a tad bigger life would be so much better. 25 members is too limiting; if we just had 50 …100 members is OK but if we just had 150 … Yes – Big is very very attractive.

In the Screwtape letters C S Lewis argues that the devil has a trick of making us react the wrong way. It is as if the ship is sinking and the devil shouts “Fire! Fire!” so we start throwing water around. We react in exactly the wrong way. I think the devil is shouting “Bigger! Bigger!” at us and we are running around looking for big. Big after all is a mark of God’s blessing. Look at his church – it is Big. He must be good. Look at your church. It is small. You must be useless.

So, my question: what’s the big deal about big? Or maybe, I should rephrase that. Where is big presented in the New testament as a picture of church life? Which were the big NT churches? Have we lost sight of the fact that the church in the New Testament was not big? Big churches do not meet in someone’s house. Big churches do not meet in modestly sized public halls. Big churches are not made up of people who know each other by name. Read your New Testament with open eyes and see the intimacy there is there. You cannot have intimacy with 25,000 church members or even with 2,500. You might do it with 250 members. To have that intimacy mega-churches have to set in place programmes to develop intimacy. How? By making lots of little churches out of bits of big churches.

When I stand up in my pulpit on a Sunday morning and look at the 75 people before me, I can think about Mrs Jenkins and the problems in Sunday School and I know about Mr Jenkins and his alcoholism and young Jim Jenkins and his difficulties with his girl friend. When I look at the organist and the problems with the Cornopean (and I still do not know what that it) I do not need a complicated administration to fix it. I can speak to him and know what I can leave safely in his hands and what he will need help with. I know who can be asked to help him. And if the lights really are going to give up the ghost fairly soon – well I know who on the Board can be left to deal with the problem and who in the congregation will respond to the needs. The longer we are together the more we become the church family. Like all families we have our difficult people and we live with our limitations and we don’t always get on too well. Big doesn’t give me that.

There are people who are drawn to ministry and aspire to Big ministry because it gives them status. Little doesn’t give status at all. Little gives intimacy. Little knows first names – rather like God knows first names. Hey – there’s a thought – maybe God likes little too!

3 Comments:

Blogger Randy Davis said...

I think that some people are pastors of big churches because God placed them there. While I think there is a place for big churches, I think there is nothing wrong with smaller churches. What has happened, at least in American culture, is that folk think that small is somehow wrong or sinful. That might be true if a church was located in a growing population center and has refused to evangelize its community because they don’t want “Those people” to come to church. The fact is, most churches are smaller, they are God’s church and no one should look down on them and pastors need to be willing to pastor them because it is God’s Church. Great job Neil

1:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for a very encouraging and insightful article,Neil

9:53 AM  
Blogger sobi said...

I stumbled across your blog tonight. Very interesting. I'm chiming in, even though this topic is way old. Hope that's okay.
Big looks to most people like success. It's how most people here in the States like to live, or like to think they live. We shop in enormous stores that are open for gigantic stretches of hours, and we drive to them in cars that are big enough to pull big farm equipment around. Why not park that mess at my megachurch, and pop in for some Sunday stuff?
Big is attractive. Of course, so is little: The average church in the States has fewer than a hundred members, last I heard.
Big makes lotsa flash possible. Done well, that's pretty cool. The more like a movie it is, the more like life it seems. Whatever. People sure seem to like it. It's relevant to them. Being relevant is part of doing a good job at being big.
Big feels like a movement. It feels significant. That is gratifying to a helluva lotta people.
Big makes anonymity possible. People in the US, a lot of them anyway, seem to like that. A lot of them come to my church. I see 'em all the time, but I don't know 'em. They keep coming, though, and they wouldn't go to a little church. Is that bad? You tell me.
Big means not having to serve, necessarily, if all ya wanna do is scratch dat itch. On the flip side, it also means that you can plug into some very cool service opportunities, like big church drama.
Big means growth here in the US. Growth means survival, which is important for a whole class of church professionals, like me.
Big is insulation. It keeps out the cold of reality, and keeps in that warm feeling of solidarity.
Big leaves you hungry. Some people never recognize that pang, but others do. Then, they seek out small, whether in the smallness of solitude or in some more compact true community within big. In that smallness, they often encounter the living God, and they assimilate Christ. I see that happen all the time. It tends to temper my cynicism just a bit.
Big can be good. So can small. Big can be really bad. So can small. Small can be superbad.
Big can be devoid of the Spirit. It can also be inebriated with Him. Big can just be a big can of syrup. It can also point people toward Christ, and help them to find transformation in him.
That seems pretty good to me. Doesn't it to you?

8:10 PM  

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