1. Begin with the end in mind and know how large you want to be.

… Lyle Schaller, considered one of the best church consultants in the world, states in his book, The Very Large Church, that the two most comfortable church sizes are under 45 people and under 150 people, likely making them two of the hardest thresholds to pass through, in addition to the 800 mark.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell states that 150 is also the maximum number of people someone can purposefully connect with, which explains why some people do not like bigger churches. It may also explain why John Wesley divided people into groups of about 150, the average hunter-gatherer village is about 150 people, most military units are under 200, and the Hutterites allow their communities to grow no larger than 150. ..

2. The larger the church, the more different it is from other churches of the same theology and tradition.

… Size affects the number of lines of communication, how an organization stacks or does not stack leadership, access to the senior leader and family, etc. Simply put, church size does matter for how a church is run, much like a married couple who some years later find themselves with a dozen children cannot simply organize their life as they did with their first child—everything must change.

For those wanting to learn more about the dynamics of church size, Tim Keller has a helpful paper, and Larry Osborne has a helpful book called Sticky Teams.

3. Change is inevitable.

… For a church to grow, it must change. It does not need to change in theology, but it will need to change in methodology. If a church is unwilling to change their methodology to reach and care for more people, then it is guilty of method-idolatry, which is where we confuse unchanging biblical principles with what are supposed to be changing cultural methods.

4. Don’t assign moral judgments to size and change.

People tend to wrongly attach a moral value to church size, which is unholy, unhealthy, and unhelpful. This explains why big churches are accused of being uncaring and small churches are accused of not reaching people or being well led or organized. …

5. If you want to grow, you need to prepare for common changes now.

Here are few of the changes you’ll face as you grow:

• You move from managing workers, to leading managers, to leading leaders.
• Focus shifts from a survival-in-the-present mode to a success-in-the-future mode.
• Expectations move from informal to formal (elders, deacons, and members).
• You have to grow from making decisions by general consensus to a handful of people making decisions.
• Communications becomes formal and written rather than informal and oral.
• People’s roles move from general responsibility to specialized responsibility.
• The church moves from being one community to being many communities (e.g. multiple services, community groups, etc.).
• The senior leaders shift their focus from being primarily caregivers to making sure people are being cared for by raising up leaders.
• The senior leader shifts from working in the organization to working on the organization.
• The members move from being connected to the pastor to being connected to other leaders.
• Focus shifts from drawing people through relationship to drawing them through events and dynamic Sunday services.

6. Be humble as a leader to seek the counsel of pastors ahead of you and receive their counsel.

… No man is an island, and it’s crucial to seek godly counsel and humbly receive it.

7. Discern between guilt and conviction in seasons of transition.

Developing this discernment is key, as you cannot do what everyone wants you to do and also do exactly what God calls you to do. As the old adage goes, if you try to please everyone, you please no one. …

Strive to be faithful to Jesus, not to the demands of people.

8. Pray and plan for people to meet Jesus.

As you often get what you pray for, and you need to prepare for it. ..

The good news is that seeing many people meet Jesus, while demanding work, is the best kind of work there is.

What do you think?

The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.

(p. 98). Wow. God blesses us by promising to listen to us. He doesn’t always answer in return, but we believe he always listens. Therefore, we take on the very image of God when we listen to one another.

Imagine how far fewer fights and arguments we’d have if we’d honor this one rule! Who among us hasn’t grown frustrated, even angry, when a dispute arose and we knew — KNEW! — that the other person wouldn’t have disagreed at all if only he’d taken the time to listen.

I remember years ago hearing a sermon by Patrick Mead in which he recommended a ministry of presence, that is, that we turn off our cell phones, pagers, and laptops, and just take the time to actually give someone our undivided attention, to truly listen.

We don’t have to agree or even understand. No one can promise that. But we can surely promise to give someone the totality of our attention.

There is nothing more unselfish. Indeed, one of the most selfish things we can do is to prefer the noise of our own thoughts while pretending to care about what someone else is saying.

We live in an age when time is hard to come by, and when multi-tasking is considered normal. Many of us cannot go five minutes without checking our cell phones, and our brains demand the constant stimulation of new emails and Facebook postings.

We fill ourselves with messages but not with listening — and so we live in age filled will communication – and loneliness. Listen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mark sagely concludes,

The major difference as I see it is that Graham spoke with authority and [Driscoll] did not. In response to pointed questions, [Driscoll]’s sentences started most often with “I believe that . . . ,” whereas, in a short collection of interview clips from Graham’s life,  his sentences rarely start with “I believe”—even when asked directly what he believed.  No, his responses are “Christ taught,” “God says,” and “the Bible teaches.”  More than once, Graham says, “It doesn’t make any difference what I believe” and then proceeds to speak as the oracle of God.

I think that nails it. When we argue statistics and opinions and preferences, we lose — because that is not our real motivation. We obey because we believe that God’s word has authority. Therefore, if we are speaking to anyone as a Christian about Christian values, we should speak as messengers of God, not philosophers or  politicians. It’s enough that God said it.

Of course, that might excuse sin by those who aren’t saved, but they’re, you know, lost — and therefore we are prohibited from judging them (1 Cor 5:12-13). Our place is not to urge them to live as Jesus commands but to come to faith in Jesus — and then to live as Jesus commands.

When we speak as the oracles of God (1 Pet 4:10-11), the interview is no longer about why but about submission — which is a very tough area for many interviewers who often are, after all, nominal Christians.

The interviewer could ask you why you think that’s God’s will, and you could properly decline the question as irrelevant or answer it if God has revealed his purposes. But it would be a very different conversation — one predicated on faith, not humanism.

Now, not many of us are called to do national TV interviews. But we are all called to speak to friends and neighbors about God and his word. And I wonder: Does Mark’s insight bear on those conversations?

Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware. It sounds like an exaggeration, an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost, i.e., the worst of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He said this at the very place in scripture where he was speaking of his ministry as an apostle. There can be no genuine knowledge of sin that does not lead me down to this depth. If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no excuse whatsoever.

(pp. 97-98). This is true humility: the ability to recognize the depth of our own sin and to prefer to justify the sins of others rather than our own. The natural human tendency is to justify and excuse our own sins and to condemn as far more serious the sins of others. But true Christian humility is the exact opposite.

Why? Well, because when we truly understand grace, we can be honest enough with ourselves to see the darkness of our own sins. And when we truly grasp grace, we can’t help but extend that grace to others.

When we learn to think this way, an amazing thing happens. We no longer feel superior to others because we better discern the silences of the Scriptures. Rather, we recognize that mastering the silences leaves us nothing but unworthy servants who don’t come close to meriting our salvation — because we are guilty of so many other, darker sins.

No longer do we pretend that God denies grace to those who misunderstand the Law of Generic and Specific Authority but grants grace to those who fail to love their brothers as they ought. Instead, we see how deeply we deserve damnation for our lack of love and we won’t feel the least justified by our intellectual and doctrinal attainments. And therefore we’ll embrace those who disagree with us on such things as dearly beloved brothers.

• The attendance for A-Day was 78,526 (1st in the SEC and 2nd nationally  this year to Ohio State) which was the fifth-largest in school history.  Each spring game under coach Nick Saban has had an attendance of  78,200 (2008) or higher. …
• During the last academic year, Alabama’s football program led the SEC  (in what is believed to be a conference record) with a total of 38  student-athletes on the Academic All-SEC Honor Roll. A  total of 22 players were on the bowl roster who had already earned their  degrees, which was tied for first nationally in terms of graduates on  bowl rosters.
• Of Alabama’s 13 starters lost, all were either drafted or signed free -agent contracts with the NFL. Included among those 13 were the four  first-rounders  … .

It’s easy enough to get the X’s and O’s right. Most major schools have excellent assistant coaches. But Alabama also sends all their graduating starters to the NFL while making certain their players graduate and set records for Academic All-SEC Honor Roll and college graduates.

How does this happen? Well, discipline. If the coaches insist that the players go to class, study, and achieve in school, two very good things happen.

First, good players are attracted to the school because the team takes academics seriously. Their parents especially will be encouraged to push their children to Alabama where they have a great chance to get a degree — even before they finish their football eligibility.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, discipline in one area carries over to other areas. Players who are disciplined both on the football field and the classroom will also be disciplined in life. They’ll be less likely to get in fights and get arrested. Because discipline is a way of life, rather than a way of football, they’ll be even more disciplined on the field — because they become different kinds of people.

Of course, the discipline attracts those who are willing to pay the price — to be disciplined both in athletics and academics. The kids who don’t want to maximize their talents, who just want to have fun for four years of college, will choose somewhere else.

Saban likes to say that there two kinds of pain in life: the pain of disappointment and the pain of discipline. Take your pick. You can’t escape having pain, but you can choose the outcome.

As a result, Alabama players leave the program NFL ready. The discipline that gets good grades also teaches them how to learn the playbook. They show up in the NFL with the habits and mentality to be successful — and therefore they get drafted higher than other players with similar physical gifts — which, in turn, attracts highly motivated, talented players.

Also key to this is something call “the process,” which is Saban’s relentless emphasis on doing the things that lead to championships. He has no interest at all in talking about championships — only those things that get you there: practicing hard, weight training, nutrition, etc. That is, he shifts the focus from the end goal to the steps needed to get there — the process.

Therefore, there’s far more talk about mastering the playbook than making big bucks in the NFL — which, of course, leads to making big bucks in the NFL.

Oh, and then there’s the fan support. I attended the first spring practice game that Saban coached. The 92,000-seat stadium was full! The Fire Marshall closed the gates, only letting more in as others left. I’m sure over 100,000 ultimately got into the game.

Why did this matter? Because the players were astounded at the fan support! And the support encouraged them to work harder and helped the coaches recruit the next class of players. Who wouldn’t want to play where they are most appreciated?

So does this have anything to do with church? Well, only if you think that a little discipline, focus on the right things, and encouragement might make a difference.

Do you want your members to run through walls for Jesus? Do you want them to volunteer without begging or wheedling? Show them how much you appreciate them. Make them feel like they’re in Bryant-Denny Stadium being cheered on by a sold out stadium. Make service an encouragement.

But insist on getting it right — not perfect, but right. What is “right”? Well, if your goal is church growth, don’t talk about church growth but the things that result in church growth — personal evangelism, open small groups, etc. Decide what those things are and then be absolutely relentless in pursuing them. And don’t let them become something other than what produces church growth. Don’t take the easy road.

Of course, this means being extremely careful to define just what it is you want, because you’re going to bend and shape everything else to that end. You may actually get your wish — so be sure it’s the right one.

It’s an easy call in college football — winning championships with excellent academics and class is pretty much the goal everyone has, even if they aim for something they consider more attainable.

In church, it’s just as easy — easier — to aim for the attainable rather than the real goal. So what is the real goal — the one the Bible points us to — and what are the steps toward getting there?

There is probably no Christian to whom God has not given the uplifting and blissful experience of genuine Christian community at least once in her or his life. But in this world such experiences remain nothing but a gracious extra beyond the daily bread of Christian community life. We have no claim to such experiences, and we do not live with other Christians for the sake of gaining such experiences. It is not the experience of Christian community, but firm and certain faith within Christian community that holds us together. We hold fast in faith to God’s greatest gift, that God has acted for us all and wants to act for us all. This makes us joyful and happy, but it also makes us ready to forgo all such experiences if at times God does not grant them. We are bound together by faith, not by experience.

(p. 47). Bonhoeffer has this rare blend of idealism and pragmatism that I find incredibly … true. Yes, Christian community can produce some amazing, wondrous experiences. No, that’s not the test of true community.

If we go chasing delightful experiences, if we think church is one wonderful devo after another, then we’ll become frustrated and unhappy when real life doesn’t measure up to the mountain top experiences.

This is not to deny the legitimacy of those experiences, just the illusion that every Sunday and every class can be an emotional high.

Just as is true in marriage, those experiences are real and precious, but they are not the daily grist of married life. There’s also a lot of diaper changing, trips to the emergency rooms, and tears. Sometimes married life is nothing but not enough sleep, swing shifts, and exhaustion.

If we live for the glorious moments and refuse to participate in the exhausting, difficult burdens of married life, we won’t have many glorious moments at all. The glory crowns years, even decades, of investment in the lives of each other.

And church is just the same. We might manufacture one Sunday after another of experiential delight, but if those present aren’t invested in each other, if they’ve not struggled and cried together, if they are only there for the thrill of the moment, then it’s all artificial. It’s an effort at a prolonged honeymoon without having to actually have a real marriage. It’s the church equivalent of having a mistress — of casual sex. It’s empty and hollow and cannot last.

But when the congregation is invested in one another’s lives, when we share childbirths, marriages, deaths, illnesses, and job losses, when we love each other enough to sacrifice for each other, then and only then will the emotions be real and not manufactured. After all, we can’t really celebrate Christ’s sacrifice if we don’t sacrifice daily for others. We won’t really appreciate the pain of submission if we don’t submit. We can’t celebrate Jesus’ suffering for us if we’ve never suffered for others.

But when the church learns to be Jesus to each other — to serve, submit, sacrifice, and even suffer for others among us, even those we not like all that much, even our enemies — then we will understand the heart of Jesus and we can sing with the understanding.

Then our worship won’t be about professionalism and expertise and style point but about hearts torn open to praise God for his unspeakable grace –  a grace that transforms us so much that we resonate with the songs of angels.

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However, others have, and I thought it might be worthwhile to point out some thoughtful — though disagreeing — posts on the subject.

The Top 8 Ways To Be ‘Traditionally Married’ According To The Bible, by Adam Mordecai.

I don’t think “traditional marriage” means what you think it means.

New form of Christian civic engagement, by Jonathan Merritt in USA Today.

 A distinctive way of being Christian in the public square — a softer, less partisan way — is emerging. And this cultural change could be the very thing our faith needs to survive.

A Plea to Christians About Our Response to Obama and Homosexual Marriage, by Dan Bouchelle.

I’m not saying the historic rejection of homosexuality by Israel and the church should be overturned in this age of “enlightenment.”  I’m saying the church’s obsession with this issue has hurt the gospel more than helped it.

Same-Sex Marriage and Shades of Grey, by Mark Woodward.

And the Creator God who defines the essence of reality (Truth) by His Word has set homosexuality outside of that which is pronounced “Good!”  The question is not about choice, nor about love, nor about equal rights, but rather about submission.

Next, here are a couple of older posts of mine that bear on the subject –

The Romans One Argument

The 1 Corinthians 5 Argument

Now, I struggle with this one. A lot.

Do we figure gay marriage, sanctioned by the state, is an example of God’s turning the lost over to their own morality, revealing how non-Christian morality violates God’s created order (as in Romans 1)? If so, then the last thing we should do is interfere with God’s choice to let the lost live separated from God, without the benefit of his wisdom and direction.

After all, we are forbidden from judging the lost in 1 Corinthians 5.

Or do we stand in the shoes of the Old Testament prophets defending those who are harmed by gay marriage? Is this a “widows and orphans” sort of thing where the church stands for the voiceless victims? If so, then who are the victims?

And that is not a rhetorical question but, to me, the core question. What about children who might be adopted by a gay couple? How would they fare in such a home? What about children born to a gay couple? Is it a healthy environment? What are the facts? (And in such a politicized area, can we trust the research?)

Then, as some of the articles point out, there’s a real strategic question here. If the church is perceived as anti-civil rights, does pushing an anti-gay-agenda hurt our ability to convert people? Does it hurt our Christian witness? I’m sure it does among the young, but …

… Is gay marriage — like homosexual sex — an area where God has spoken and we have no choice but to stand for what is right, regardless of the consequences? Is this one of those “obey God rather than man” moments?

What do you think?

In other words, a life together under the Word will stay healthy only when it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis, but instead understands itself as being part of the one, holy, universal, Christian church, sharing through its deeds and suffering in the hardships and struggles and promise of the whole church. Every principle of selection, and every division connected with it that is not necessitated quite objectively by common work, local conditions, or family connections is of the greatest danger to a Christian community. Self-centeredness always insinuates itself in any process of intellectual or spiritual selectivity, destroying the spiritual power of the community and robbing the community of its effectiveness for the church, thus driving it into sectarianism.

(p. 45). Bonhoeffer connects sectarianism — the division of the church — with self-centered love. Rather than pretending that we’re dividing over doctrine and truth, Bonhoeffer gets to the heart of the matter: division is all about selfishness.

Now, of course, division is often driven by genuine disagreement about doctrine. But the decision that this doctrine makes us the true church and you not the true church — in a religion that rejects works salvation and insists repeatedly on salvation by faith in Jesus — is not driven by doctrine but by emotion, that is, the desire to prove our superior standing before God, that is, selfishness.

The Churches of Christ are a classic but not unique example. When we divide, our culture, our way, our tradition is to declare those we leave damned in their sins. This justifies the pain of the separation, but it reveals an unspeakable ignorance of God’s word and the heart of Jesus.

We may very honorably and very legitimately disagree about whether the Bible requires the Lord’s Supper be celebrated with one cup. It’s a legitimate point of contention. The Anglicans and Catholics are one cuppers, too, you know.

But to insist that those who disagree with me are damned, well, there is simply no basis for that at all other than a desire to justify separation. To win our arguments — and we’re all about the winning — we need to score as many rhetorical points as possible. And the best arguments, we think, all end with “and you’ll go to hell if you disagree.” To win the fight, we raise the stakes to the ultimate level, and this forces separation and justifies the vitriol and viciousness that fill our rhetoric. The doctrine of separation thus is created to fill the needs to win the argument at any cost.

But why win at any cost? Why is winning the most important thing? Why aren’t unity and love and grace and tolerance and acceptance more important? Why winning? Why must I insist on placing the souls of my brothers and sisters who dare disagree with me on the altar? Why is the sacrifice to be made theirs and not mine?

Well, because of the personalities of those who push the arguments. Rather than pay the hard, high price of finding common ground, of looking for ways to stay together, we’d rather prove our genius, and justify the price of subscribing to our periodicals and attending our lectureships. We need a party spirit to justify having parties so we can have party institutions — that we get to head and for which we get paid.

If partyism were to go away, so would the best seats and the profits and the honors. Separation creates hundreds of little-kingdoms rather than the Kingdom, and a host of little-kingdoms creates a host of little-kingdom chiefs who receive little-kingdom honors for creating and maintaining their little-kingdoms.

But our God is a God of just one Kingdom, and it’s a big one. It has but one Chief, who receives all the honor. But we’ll not see the Kingdom in its fullness so long as we have little-chiefs who insist on division to preserve the honors that come from separation.

For those with email or RSS subscriptions, of course, it’s gone into the ether and I can’t retrieve it. I can only recommend that you delete it — because there are posts that precede, not yet posted, that help make sense of it all.

And I’ve not even spellchecked it.