He went to a church that STARTED and TAUGHT everybody else, the megachurch model.
20 YEARS AGO he was involved with the churches Jr. High ministry. A Jr high ministry that had 600-700 kids every week. The HS ministry was running about 1200 per week at the time.20 YEARS AGO.
An auditorium that sat about 7,000 with 4 services on weekends, averaging about 18,000 people a weekend. That was BEFORE the satellite churches.
HEY...his pastor was"____ ______".
Every year they'd have a couple of major conferences where Christian leaders came from throughout the nation, even the world, to see how this game changing, cutting edge church did things.
They had an organization that other churches could be part of, so that other churches could model themselves after and market themselves as a "Church X" type of church.
After hearing his spiel for years, I started wondering who he was trying to impress. The more I heard him BRAG about HIS church, the more nauseated I got. After awhile, I really started wondering who he was trying to draw attention to? Himself and this awesome, massive church, that HE was PART of?...
Or Christ?
Because of him, today, I'm unimpressed with numbers.
I belong to a MUCH, MUCH smaller church, that is growing. I don't view growth as everything. It can and should be an indicator of God's Spirit working in the church. But NUMBERS shouldn't be ANYONE's focus.
I'm not interested in someone's CHURCH, doing this and that and that and that and this and, and, and, and...
I want to hear someone tell me what makes their heart burn for serving Christ.
That guy at that mega church. Before he tried to impress himself and others with numbers, his ministry for Jr High kids, burned inside him. You couldn't hardly talk to him without him talking about the ministry and what was going on in it and with his guys.
Does it mean that there wasn't real life change happening there??? NOT AT ALL!!!
Does it mean that the church itself wasn't about the GOSPEL, instead of numbers??? NOT AT ALL!!!
Does it mean that everybody at the church had the same view??? NOT AT ALL!!!
I have just known too many people like that guy, who get distracted by the flash and numbers.
I gave some numbers because others were talking about numbers and what we as a mega church do.
My wife and I do keep track of our numbers because missionaries do so in order to report to their financial backers the results of using their money to bring people to Jesus.
If we find that a program stops working we fold it and try something else. It is just good stewardship of volunteer’s time and money.
I attended a Willowcreek church too for a while but i sort of regard that church as a halfway house between my extremely liberal Presbyterian up bringing and my current conservative Southern Baptist church.
It had its place but I moved on.