I mentioned earlier how I find many churches alike, having a 3-1-1-2 Sunday morning template: 3 songs, 1 set of announcements, 1 sermon, and 2 closing songs. Another factor that makes churches alike is a central organization structure. By this I mean, the Sunday morning gathering of a large group of people, say 200 or more. This structure determines how the church spiritually forms the members and sets up a financial model.
The spiritual formation of a large group is programmatic. Teaching occurs through sermons and classes on Sunday and Bible studies in smaller clusters mid-week. Systems are created to cover certain material on some schedule. And the vast majority of teaching is done without knowing what the individuals in the congregation are wrestling with. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to take all of those needs and struggles into account - there are too many to attend to individually. On a communication continuum from one-on-one conversation to a book or recorded message, programmed teaching is closer to a recorded message. In fact, in some church services, that is exactly what it is - the broadcast of a sermon taking place somewhere else.
I question the degree to which deep spiritual formation can occur in a programmed way. One can learn the basic story lines and values of the Bible. But in my experience, the deep learning occurs when I am really struggling and I get advice from a wise friend, or I listen to the thoughts and watch the decisions of someone else struggling. This is an important reason why the larger churches encourage people to also take part in a smaller gathering midweek.
Because the teaching is centralized, larger churches want a trained and talented teacher. That usually means someone who has attended seminary and has a certain amount of charisma in front of crowd. People with that training and those skills typically make their living at what they do. To have such a person leading the teaching means paying them . That, in turn, determines that the church must be of a certain size in order to support the salary of the teacher. But the salaries seldom stop there. With a fully salaried pastor, a church has bought into a model that is logically extended to other paid staff - associate pastors, ministers, facility managers, and more. And now that I've mentioned the facility manager, I should also mention the facility and the expenses it takes to pay the mortgage and maintain the structure.
With this model of centralized teaching in a centralized facility owned by the church, much of the unstated mission of the church becomes feeding the demands of the centralized system: the salaries of the staff and the mortgage of the building. A cynical view of church growth is that a centralized church must have it to sustain its budget. And a centralized church is going to be more cautious in its teaching because to offend is to potentially lose income. This takes us back to the deep spiritual teaching that following Jesus requires. That teaching is often radically contrary to popular ways of thinking and acting, and can be offensive to some, if not many.
An alternative model is the community of communities that I imagine. Where the principal gathering is small, say 10-20, the learning is driven in part by working together to be a blessing to others (not just listening to a prepared message), the leaders are gifted but not professional, and they meet in homes or other places not requiring money. Still, they gather as a larger group once a month so they remain connected to the broader body of Christians. This decentralized model, too, has its limitations. But I believe it is one that needs to be tried and refined over time, offering an alternative to the centralized church model.
The spiritual formation of a large group is programmatic. Teaching occurs through sermons and classes on Sunday and Bible studies in smaller clusters mid-week. Systems are created to cover certain material on some schedule. And the vast majority of teaching is done without knowing what the individuals in the congregation are wrestling with. In fact, it would be virtually impossible to take all of those needs and struggles into account - there are too many to attend to individually. On a communication continuum from one-on-one conversation to a book or recorded message, programmed teaching is closer to a recorded message. In fact, in some church services, that is exactly what it is - the broadcast of a sermon taking place somewhere else.
I question the degree to which deep spiritual formation can occur in a programmed way. One can learn the basic story lines and values of the Bible. But in my experience, the deep learning occurs when I am really struggling and I get advice from a wise friend, or I listen to the thoughts and watch the decisions of someone else struggling. This is an important reason why the larger churches encourage people to also take part in a smaller gathering midweek.
Because the teaching is centralized, larger churches want a trained and talented teacher. That usually means someone who has attended seminary and has a certain amount of charisma in front of crowd. People with that training and those skills typically make their living at what they do. To have such a person leading the teaching means paying them . That, in turn, determines that the church must be of a certain size in order to support the salary of the teacher. But the salaries seldom stop there. With a fully salaried pastor, a church has bought into a model that is logically extended to other paid staff - associate pastors, ministers, facility managers, and more. And now that I've mentioned the facility manager, I should also mention the facility and the expenses it takes to pay the mortgage and maintain the structure.
With this model of centralized teaching in a centralized facility owned by the church, much of the unstated mission of the church becomes feeding the demands of the centralized system: the salaries of the staff and the mortgage of the building. A cynical view of church growth is that a centralized church must have it to sustain its budget. And a centralized church is going to be more cautious in its teaching because to offend is to potentially lose income. This takes us back to the deep spiritual teaching that following Jesus requires. That teaching is often radically contrary to popular ways of thinking and acting, and can be offensive to some, if not many.
An alternative model is the community of communities that I imagine. Where the principal gathering is small, say 10-20, the learning is driven in part by working together to be a blessing to others (not just listening to a prepared message), the leaders are gifted but not professional, and they meet in homes or other places not requiring money. Still, they gather as a larger group once a month so they remain connected to the broader body of Christians. This decentralized model, too, has its limitations. But I believe it is one that needs to be tried and refined over time, offering an alternative to the centralized church model.
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