Big church, big religion; no relationship with God is my experience. I’d rather be in a small church any day.
Big church, big religion; no relationship with God is my experience. I’d rather be in a small church any day.
I am with you on that. I used to go to a church that had thousands of attendees. I now go to one that has around 100 on Sunday morning. I enjoy it so much more.
I went to Willow Creek for 16-17 years.
Willow is huge into encouraging people to get into small groups and to grow. Small groups are to make a LARGE church, smaller.
You don't connect with 20,000 people. You connect with 3,4,8,12, whatever.
These are the people you go deeper with. The ones who hold you accountable.
Is everyone there a committed Christian? Not at all.
Willow uses "marketing" to draw people in. In the hopes of drawing "unchurched people" in. From there they hope to plant seeds in peoples lives. That they'll get involved somewhere, some how, with others, and grow deeper.
The truth is, Willow has a revolving door. The 20,000 who go there aren't necessarily the same 20k from 10 years ago.
Many people get their start at Willow, then desire a smaller church.
Me. I got distracted from the size and all the superfluous stuff. I didn't WANT to be impressed.
What plants a seed for one person, or waters, or harvest, doesn't necessarily do it for everyone or any one person.
There are LOTS of people at Willow, with deep relationships with Jesus, there. There are also LOTS of people who don't. Many because Christianity is new for them.
I now go to the church I grew up in. TOTALLY different than Willow. Though we are welcoming to people and have things going on for community exposure, we will never draw people like Willow does.
So, which church is right and which is wrong?
I think that could be the wrong question.
The right question is "is the Holy Spirit at work?"
Now here's the thing.
WE might not like this or that about a particular church. Maybe it's not our "style". Maybe we don't agree with A teaching.
BUT IF...the Holy Spirit is at work there, than we better be very careful with how we tread.
If you are preaching the word and doing it well people will and should come, so what do you do when they start coming? At what point do you close the doors and say “Sorry but we want a small church if you want to hear the word you will just have to go else where.”
If your church isn’t growing its dieing and a dieing church is of no use to God.
It's SHOW TIME!.....and that's exactly what I've seen as a visitor to these mega churches.
The Pastors message was all about the growth and satellite churches they now have up...and about how wonderful the people are for supporting this great feat. There was nothing at all said about who Jesus is or credit for achieving these things....which lends one to think these are mans churches to glorify mans efforts...attaching Jesus's name as the card to get in the door.