# May a Church Be "Too Big"?



## Backwoods Presbyterian (Sep 27, 2011)

This is a split-off from the Multi-Site thread vis-a-vis Carl Trueman's article.

The question was asked if a church can be "too big" and whether or not a Minister should know each member of the congregation he shepherds.


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## Bill The Baptist (Sep 27, 2011)

I don't know that there is a definite answer to this question. There are certainly many pastors whom I respect immensely who have very large churches. That being said, I personally think that a smaller church is preferable in so many ways. I used to attend a large church with over 1000 in attendance and I never really got to know the pastor at all, despite the fact that I was there for several years. At my current church, I know the pastor well. I go to his house, he comes to mine. He even bought me a set of commenteraries. This is the type of relationship that a pastor can have with his congregants when the church is small, but that would be impossible in a large church.


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## Herald (Sep 27, 2011)

Benjamin,

I believe a church can be "too big", however there is no hard and fast rule to determine when that occurs. I tend to look at geography and demographics when determining whether a church has become too big. For example: the church that planted us is in Bowie, Maryland. It was bringing in individuals from thirty miles out. That means it was reaching into suburban Washington, D.C. and suburban Baltimore. The decision was made to plant a church further north in order to establish a solid Gospel presence in a neighboring county. That's how our church came into existence. It was a good decision. Even though our sending church lost some members they were able to add them back. 

As to whether a minister should know each member of the congregation; it depends what you mean by "know." He should certainly know who they are. But that's where elders come into play. Pastoral care is not the sole responsibility of the senior pastor. Elders should be involved in the lives of each member. This allows the whole pastoral staff to be engaged in pastoral ministry.


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## Scott1 (Sep 27, 2011)

Presbyterians know how to answer this.

One Senior Pastor does not have to do the shepherding of the entire congregation. A plurality of elders, ruling and teaching so it is quite possible to develop shepherding groups or some such mechanism for accountability.

There are advantages and disadvantages of small, medium and large sizing of congregations- but that, I take it is not the focus of this thread.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Sep 27, 2011)

Just as an FYI I am not sure why the last two responses were directed at me?

I merely am posting the question that was asked in the Trueman thread here so as not to derail that thread. I was not the one directly looking for an answer.


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## Herald (Sep 27, 2011)

Benjamin, force of habit. 

sent from my most excellent Motorola Atrix.


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## R Harris (Sep 27, 2011)

Bill The Baptist said:


> I don't know that there is a definite answer to this question. There are certainly many pastors whom I respect immensely who have very large churches. That being said, I personally think that a smaller church is preferable in so many ways. I used to attend a large church with over 1000 in attendance and I never really got to know the pastor at all, despite the fact that I was there for several years. At my current church, I know the pastor well. I go to his house, he comes to mine. He even bought me a set of commenteraries. This is the type of relationship that a pastor can have with his congregants when the church is small, but that would be impossible in a large church.



This.

Jay Adams is of the thought that once a congregation gets a membership above 250-300, it should split and form a new church. (At least that is what I was told after we visited his church in Harrisonburg, SC back in 1996.)

The response of the mega churches is to create "small groups" to combat the problem of becoming lost in the crowd, but often this is a meagre attempt that really doesn't solve the problem and does little to spiritually benefit each member. Having more elders is the "reformed" attempt to deal with it, but again what should be the ratio? One elder for 30 members? 50? 100? I frankly don't see a New Testament model envisioned where a church would have a very large number of elders.

Think of a funeral service - how embarrassing is it for the pastor to give the message when they barely even knew the person?

The disadvantages of having a 300+ congregation far outweigh the advantages, In my humble opinion.


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## CharlieJ (Sep 27, 2011)

No, I don't think that a church can be too big simpliciter. It may be too big in respect to some circumstance. For example, there may be inadequate pastoral care; but the problem there is not the size of the church, but the inadequacy of the pastoral care. 

I think our prayers and hopes should come into the conversation. I pray and hope for great numbers to come to a knowledge of Christ and follow him in discipleship. Yet, if God were to answer that prayer, we would either start having much bigger churches or many more churches. Either solution would be challenging and require preparation. Are we expectantly preparing for such an occurrence?


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## Jack K (Sep 27, 2011)

I guess my comment on the other thread, saying that big churches aren't necessarily bad or lacking in personal pastoring, led us here. So I'll expand a bit on those thoughts...

Some people (mostly those who're in small churches) tend to look at big churches and assume several bad things about those big churches. The big churches must be pandering to what people want to hear. They've probably elevated style over substance. They can't be preaching the pure gospel or running things biblically. And there must be loads of folk there who're getting very little personal pastoring or accountability.

Other people (mostly those who're in big churches) tend to look at small churches and assume several bad things about those small churches. The small churches clearly aren't very skilled at whatever it is they're trying to do. They fail to proclaim the gospel with any oomph. Or they're so narrow, prickly or just plain odd that they naturally exclude all but a handful of believers in any given city.

The thing about both assumptions it that they're not necessarily true, but they often can be true. Large churches usually need to carefully examine themselves and correct any tendencies toward the first set of problems. Small churches usually need to ask themselves similar questions regarding the second set of problems.

At the same time, folks from both sorts of churches need to not assume the worst about the others. Just because a church may be struggling with some of the pitfalls common to its particular size does not necessarily mean the church is bad and its leadership is oblivious. Often it just means that because the big church is big, it's dealing with issues that hardly even come up in a small church and therefore look like gross mismanagement to small church people—and vice versa. So awareness and charity is in order.

As for the question: May a church be "too big"? - If it expands beyond natural geographic divisions, whatever that means in a particular area, it is clearly too big. But due to the fact that nearly every city and town is somewhat socially/racially divided by neighborhoods, it is a good thing to have some churches that are "whole city" churches, attempting to bring believers from all parts of town together. It's reasonable to expect and hope that some such churches may become very large. This will require careful attention from the elders to the work of personal pastoral oversight, but it is not an impossible task. And the benefit of such churches makes the effort worthwhile.


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## Herald (Sep 27, 2011)

"Too big" doesn't mean a church can't function properly. "Too big" may simply mean it's time to replicate what's already working. Plant churches where they're needed. A forest is made of many trees, not just one.


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## JoannaV (Sep 28, 2011)

This is a question each individual church should address once its congregation becomes too big for its meeting place. The essential question being, should we make a bigger meeting place or divide into two churches? The answer to this question will depend on the individual church and the situation. Of course a church should be preparing for this before the crunch time comes.


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## Edward (Sep 28, 2011)

A 100 member church could be too big if the members aren't being shepherded. Having a (senior) pastor who can put a name to every face is not proof that the flock is being cared for. Being a small congregation may have benefits, but it is not proof that it is doing a better job than another, larger congregation. 

Conversely, the larger church may be able to do a much better job of diaconal ministry. It enables teaching elders to maximize use of their individual gifts. And it is likely to have a much healthier mix of members.


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