How Big Should SDA Churches Get?
Several years ago, the small church I was attending got a significant amount of money from a property sale. The leadership, flush with these resources, decided it was time to enact a long-held plan to grow the church by physically expanding it.
I was against this planned action. I thought the funds could be put to better use. Also, I didn’t think the church was even close to reaching its capacity; seating was typically easy to find, and an upstairs balcony area was always mostly empty.
I was not an official member of the congregation, at the time, however, despite regular attendance, tithes, and offerings. My membership had become misplaced in transfer, due to a clerical mishap at my old church. (It took years, and an out-of-state trip, to recover it.) So, I was a persona non grata, with no official voice, unable to attend business meetings, etc.
However, once the project was officially underway, in order to garner church-wide input, the building committee asked members and attendees to each submit a short statement. On it, they were to write their wish lists for what they wanted to see in the new structure.
I embraced this task with brio, and submitted the following document. (The only changes, here, are those identifying the congregation.)
Dear Building Committee:
Thank you for requesting input, and allowing interested persons to possibly affect the outcome of this building process.
I don’t know, or understand, why we are getting a new building. No one has told me why we need one. However, if we are getting one, my wish list of ideas, for what I would like to see in the new building, contains the following two items:
1. Only enough space to comfortably seat about the same number of people that the present building does now; that is, approximately 150, or so.
I think a lot of churchgoers see larger and larger broods as the quantifiable measure of godly success in church development. But when we look at the Bible, we don’t see a standard of this kind, or support for it.
Instead, every time Christ converts someone who, then, wants to stay with him, thus raising the number of people around Jesus, our Lord, instead, tells the new convert to go back to the place from where that convert came — to his people — and convert others; (e.g., Mark 5:18-20). There’s no Biblical model for stacking higher and higher numbers of believers in a single venue, ad infinitum. Even the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was designed to take place at a time and location by which His effects would most widely spread geographically, to “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia....” (Acts 2:9 NIV)
I strongly believe that our model for church development was provided there. As well, please kindly consider the words of Ellen G. White, from the June 30, 1903 edition of the Review & Herald, in an essay titled, “Lay Members to Go Forth”:
“Many of the members of our large churches are doing comparatively nothing. They might accomplish a good work, if, instead of crowding together, they would scatter into places that have not yet been entered by the truth. Trees that are planted too thickly do not flourish. They are transplanted by the gardener, that they may have room to grow, and not become dwarfed and sickly. The same rule would work well for our large churches. Many of the members are dying spiritually for want of this very work. They are becoming sickly and inefficient. Transplanted, they would have room to grow strong and vigorous. It is not the purpose of God that his people should colonize, or settle together in large communities.”
That this congregation is not yet a large community does not evade Sr. White’s basic point: Churches, in effect, are not supposed to congregate. They are designed to dissipate. Our Lord spent very little time in the synagogue. Almost without exception, whenever we encounter Him in scripture, He is going somewhere.
This congregation has a unique character. I believe this quality is based upon a number of elements. However, one of those elements is its relatively small size. This is something that we should protect because, if it’s lost, we won’t be able to get it back. Indeed, I've long held that a church should be no larger than the size at which every member can know every other member. This congregation almost perfectly matches this size.
Recently, though, I learned that this quantity has a name. It's called Dunbar's Number (DN), after a famed British anthropologist. DN has a value of 147.8, or approximately 150. In other words, according to Dunbar, 150 is the maximum number of people one can have in a social network, like a church or other group, before people start losing track of one another in the network. If you just think about it, this has the ring of truth. It feels right. Indeed, many people who utilize DN often refer to it as "The Rule of 150."
Speaking with the pastor recently, he urged that we needed a bigger space, for more people, because, with just one successful evangelistic effort, we would have nowhere to put new members. Perhaps many people on the building committee also feel this way.
Respectfully, however, if true, this would still be the case even if our church comfortably seated one million people. The concern he described is not a function of size, but of how we manage growth; the topic of this “wish.” As well, this argument does not address the critical issue: How to maintain the unique, Rule of 150-character this congregation possesses. To me, this is the most important question we face in any building project we undertake.
2. Spatially and technologically, a complete overhaul, and radical rethinking, of how we work with young people. There is much more that I can say about this, but I have run out of room. Thank you for considering my ideas.
I don’t know how this submission was received. No one ever got back to me, and they certainly didn’t follow my advice or suggestions.
Also, I don’t know how this issue of church should be addressed denominationally, that being the theme question of this post.
Personally, as stated for the above reasons, I believe in small churches. Some prefer large ones, and some say there are economies of scale, and other efficiencies, that kick in when a church has several hundred members, or thousands of them.
I don’t know if anyone has concluded what those benefits would be. In my impression, as also previously alluded, ministers like big churches. This may be the primary push behind the drive for large groups, wherever it exists.
Anyway, the building project went right ahead. Church furniture and instruments were sold, some materials were put in storage, and the congregation began renting another local church on Saturdays. The idea was that we would inhabit the rental for a short time, while the building was being reinvigorated, then return triumphantly to our fresh, new worship home.
However, that’s not exactly how it went. The work took a long time, then the schedule began to slip. The church burned through money, then found it had run afoul of building ordinances. A series of legal actions, between the congregation, the builders, and the city building commission ensued. Everything stalled. In the midst of this, my wife and I moved to another region.
Today, nearly fifteen years later, the church building is still empty; an eyesore. The congregation continues to rent a facility in the community, waiting for their time to return.
