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Maybe because there are so many small groups that one can belong to it does not feel all that large.

The thing that concerns me about this is you still have problems getting one on one pastoral care. I understand that whoever is in your small group is tasked with pastoral duties, but I think this system bumps into one simple, natural fact of the Church as God created it: that fact is that the buck stops somewhere, and that somewhere is with the pastor. There are times when I need to discuss things with the pastor, not the assistant pastor, or the youth pastor, or a small group leader, but the pastor. That's going to be hard to do in such a large church. Personally, I don't see how my pastor does it considering we have a weekly sunday attendance of something like 1800, and that's huge for our area. In fact, the population of the town the church is in is only 400 and the nearest 'major' town, about 12 miles away, is only 15,000.

The thing that concerns me about this is you still have problems getting one on one pastoral care. < snip > ... the Church as God created it: that fact is that the buck stops somewhere, and that somewhere is with the pastor.

Oh, but the church "as God created it" was started by Jesus, who appointed disciples to go out and make more disciples. We (the church) were "created" to go out and preach the Gospel, make disciples (so that they can go out and preach the gospel), and serve the lost and dying world with Christ's love.

Our pastor just did an excellent 'sermon' on the model of todays institutional churches vs the biblical model for the church.

In many churches today, church leadership is busy 'serving' the congregation, trying to make them happy, etc.. and the congregation is busy being served, and the world is forgotten. A congregation that is constantly being 'served' instead of 'serving' doesn't mature.

The biblical model is for leadership to, well, LEAD .. and the congregation can mature and then SERVE. Who does the congregation serve? The world.

Isn't this what we are supposed to be doing .. reaching the lost and dying world for Jesus?

True, ultimately, the buck stops with the pastor .. and he is accountable to God. This is why it is so important for him to lead and disciple his congregation so that they can go out and serve, not only the world, but those coming into the fold.

When the disciples ministered to people, I wonder how many missed their blessing or healing because they wanted to get to the "big guy" instead?

Having said that, I'm not speaking out against your need to seek one on one pastoral care. ONly pointing out that in a large body, there is more than one person who can give you that care, and many times, better than the pastor. (For they are called into that ministry.)

God Bless.

"The thing that concerns me about this is you still have problems getting one on one pastoral care."

At my Giga church I know the head guy, he knows me and my wife. Most large churches have many pastors who give pastoral care. I know a dozen pastors from my church and they know me, my phone number, my email address and what ministries I am involved in. If I have a need for personal pastoral care, I know who to call and they swing into action.

If I find that someone else needs that care, I make a call and people and resources are put into motion. In many ways, this is the first church I have ever belonged to in which help was immediately available to just the average parishioner.

I alos get buttonholed for projects that they need done.

A church full of Christian activists.

Second Rocks!

I know this is an old thread, but I saw it off of another thread.

I go to a fairly large church with several thousand members. No, I don't get a lot of personal attention from the teaching pastors, but between my small group leader, the singles pastor, the women's ministry staff, the shepherding elders who are over the singles and young married ministries, and the pastors over the ministries that I serve in, there are plenty of people I can and have gone to if I have questions or problems. When my dad was hospitalized, these the singles pastor, my small group members, and the guy who is in charge of the main ministry I've served in for a long time were who showed up and were there for me.

I like our main pastor a lot. I just know he has a lot on his plate, so I go to these other people. These are Godly people. Some of them are lay people and some of them are seminary trained.

Frankly, in my case, I grew up in a small Baptist church and the singles out of college just plain didn't fit in when I was growing up. There were never very many of them and all of the church activities were centered around families (which made sense...the vast majority of the members were young families and older empty nesters).

Going to a large church means that by sheer numbers, there are enough singles to have a good singles ministry. My small group is all young single women, so we all have similar struggles, are going through similar experiences, and (frankly) have compatible schedules. It works well. I still get to be around families and married people for some stuff, but sometimes it's nice to be around people who understand where you're coming from. The Bible studies during those groups can talk about some of the struggles of being single in addition to the regular stuff. Being in a large church opens up that opportunity.

That's just my experience.