(tip of the hat to Wolfgang Simpson for inspiring this).
Ever notice that some sort of natural law seems to dictate the maximum size of an organism? We don't see many humans over 7'6", and humans that don't stop growing in height are eventually unhealthy (as well as unusual). Same with weight and humans -- a man who grows too big in weight eventually dies due to complications related to size. This is true of most of creation.
So why do some churches aspire to be so large? Nature seems to indicate that overly large is unhealthy. But what do healthy organisms do? Reproduce.
How big is too big? When does size of a church and the growth of the church start interfering with the development of the members of the body? I'll comment occasionally on this. I just wanted to raise the question today.
Posts
More Than Meets The Eye
6 years ago
2 comments:
Great post, Mark. I've enjoyed your others, but, well, figured I'd leave my comment on the last post. Our church has a capacity of 240 (only 70 parking spaces with the paradigm being average 3 people per space) and is regularly hitting 180-190. Experts say that we're due for either a) a new building or b) a 2nd service. Whoever the experts are... what do you think?
Funny, I've been reading Organic Church by Neil Cole, and in the last chapter I read he poked fun at an expert who cited two factors most significant in church growth: clean toilets and parking spaces. Are your toilets clean?
What is a healthy size? One church growth expert, Christian Schwarz,+ found seven important characteristics of a healthy church. All but one are natural in smaller churches (quality of worship tends to be better in larger ones). In fact, Schwarz found that "the evangelistic effectiveness of mini-churches is statistically 1600 percent greater than the megachurches". Schwarz and his team looked at 170 variables and determined that the most negative factors to growth were "liberation theology", "traditionalism" and "large size". Schwarz research seems to suggest optimal size of 70-100.
Other opinions I've read:
Wolfgang Simpson makes the claim for 20. He observes that above that size, certain 'organizational' principles seem to take precedence over relationships.
Neil Cole makes the claim for 2 or 3! Actually, I don't know that he makes a hard claim on size, but he cites the basic unit for churches should be 2 or 3. A particular church meeting in a house or a school or other facility may consist of 6 to 60 of these groups of 2 or 3, but with this basic unit as a part, organic multiplication can occur.
This probably doesn't answer the question, but that's what I've seen from 'experts' I'd be willing to cite. I recall an old statistic that I know wonder if is a kind of "urban myth" that said a church will only grow to 80% of the building's capacity. That would suggest 192 is the most you'd get, or if the rule applies to parking as well, you are lucky as that would translate to 168 (3 * (80% of 70)).
Post a Comment