The "De-Churched" and the Future of Missional Emerging Congregations
Saturday, May 27, 2006
For years, the mega churches, seeker-sensitive churches, and the gigantic lecture hall arenas of our day have all targeted “the unchurched.” Many of these evangelical churches have performed surveys and research asking their surrounding target market “why don’t you go to church?” As a result, many of these churches have been accused of marketing the gospel and/or changing church to appeal to the unchurched. Amidst all the criticism, these churches have countered, “We have attracted the unchurched into a place where they could receive the gospel.” But could they actually be doing something else?
I have no doubt that many people outside of the gospel have been introduced to salvation in Christ through the various mega churches. I have no doubt a lot of people have been introduced to the gospel who other wise probably would have not. But alongside this activity to His glory, I think I can make the case that something else has ALSO been going on which is falling short of the mission of Christ and may help us understand the way forward for the missional emerging churches of the future?
What is this something else that is happening that falls short of the mission of Christ which might yet also provide a way forward for missional churches of the future? Well, alongside these good things happening at the mega-church centers, I contend they are also “de-churching” people in N. America. I know the term “de-churched” has been used to label the people who have left the church to seek Christian life outside organized church structures. I know it has been used in various other ways. But I would like to propose another more ironic meaning for this term, i.e. a de-churched person is someone who is taken from a church context in some way or another and attracted to a large mega church whereby he/she is trained into practices that are not church yet the person is somehow led to believe this indeed is church. The person is “de-churched” in the sense that he or she is trained out of any habits or practices that were transforming practices of the Body of Christ. The person now goes to an activity which they believe to be church. But now they no longer live in and participate in “the mission” of the church. The person in other words has been de-churched.
Now, I know this is not true of large percentage of people who have come to the mega church. Yet according to Barna and Stark and others, large numbers of people have come to the mega church from small churches attracted to the glamour and production values of the large church. Or they were “catechesized” in the smaller church, haven’t gone to church for a long time, and then they come back to “going to church” through the mega church. These were people formally participating in some ways in “being known” by other people in a church, in liturgical worship or traditional worship where the pastor knew you and you participated. There were a lot of things wrong but at least they were part of something that participated in some of the “marks” of the life of a Body of Christ. There was mission going on at the former small church where you could not help but be part of in one way or another. Now many of these same people, and sons and daughters of these people, have become habituated into coming only to a morning seeker service or “information-bearing” service, which entails little participation in the Kingdom of God. They passively observe the Kingdom sitting in their seats as a member of the audience. There is little getting to know one another, little if any participation in the Kingdom of God. Now they sit uninvolved, unknown, segregated, isolated, and living a life unto themselves. Yet they have grown to understand that this is church. They once (perhaps subliminally) knew what church was, even if they rejected it at age 12. Now they have been linguistically and habitually trained to think something is church, which is not. This phenomenon I would like to define as “the de-churching” of America.
G. A. Pritchard in his 1996 study of Willowcreek referred to these de-churched people as “the Churched Larry problem.” He said this about Willowcreek:
An average of 13,220 individuals attended each weekend service during the year that I studied. Children attending “promiseland” comprised 2,074 of this number. Thus, an average of 11,146 adults attended each weekend service. Over the course of this same year, an average of 3,828 adults attended the weekday (midweek) New Community service. The gap between these two totals is a huge 7,318 adults who attended weekend services but did not attend weekday services.Pritchard goes on to detail that the astounding evidence suggests only a third of the people who attend Willow actually do much more than attend a seeker-oriented service. That was 1996. Is that still true today?
The bulk of this two-thirds majority is what I would call “churched Larrys,” since 91 per cent of those attending the weekend service state that their highest value is a “deep relationship with God.” … This group of churched Larrys affirms their deepest commitment is to God and yet they do not attend the weekday services, substantially give of their finances, volunteer their rime in serving at the church, or have strong relationships in the church. (page 268-269)
What I contend is that surely we must not discount that WillowCreek and other mega churches have a great ministry of evangelism and even discipleship to many. But that in the process there are large numbers of people, 1/3-2/3rds of th4ese congregations that are being habituated into thinking church is something akin to tuning in, or attending a large mass gathering and that is it. Could it be that these de-churched be the ones the missional church might reach out to? Many of the emerging church peoples are no other than the sons and daughters of the “de-churched” seeing through the hollowness of this practice that their parents now call church. Could it be that the de-churched be people that the missional church movement could reclaim for the founding of true missional communities?
At our church, in the shadow of two of the largest mega churches in the country nevermind the mid-west, we commonly hear a few phrases from people who join in with our community. They are phrases like - “I went there for ten years and did not know anyone … I wanted to go to a church where I knew someone.” “I went there month after month, and what I got was more “to do” list application points for my Christian life … I wanted to worship where I could participate in an engagement with the living God.” And oh yes BTW, we have also heard, “I did not know you could be an evangelical and not vote Republican.” These are maybe all signs of people resisting being “de-churched.”
More and more… the dechurched people of the mega churches are getting a sense of something wrong. These discontented de-churched get that the mass distribution of Christian life is not possible. Instead, Christian life is participation in worship, community, engagement of the poor, the hurting, the marginalized with the full salvation of Christ, the sharing of our respective burdens in Christ, the transformation of our souls towards an orientation towards God’s mission in the world, the participation in global holistic mission. Could these “de-churched” be the basis for the re-seeding of missional congregations by the Holy Spirit? Again, I have no doubt the mega churches in United States are doing many good evangelistic things. And one of those things may be the providing of the beginnings of missional congregations with the disenchanted “de-churched.” Maybe it could be time for missional congregations to openly invite “the de-churched” to be “re-churched” missionally speaking. Some may say this is sheep stealing. Some may say that this is an example of a small church being jealous of the big ones. I must confess, this very idea might encourage a competition between the mega churches and the missional congregations. I fear some may suggest going to the mega churches huge parking lots and putting flyers on car windows seeking the de-churched to become part of missional church. I steadfastly plead for the resistance of any “capitalistic competition” between churches in the new post-Christian, post modern contexts of N. America. It is key for our witness for Christ. Instead of all this, let us missional emerging congregations be persistent in pushing the missional issues in conversations with our Christian cohorts, and let us be patiently present, waiting for God to do what He is doing with the “de-churched.”
Posted by David Fitch | 2:00 PM
COMMENTS:
What you are discussing about the de-churched from mega churches, sounds a little bit like Alan Jamieson's "Church Exiles" in New Zealand. The Church Exiles are those who have hit leadership positions in evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal churches and then walked away. But not into the "back-slider" category but rather into exploring theology and missions in contexts that the institution of the church inhibited.
The phenomenon of church exiles is very strong in the southern hemisphere precisely because neither New Zealand nor Australia have had the same church-culture ethos that is familiar in Europe and North America.
The corresponding point is that those who have never been part of church culture have gravitated in droves to Do-it-Yourself and alternative forms of spirituality (new age, neo-Buddhist, esoteric, neo-pagan, wiccan, etc).
They are part of the "unpaid bills of the church"; or put another way: the mirror image reflected of all the things Christians have negelcted to do.
10:38 PM
(For the sake of clarity, I will use the term "congregation" when referring to a particular, local manifestation of the church universal in this comment.)
First, thank you for arguing against church competition. That hurts everybody in the long run. Now, taking this post against several of your others, let alone within the monograph after which this blog is named, it sounds like much of the problem at hand follows from a shallow ecclesiology running across Evangelicalism. What I just said probably sounds painfully obvious, but here's my point:
How do we take things a step further? How do we move beyond a merely reactive, "Here's a problem with the church; now let's course-correct" approach towards a more historically and biblically informed understanding and being of church? If the mega congregations are leaking at the seams, adapting to that fact is a responsibility of the church falling under a general, missional rubric of being culturally sensitive while on the gospel warpath. I see no reason why a "missional emerging congregation" can't adapt to the fact of the "churched Larrys" in a very aggresive manner without necessarily being competitive in the pejorative sense you mentioned. But, the cost is some deep, theologically-nuanced, labor that pushes the ecumenical envelope, and I am concerned that we often aren't willing to pay this price.
A couple friends of mine are members of Three Hierarchs, an Eastern Orthodox congregation in Champaign, IL (see http://www.threehierarchs.org/). Their congregation happens to be bursting (rather than leaking) at the seams, which I find particularly instructive for the following reason: As far as I can tell, there's little to no dialog on the problems particular to Western, modernistic Christendom, yet this congregation does an excellent job at ministering right smack in the middle of that very context. They succeed in picking up and putting to work the Larrys from all across the church (including the evangelical, mega- variety) partly because they are operating from such a dramatically different frame of reference, viz. one informed by centuries of ecclesiological labor.
The Eastern Orthodox church has been criticized for its lack of attention to mission in the recent past, prompting its own course-corrections, e.g. the reaffirmation of "the liturgy after the liturgy" at 1977's New Valamo Consultation. Nevertheless, their ecclesiological guns essentially blow Evangelicalism's out of the water. One thing I think we have to learn from congregations like Champaign's Three Hierarch's is that the mega congregations of Evangelicalism are symptoms of a deeper problem, one the missional emerging congregations risk repeating without an appropriate degree of attention to positive, ecclesiological development drawing from as much of the church's history as possible.
To risk a hyperbole: We can be reactive, or we can be winsome.
6:28 PM
I'm not sure, but it seems like Pritchard's statistics on Willow lack relative comparison. Evidently the criterion by which you and Pritchard indicates "de-churching" would be little to no involvement in the local church body outside of Sunday morning services or gatherings. In my experience, the Evangelical church in North America for at least the past century has dealt with the problem of "participation." I don't have research to back it up, but it seems to be a standard assumption that 20% of any congregation carries the load for leadership, tasks, giving, serving, etc., the very roles that would indicate full and active participation in the Christian life and the life of the body. Willow by comparison has 30% of it's people involved. In other words, they're doing better than the average... traditional, emerging, mega or otherwise.
I don't think either Willow or Saddleback or any of the vast majority of mega-churches would be content with simple Sunday morning statistics. They too strive for the vital faith as you describe in the 3rd sentence of your concluding paragraph. And I think research may indicate that they're doing it better than the vast majority of local bodies.
7:39 PM
"There is little getting to know one another, little if any participation in the Kingdom of God. Now they sit uninvolved, unknown, segregated, isolated, and living a life unto themselves."
True enough, Dave. But I have been in small churches and have been just as isolated and unknown as the mega-mondo-mall churches you're (lovingly, I think) critiquing. It isn't because I wished to be left alone, either.
Would a better question (rather than discussing the potential needs of the "dechurched") be - how do small churches, particularly in the emerging stream, become community? If there is winsome community, I believe you'll have to beat people off with a stick because they'll be begging to be a part of what you're doing. Talking about being community won't make community happen, as you know. Neither will a lot of analysis about what other believers might be doing wrong.
My .02 worth.
But what will?
2:58 PM
"...But what will?" - Michelle Van Loon
"Could you be loved?" - Bob Marley
(I suck at it - Me :)
"Come now, my love. My lovely one, come." - Jesus
Dave - I "love" your blog!
10:45 PM
It seems to me that the biggest danger in large and successful (numerically) Churches is that because of its success that many think these Churches 'do' Christianity properly - and there is no appreciation of the diversity within the body of Christ. Therefore if anyone does feel disillusioned with this particular expression of Christian Faith then there is a feeling that they have 'tried Christianity and it didn't work for me' without knowing the richness, depth and difference within the whole body...
Not that i have firm evidence to back this up, just some anecdotal responses and a 'gut feeling'
3:35 AM
I am not going to defend the mega-churches but come on...they're an easy target. They may just succeed where others fail. They have resources and presence that other congregations may not have. The last I looked, Jesus was still Lord over all His church, the large and small, the rich and poor.
Smaller congregations, unless they in reality have some comfort and healing to offer the "de-churched", are illusional, not missional. And smaller doesn't always equal better and big is not always bad.
Too many questions: Does the emerging church really reach out to the "de-churched"? If so, how are they doing it? Do they just stand there like the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, waiting for the tide of discontent and hurt to bring the wounded to new shores? Are they just breathing a collective sigh of relief that they are not subject to "bigger is better" spirituality? Is their own discontent fuel for their own movement and place? How is that any better than what mega-churches seem to peddle? I am not sure the emeging church offers anything better to get folks "re-churched" unless they go above the bland, washed-out evangelicalism that some of them come from. If the emerging church cannot raise the bar and begin creating lovers of God from the de-churched, seeing people shed their discontent and see it replaced by godly contentment, then they are no better than just another "store" in the vast mall of churches we have in this nation. Be as missional-minded as you like, push the missional agenda but it must deliver on it promise and so must you.
5:38 AM
this post seems to have ignited a few fires, or rekindled them. whenever i see (hear) this argument occur, the "good old days" and the "new and improved" i am immediately escorted to a vast meadow by billy bragg, who said:
What was that bang? It was the next big thing
Exploding over our heads
And soon the next generation
Will emerge from behind the bike sheds
What are we going to offer them?
The exact same thing as before
But a different way to wear it
And the promise of a whole lot more
Oh, pity the pressures at the top,
The tantrums and the tears
And the sound of platinum cash tills
Ringing in their ears
Money maketh man a Tory
Don't fire that assumption at me
I like toast as much as anyone
But not for breakfast, dinner, and tea
So don't saddle me with your ideals
And spare me all your guilt
For a poet with all the answers
Has never yet been built
I see no shame in putting my name
To socialism's cause
Nor seeking some more relevance
Than spotlight and applause
Neither in the name of conscience
Nor the name of charity
Money is put where mouths are
In the name of solidarity
We sing of freedom
And we speak of liberation
But such chances come
But once a generation
So I'll ignore what I am sure
Were the best of your intentions
You are judged by your actions
And not by your pretensions
There is drudgery in social change
And glory for the few
And if you don't tell me what not to say
I won't tell you what not to do
where and when will it end?!!
2:25 PM
Sorry for being out of it this week ... alot going on at the seminary ... Thanks for all the comments ... I guess there is always anecdotal evidence that suggests small churches are just as dead and dying as are the mega churches. I guess what I am asking here is how does the organization, the way in which these churches are structured for bigness, inherently "de-church" people. Of course there are dead churches, small, big, mini, or mega. And of course there are inactive and miserable small churches hanging over from modernit. Of course, small churches can be as lonely as big ones... What I am pushing with this post however is the question "How does the structure by virtue of it's process, inherently de-church people by fostering and sustaining people to be spectators to the Christian faith!" In this regard, Steve, you make a good point, about traditional churches and the motivations of the large mega churches, but I am sorry, I guess I don't buy it. It is not my experience at least not in the pre-mega-church days ... I was only a child in the sixties, but let us ask, before evangelicalism caved into the forces of consumer capitalism and organized our churches to subscribe to these totalizing forces, was this the way the small churches were? So I guess I would push for thinking how do the mega churches inherently structure people from the first days of faith into being spectators? versus smaller churches, or emerging communities.
As for Jacob, it sounds to me like you are making a theological endorsement for not only this blog entry but my book the Great Giveaway. I could be wrong, but thanks anyway.
And for wav. and other folk who comment, who want to say emerging churches are not doing anything. Well, I just think that's not the point ... I'm blogging here to discuss how we must go on .. where do we go from here ... I don't consider this blog merely criticiosing and being negative, but conversation for the furtherance of going on in these times with being the church and furthering Christ's Kingdom. It is not enough to say mega churches are doing something and emerging churches are doing nothing. For I really don't know what you might mean ...
I pastor a church .. many would say we aren't doing anything... we have a long way to go ... but I need to know more from people who say we're not doing anything ... to really benefit, be edified and grow from the statment..
Peace .. and let's hear more ..
DF
2:42 PM
Speaking of spectatorship...why is it that our "spectator" chruches are founded on the beginnings of philosophy, but then when you ask a modern church-going person a somewhat-philosophical question (by that I guess I mean something that might involve more than just worry, but maybe some thought), their response is, "Huh? That sounds philisophical..."?
"The concept of MATHESIS appeared in preclassical Greek culture around the seventh century B.C. It referred to what could be taught and learned: the invariable, the familiar, the accessible... Mathesis was also the first step toward THEORIA, the apprehension of reality at a distance; as such, it was the first symbol of reality, becoming the basic element in a coherent conceptual system that enabled man to disengage himself from the involvement of his embodied being in ritual, allowing him to come to terms with the external world and his own existence within an independent unverse of discourse [otherwise known as "philosophy"]...The discovery of THEORIA in Greece permitted the beginnings of architectural theory..." - from Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, by Alberto Perez-Gomez.
Now, I ask the above question, to a degree, merely out of curiosity. Persuing an answer to my question would be, in a way, counter to the direction in which I am heading in my life. David, when you speak of "mission", you aren't speaking theoretically. Nonetheless, the above question has occured to me.
Also, to go deeper than my little curiotity - is that, "duuhh...that sound's philosophical" response, however an indication of a taboo, maybe even a stigma? When a spectator at church, for whom spectatorship is merely an assumption, is confronted with it, it throws them for a loop. Is there something deeper than mere lazyness (being too lazy to think) going on here?
I mean, the first instinct for the person who operates in spectator mode at church, if they heard you speak about being "missional", might just say, "Uuuhh...that sounds philosophical." A similar line of questioning for me then follows as the one that I asked in the comments section to your "Whe Fundamentalism and Liberalism Are Two Sides of the Same Coin." Is that "spectacular" assumption simply broken by the painful work of the mission, or is there active teaching necessary on the topic?
And now that I think of it, how "valid" is the idea of spectatorship's being a STIGMA? Does that idea ring true with anyone else? I mean, if I think of the difference between my life before and after I learned the difference between being a spectator and a participant, it really does remind me of the suffering and redemption that is the message of the gospel. It really does feel like I went from death to life. And in a way, I really did! Was Copernicus closer to the land of the living or the dead when he gazed upon the earth as a globe?
Further, in light of my stigma question, how is this discussion on being "missional" and what-not more than another closed universe of theoretical discussion that forms the world at a distance form practice, modeled after the mode of the moderns? Are we actually participating in the gospel here with all this "theoretical" "theology"?
The things a semi-educated guy ponders between a stressful day at work (a lot of what causes that stress being the separation of theory and practice in architecture) and learning enough in the future to be able to answer these questions for himself...
12:11 AM
Dave,
I never said the emerging was doing nothing. My post tried to get a bit at the point that the emerging church needs to see it can, with just as much ease, "de-church" people.
And we can't keep speaking in broad generalities about "things". Speak about specifics as they relate. Dave, I know you pastor a church and being broad and general may help us understand the basics. But maybe more specifics will help us understand nuance and may help you see the need in your own church. We can hide behind generalities (and I am not saying you are).
8:40 PM
Dave,
I read your book from the library. Then I bought my own copy so I could mark it up. I've been posting some quotations from your book at my blog. I find that many of the things you say resonate with me.
Right now I'm trying to explain your chapter on preaching. I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job. I would be deeply grateful if you were to stop in and clear up some of the confusion.
Thanks,
Rod
10:16 AM
Wav ...
I think I am reacting to your words "Be as missional-minded as you like, push the missional agenda but it must deliver on it promise and so must you." All in all, I took your comment to suggest that my blog post had little practical muster behind it, that talk is cheap, that conversation is not worth having if it is not related in some immediate context to praxis. I have sympathies with this critique. But often I think it too becomes just another cheap shot that can take down any meaningful conversation that is helping us discern "where we must go from here." Too often I get that cheap shot here on this blog, OK Dave talk is cheap, let's do something about it." Well, I am just trying to say 1.) that critique also by itself gets us no where, 2.)and I am involved in planting a church seeking to engage these issues.
Don't take me wrong wav. I welcome your comments and pushing the issue here on this blog. I am just looking for substantive and practical engagment on the issue I took time to think thru and even give specific practical examples from my own church planting experience.
So I hope we're clean here? I'd love a cup of coffee with you sometime this summer ..
Rod .. I'll go over to your blog and see if I can contribute anything ...Thanks for blogging .. and thanks to wav. for engaging me again ...
Blessings DF
12:30 PM
my comment, dave, was simply a response to the polarized debate that is symptomatic and, sadly, characteristic of much of what passes as christian conversation these days whenever the issues that you bring to the forefront arise. i'm tired of it, because everytime i hear one side slagging the other i am reminded of a scene in the "life of brian" where the judean peoples' front and the peoples' front of judea slaughter each other as the perplexed roman guards look on. we will get not anywhere until this is resolved, because the audience is leaving the building. in my humble opinion . . . until the emergent church crowd recognizes that it is not emerging from the sky, but from the MODERN church, and learns to be thankful for the umbilical cord that nourished it, and understands that it is still suckling at her breasts until such time that it is ready to feed itself, as opposed to distancing itself from her and calling her a whore, it cannot expect the blessing of God to be present. and, until the MODERN church is ready to recognize that it has given birth to this child and, as its parent, must accept it, and nurture it and assist it in its time of need of support, and celebrate it, how can it expect to see its purpose fulfilled and God praised? "he who troubles his own house inherits the wind." i doubt that the author of that statement was referring to the Holy Spirit! i appreciate your desire to present a third option, but if you're loading your gun behind your back while your counterpart is talking, are you honestly open to what they are saying?! i'm talking to both of you, as a non-partisan member of both crowds.
blessings to you,
dwight
9:42 PM
Dwight ... thanks for this comment ... I am more and more convinced ... more with your comment... that it is important emerging church folk take care to recognize their lineage indebtedness and nurture a relationship with the mega church evangelicals ... I think this blog can perhaps show a way for the two to work together ... DF
8:47 AM
David,
Good thoughts. Let me add my 1 cent. I am on staff at an evangelical mega-church and the only major goal or tracking tool we set is how many of our attendees are in small group communities where they experience genuine relationships and spiritual growth. Of course, since there are many new seekers who come to our church and are initially skeptical about the intimacy of small groups, there will always be a minority percentage who are just showing up on Sunday morning. But you can't attend our church for very long with hearing the message over and over that life change happens in the context of intentional community. And if you don't ever plan on taking that step or at least being open to getting involved past Sunday morning attendence, then our message is fairly simple: this isn't the place for you.
Norton
2:21 PM
"So I guess I would push for thinking how do the mega churches inherently structure people from the first days of faith into being spectators? versus smaller churches, or emerging communities."
I think this is the crux of the matter. Can one live out St. Paul's one another's in any meaningful sense in the mega church context? Can worship and community and formation and mission intersect in the corporate gathering of a mega? Etc.
Most mega's push on small groups. But small groups, frankly, are quite limited in what they can acheive in terms of community, etc.
2:49 PM
Peter,
Could you clarify how a small group is "quite limited" in what it can achieve in terms of community? This seems like a bit of a contradiction to me.
Also, in exactly what context do the one another's and worship and community and formation and mission happen? If they can't happen in a small group, nor in a mega-church, then where? Is there some group or context with a magical number of people in between?
Norton
5:19 PM
has anyone ever answered the question of what Sunday morning is all about?
p.s. dave. so let it be written, so let it be done
7:40 PM
To Norton ... at the risk of appearing self gratuitous ... I deal with the limits of the mega church ... in the ways Peter is suggesting in my book The Great Giveaway ... especially chapter 1 .. but truly the whole book ... so much for the self plug ... sorry ... Thanks to Norton and Peter for their exchange ...
DF
8:24 AM
Thanks David. No need to apologize. I've actually read your book (thanks to Scot McKnight's suggestion.) While I appreciate your concerns and arguments, and think they can often apply to mega-churches, I'm still not convinced that there is something inherently existent within the structure of a mega-church that prevents it from effectively facilitating community, spiritual formation, mission, etc. Of course the mega-church model raises challenges and barriers that smaller churches don't have to overcome. And some mega-churches have not addressed these challenges and barriers very well. But I don't think that delegitimizes the model itself.
I know anecdotal evidence isn't always helpful, and I certainly don't want to toot my own church's horn. But how else should I understand my personal experience at a mega-church that, in my opinion, doesn't fit many of the characterizations/observations made here? And if there are even a handful of mega-churches out there that are faciliting community and mission at levels comparable to effective emerging communities, then doesn't this cast doubt on some of your conclusions?
Just raising questions...
Norton
11:19 AM
Thanks Norton ... just a quick reply here ... I think that this post makes it clear that "I know this is not true of large percentage of people who have come to the mega church." I have no doubt people are being saved, discipled and even becoming missional in a mega church setting. In fact I know many of them personally. The post is saying however that the structure of the mega church fosters large percentages, maybe even 60% of the congregation to be trained into practices that alone are not church at all. The seeker service for instance. And that large percentages of people get routinized thinking what they are doing constututes being the Body of Christ when it does not. The fact that there are exceptions does not surprise me. And maybe there are whole mega churches which somehow manage to overcome the inertia of the megaorganization that simply cannot help do this to people. This however does not legitimate for me the basic argument of the new "de-churched" among us.
Hope this clarifies ... and I hope to meet you some day.
DF
12:25 PM
"Could you clarify how a small group is "quite limited" in what it can achieve in terms of community? This seems like a bit of a contradiction to me."
Sorry to take so long in responding Norton.
The problem with small groups are not small groups per se. They can be a good means of community. But they often have a couple of problems attached to them.
One is that in a mega context they so often leap from a small city sized gathering to intimacy level of community. That is a huge leap!Other levels of community that are not quite so intimate as a small group often do not happen because of the organizational demands of putting on large weekend services and organizing an extensive small group ministry.
Two, in many cases, only a small percentage of folks in small group churches (not cell churches) end up in small groups.
In a smaller, family sized church, one can slowly move into intimate community. There are natural mid-placed levels of community. Coffee and snacks after worship, potluck meals and service projects. These actually foster community w/o everyone being in a small group.
I recognize that some megas offer these sorts of middle place levels of community. But many -- especially the smaller megas (1000-1500) are so consumed with weekend stuff and small gropup stuff that the resources are simply not available to build these middle places.
At the risk of being redundant, in a family sized church, these things happen more naturally because the grouping involved exists at a more normal human scale.
2:58 PM
Great stuff David, just found your blog and love it.
I am one who was saved in a church with high production values, based off of Willow Creek, and not a mega church yet.
As was stated above about the mid-week attendance, I don't think that's necessarily a good baseline of who is involved at a church. I know most churches in the South here have a drastic drop-off in attendance for the mid-week service, so are those people not really connected into the body of Christ?
I wonder if there are any studies of smaller, emerging communities that show that there are a higher percentage of people "involved" in the Body, more so than megachurches. It seems to me (and it's only my perception) that the mega churches just have a larger amount of people not involved, but similar percentages involved.
So, is there a similar amount of "de-churched" people who are breaking away from smaller communities? And why are they? Do they not feel a part of it? Do they not want to be held accountable for something? Are these people ones who have already been de-churched once before? Am I just rambling on with a set of unanswerable questions that don't make any sense?
thanks for making me think!
6:02 PM
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