Last week, David Murray wrote a blogpost entitled, “Church Size: Is 150 the ‘Magic’ Number?” In this rather short article, David makes some rather large assumptions–assumptions I’m afraid that are all-too-often given unwarranted support. I am somewhat a regular reader of David’s blog and had the privilege of sharing a meal with this dear brother (along with Joe Thorn) at T4G this year. Though we have disagreed on things in the past (e.g., sermon delivery), I believe we enjoy a continued appreciation of God’s grace in each other’s lives. The issue of church size and the assumptions that accompany is another one where David and I disagree, and I think it is important enough to give an alternative take with reasons why.
Arguments and Assumptions
David’s main point is that small churches are richer in relationships than large churches. While David offers no biblical grounds for such an argument, he does make the following assumptions that I find problematic:
- David asserts that when a church becomes large (in this case larger than 150 which in my opinion is still rather small), they lose the greatest asset of all–rich relationships. In most Reformed circles, the primary (if not only) structure of the church is the Lord’s Day gathering. If that is the case, then one might be able to understand why David’s assumption is plausible, but to have such a truncated ecclesiology creates even more problems (I will elaborate later).
- David contrasts a large church gaining “more respect, more money, and more activity” with small churches having the exceedingly more valuable commodity of relationships. This is (a) wrongfully assuming the motivations of large church leadership and (b) unnecessarily making a contrast between the two. I would happily want a church to grow to have more influence (respect) in the community we are seeking to impact, more money to invest in kingdom initiatives, and more activity in engaging the lost world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. What leader would not want that AND rich, meaningful relationships? In an effort to advocate for small church size, large church motivations are not charitably characterized–which makes the reader wonder if the small church size really has sufficient merits of its own.
- David argues it is hard to create and maintain rich and meaningful fellowship with a church more than 150 people. Again, this goes back to assumption #1, the assumption behind the assumption being that the church size is undergirded by a church structure (church gathered) as the dominant venue/vehicle for community to take place. Relational community can be maintained and cultivated in larger churches when other church structures and venues are available to body life.
