“‘Bigger is better’ is not always right. We all know big churches that, from our vantage point, don’t look to be preaching the gospel faithfully or ministering the way Christ would want us to minister. But we also don’t want to say that bigger is automatically ‘badder’—that those churches automatically have sold out.” – Kevin DeYoung
In 2012, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, and Kevin DeYoung sat down to talk about how we should think about church size. Chandler was and is the pastor of The Village Church in Texas. A large church by anyone’s definition, The Village’s leaders announced in 2017 that they would transition their five campuses into five autonomous churches. Dever is the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) in Washington, D.C. where attendance averages around 1,000 people. CHBC leaders have made a convictional choice not to hold multiple services, thus capping attendance at the capacity of their auditorium. At the time of this recording, DeYoung was the pastor of University Reformed Church, a congregation of around 500 in East Lansing, Michigan. He has since moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to pastor Christ Covenant Church, a congregation with around 1,800 members.
Related:
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
