[Coldwater Creek]

We attend Bellvue Baptist in Memphis. A mega mega church.

The pastor preaches the Word.

Maybe because there are so many small groups that one can belong to it does not feel all that large.

Also, Memphis is a "small town" where if you have lived any length of time at all you know tons of people and most are related to someone that you know.

[CindyDawg]

I wondered how that worked. So you have small churches in your large church?

[JamesP81]

Maybe because there are so many small groups that one can belong to it does not feel all that large.

The thing that concerns me about this is you still have problems getting one on one pastoral care. I understand that whoever is in your small group is tasked with pastoral duties, but I think this system bumps into one simple, natural fact of the Church as God created it: that fact is that the buck stops somewhere, and that somewhere is with the pastor. There are times when I need to discuss things with the pastor, not the assistant pastor, or the youth pastor, or a small group leader, but the pastor. That's going to be hard to do in such a large church. Personally, I don't see how my pastor does it considering we have a weekly sunday attendance of something like 1800, and that's huge for our area. In fact, the population of the town the church is in is only 400 and the nearest 'major' town, about 12 miles away, is only 15,000.

[ichabod1]

Second Baptist, here in Houston, is up to FIVE campuses now.