Megachurches Are Going Small….no kidding

Seth Godin said it first, “Small is the new big.”  Now it appears, big churches are the new small churches.

Let me explain. The Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas is sponsoring Verge, a missional community conference.  Felicity Dale of simplychurch.com and a leader in the simple church movement, comments about the new interest megachurches are showing in microchurches:

Just over a year ago, within the space of 72 hours, Tony and I had three megachurches ask us about simple church.  We may be fairly slow on the uptake at times, but even we couldn’t miss the fact that this might be the Lord.  Since then we have had a two national meetings with megachurch and microchurch leaders meeting together, and even the theme of last year’s national conference “The Rabbit and the Elephant” reflected this potential.

Austin Stone Community Church is one of those megachurches interested in using microchurches (missional communities) to reach Austin.  So, small is the new big, as Seth Godin said.

Megachurches are coming to the realization that you can only build so many 100,000 square foot buildings and 1,000-space parking lots.  The economies of scale, both economically and organizationally, favor smaller groupings of people.  The original and most successful model of this small-to-big idea is Yoido Full Gospel Church founded by David Yonggi Cho in Korea.  Built on cell groups, Cho grew Yoido to over 700,000 members.  But the church’s goal now is to start 5,000 new churches, a kind of reverse of what Cho originally did.  Of course, not everyone likes Cho, but regardless of what you think of his theology, his organizational gifts are evident.

So, small is the new big as megachurches move out from their gigantic worship centers into neighborhoods, coffee shops, apartment complexes, and homes.  Is this a trend, or just an isolated example of the big church to small church phenomena? Stay tuned.

Small is out, majority is in

I just read that small churches make up 90%  of the churches in America, and most of those have 75-100 in attendance.  Of course, I already knew that, but it helps to read it somewhere besides my own blog.  Which brings me to a perennial topic — looking for another way to describe small churches other than as small.  

After all, small is only one measure.  Small usually refers to attendance, not buildings.  If we were talking about buildings some small churches wouldn’t be small at all.  But, that’s kind of silly.  “Oh, we go to a big building church.  So sorry you’re attending one of those tiny building churches.”  See what I mean — silly.  

So, I’m reading some guy’s comment on some other guy’s blog last week, and the commentor says something about being from the “majority world.”  Here I’m still calling it the “third world,” which is kind of demeaning and not very PC of me.  For awhile the new jargon was “two-thirds” world, meaning developing countries.  But, this guy calls it the “majority world.”  Meaning: there’s more of us than you.  Which brings me to small churches, again.

We (small churches) are the majority.  Why not call our churches “majority churches?”  

Hi, my name is Chuck and I pastor a majority church.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  All of a sudden we’re not ecclesiastical outcasts anymore.  No more ducking at the pastors’ conference when you see Reverend I. M. Abigdeal coming.  Nope, you hold your head up, stick  out your hand, and say, “Rev, sorry you megachurch guys are in the minority.  What’s the matter, why aren’t you serving a majority church, like I am?”  

So, from now on this is “Confessions of A Majority Church Pastor.”  Now if I can just get the art department to change my blog header…

‘Small’ no longer means ‘small’

A long time ago, before Al Gore invented the internet, small churches were thought to be, well, small. Which really meant that small churches suffered from —

• Lack of resources.
• Limited reach.
• Low quality.
• Little impact.
• Less appeal.

The Five Deadly L’s, I call them. But no more. Now small churches have nothing to apologize for in any of these categories, and here’s why:

• Resources. Small churches have access to the same resources as megachurches, but may need to partner, collaborate, or join in with others to share and complement. Remember how the internet could make a small business look really big. Works for churches, too.
• Reach. Small churches now send international missions teams, email prayer partners around the globe, and touch lives directly anywhere. Reach is no longer limited to large congregations.
• Quality. Years ago Lyle Schaller suggested small churches take advantage of video to provide high quality teaching to their congregations. Now that is easier than ever, but it’s also easier than ever for small churches to produce quality in their own audio, video, websites, printed materials, congregational care, and ministries thanks to low-cost, low-threshold entry for technical solutions.
• Impact. Small churches like ours are impacting their communities by partnering with others to offer arts, sports, training, help, and economic redevelopment. Church size is no longer a barrier to community impact. When our state Baptist paper reported on our community projects they titled the article, Small Church, Big Impact.
• Appeal. See my post on the appeal of small churches in of the Long Tail of diversity and choice that many people are seeking. Not everyone wants to be a mini-member of a mega-church. Small churches appeal to the people who like opportunity for involvement and hands-on participation.

That, my friends, is why ‘small’ no longer means ‘small.’ Small, as Seth Godin says, is the new big.