New Testament Church Today

I've been thinking about this topic quite a bit lately, mostly because I'm about to begin a course on the Book of Acts. Also, being a part of a small church plant and becoming increasingly involved in leadership there, this subject is a critical one, I think, to understand. When I began to think more heavily about the New Testament church, one area of this has really dominated my thoughts. One word: size.

In a world where there are basically three types of churches, which I will expound on in a moment, size becomes an issue for several critical reasons. These 3 types, staying on the topic of size, can be divided into three distinct categories.

1. The Small Group Church - I would say these churches ranges in size from 1 to 100 people. They tend to be more family focused, with a strong emphasis on community outreach and discipleship. The pastoral staff would most likely consist of one to three pastors, depending on funding, and tend to use church laity as a strong leadership base.

2. The Medium Sized City Church - I would guess that a church in this group would average between 200 and 1500 people. These churches tend to be in sizable cities and focus on event-oriented community outreach and missions giving, with a strong emphasis on teaching. The weekly schedule revolves around a range of age-adjusted meetings and teaching times. The pastoral staff may range from three to six pastors, again with a strong emphasis on laity for leadership and discipleship.

3. The Mega Church - The numbers in a church like this tend to range in the thousands to tens of thousands and, according to most studies, sit nicely in the top 5 percentile of size for churches. These churches tend to be more project-oriented, globally-focused in the way of recreating church plants of its own model elsewhere in the world, and focus on seminar-style services, generally.

Now, understand, much of what I say here is a generality as every church is different, with a specific focus. As every pastor is different, every church will tend to have its own style in worship, service form, functions, etc. However, for the sake of this "article," I feel a need to paint with a fairly broad brush.

In the past, I've always seen the New Testament church as small group-based, communal family unit. The concept of the mega church has always seemed wrong to me until, over many heated debates and calm dialogue, I began to think of its potential. So, let's think about this. A friend of mine made a great point the other day that perhaps one of the biggest reason the churches in Jerusalem and Rome were construed as being small was because of the obvious political pressure and/or persecution happening in the first part of the first century A.D. But, digging deeper, I found that the Scripture never really mentions their size. In fact, it mentions size, in terms of largesse, more often than it specifies whether the meetings were small. Take the story in Acts directly following the upper room experience. It says in Acts 2:6, "And when this was heard the MULTITUDE came together." How do we know this is the church? It says later, in Acts 2:41, "Therefore those who accepted his (Peter's) message were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 people. 3,000 people! If you add that to the 120 people from the upper room (Acts 1:15), we're at about 3,120 people. This is just one account, but there are other stories where size is directly mentioned. Why does this matter?

In the past, my reasoning for being somewhat cold toward the idea of a mega church was because I reasoned that there was no way for the pastors to disciple that many people effectively. I still struggle with that thought. And yet, can we cap God's ability to reach the masses. Was it not the Bible that compared evangelism to a field that is ready to harvest. Can you imagine how many stocks of corn or heads of wheat are in a field? If we have faith, which can move mountains, then can God not also use a large church to reach the masses? I, again, used to argue about how many large church pastors often fall into sin publicly and discredit their witness. While this may be true, does God's work always depend solely on the minister? God will see His work done regardless. This doesn't, in any case, let pastors off the hook. I do believe that pastors are to be held to the strictest standards because of what they know and because of what they teach.

However, is this the New Testament model? I don't have any clue. I look, then to the small church model, to which I am more accustomed. At Church In Uptown, our focus has always been on, as Joel puts it, "doing life" with people. In other words, let's live in our community, get to know the people there, establish a solid presence and reputation, then allow those relationships to deepen to the point where Christ becomes the focal point. We've tried to listen to God's voice on the way a service should be done, and when to allow the Holy Spirit to do something we really hadn't planned on. There's a strong emphasis on prayer, both personal and corporate. How does hits play into the New Testament model? Many times, Paul travelled to smaller church groups scattered throughout the world, and again, because of persecution, these churches were small of necessity, more a home-based model. This is presented all throughout his writings.

I guess my point to all of this is that the longer time gets on, and the older I get, I realize that I can no more speak against the mega church model as being less of the New Testament's design than I can the small church model as its perfect design. They both serve functions that reach people on a personal level, mostly in the areas of taste, comfortability and closeness. The difference between a missional church and discipleship-based church is a staggering one, and I think we are all seeking to locate the middle ground between the two. The middle ground where discipleship is key, but missional purpose is also key. How do we reach people on a deep, personal level, and yet and not let the salvation message slip through the cracks, while we "do life" with people? Maybe someday, I'll better understand this ever more important balance.