David Fitch: Why Missional Community is More Difficult
David Fitch, author of The Great Giveaway, pastor, professor and blogger posted this on his blog:
"It is more difficult to take 10 people and grow a living organic body of Christ to 150 than it is to transplant 200 or 300 people (or I have heard even 600-800) and then grow that congregation to 5,000. Because a crowd draws a crowd. And if you have all the bells and whistles, 5 pastors and a youth program, all from day one, and a charismatic speaker with spiked hair (no shot intended at anyone in particular) and you don't mind putting the smaller less flashy community churches out of business, it will be harder to stop attracting a big crowd from all the people who want Christianity to be more fun and mesmerizing. BTW did you know that the statistics say that small church growth (from 10-150) is where the true conversions (as opposed to transfer growth) come from? Why then do evangelicals exalt the mega congregations as the answer to reaching those outside of Christ?"
Read the rest here: IT IS MORE DIFFICULT: WHY MISSIONAL COMMUNITY IS MORE DIFFICULT AND WHY I LOVE IT
1 comment:
Great and needed statement. I think (you would imagine this) he's absolutely right.
The only thing I'd argue with, just a little, is any automatic notion that there is always a need to grow from 10 to 150. I think that kind of thinking is a child of the same parent that encourages the mega-minded church - Amercia, big, gotta grow, bigger is better, more means mission is working, less is lame, etc.
I'd say it's even more difficult to resist the temptation (possibly) to push things to more than 10-20 when it's not something you're supposed to be doing. There's a lot of pressure out here toward that.
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