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!