First trip to a "mega-church"

I agree, gb93433. IMHO, there is nothing inherently wrong with the size of any church, i.e., the megachurch. After all, hopefully everyone here will soon be part of the greatest megachurch ever, and indeed, even now are. The thing that matters is are they doing God's work, as you say. I would phrase it a little differently and say the thing that matters is are they staying true to God's Word? For if they are, they will have avoided the fate most feared by the NT writers and will most certainly be doing God's work.

For a church to be able to provide services and assistance for its flock who are poor, and provide stupendous support for missions seems to me a wonderful thing. Restaurants, gymnasiums, medical services, auto repair shops? Doesn't bother me, provided God's Word is adhered to from the top down, because in that case it won't be out of balance and no leaven will be tolerated in the lump. It's the same standard that should apply to all churches, IMHO - is Jesus Christ the One who is running it?

Generally, I would say that a church's size is a very poor barometer or indicator of its true success, whether in terms of evangelism or blessing from the Lord. There are many small and medium size churches, true and faithful, that will never experience a significant amount of growth for a variety of reasons, yet the Lord is blessing them. There are some wonderful megachurches. But far too many of our large churches are large for the wrong reasons.

 

Here is a good tip for everyone.
Before anyone starts to criticize a church for what he/she perceives as unnecessary, be sure that your criticism is based on a Scriptural Mandate. You may or may not understand why a church is utilizing a particular building for something, but that is your personal opinion, nothing more. To question their motives when he/she doesn't know anything about the church is abject fatuity.

Also, if someone is going to use sarcasm, they should take appropriate steps to ensure that their spelling is correct.

I don't know anything about the church in question, so I will only say that if it is working for them, and they are true to the Gospel, more power to them. I never cease to be amazed by all the avenues/outlets/venues God can use to spread His Word.

We should all strive to sound more like the publican........

For all of you utilizing the TRUE Authorised Version, some good advice can be found in Ecclesiasticus 5:12.

Regards to all of you,

BiR

 

Hey Rob,

Would you care to share the name of that church in Tampa, especially since you had kind words for them?

(I am originally from Tampa.)

Hope you and yours are doing well,

BiR

 

My opinion is that are many more that are small for all the wrong reasons too--selfishness and lack of zeal. So we must be careful how we criticize and talk about other churches and make sure the log is not in our own eyes.

Jesus gave the evidence of how others will know we are believers. Christian Schwartz took a look at over 1000 churches around the globe and concluded the single most reason churches grow or do not grow is their ability to love others. I think that says a lot about who we must be.

 

We must look for the opprotunity as God leads us and the Holy Spirit gives wisdom.

A restaurant can be a vehicle just like inviting someone over to your home to share a meal. That is a place where people talk and eat. Jesus had a lot of ministry with people at the table. When I was a new Christian I was invited over to a lot of homes to eat with people. I learned what a Christian home looked like. Those people taught me ministry and showed me how the difference that Christ makes.

When I go to a restaurant I try to treat the server well and leave a nice tip. In the past God has used it.

Anytime we are with people it should be a ministry. I have invited some of the servers to church. We have had many great times and opportunities sharing with servers about Christ. Not too long ago a lady who often works on Sunday told me about some of the people that come on that day. After I listened to her for awhile and sought to encourage her and praise her I told her I was a Christian. Her response was surprise. Then I told her why I was a Christian and shared with her the gospel. I invited her to church. God gave us the right person and the perfect timing. She moved from antagonism to taking a look at Christ and possibly coming to Church.

Recently a pastor friend of mine recently led a lady to Christ that my wife and I followed up on. He attended all of his kid's baseball games and the pastor knew the family. The lady asked him for help during a crisis in her marriage. Her husband was involved with another lady and was into pornography. Anytime we are with people God is using us if we are careful to be Christlike.

 

To me the issue is not tradition. I really don't care whether or not someone has Sunday night service. But, if a church such as WC or Saddleback, devotes their Sunday morning service to outreach, when is their corporate worship time where the whole body gets together for the purpose of worship and instruction in the Lord? That is what we do on Sunday nights.

If a body does not gather for corporate worship, they are sinning. If they decide to devote their weekend services mainly to outreach nad immature Christians, then they have to do it some other time.

I guess my question would be, Why not have a Sunday night service? Why would we object to the teaching of hte word, the gathering of the body, and the worship of God? Family time is a really lame excuse to me. There are 167 other hours during the week that people remain relatively unconcerned about family time. YOu don't seen people pulling their kids out of school once a week for an afternoon of family time. You typically don't see dads bailing out of work early for family time (though they might to watch sports or something). And since when did family become an idol? I am not sure that whole thing works.

I think the mega church movement has some seroius thinking to do on these lines of corporate worship.

 

Agree. And all the wrong reasons have one thing in common - they exist because of deviation from the Word of God.

To me, the bottom line for any church should be: Is Jesus the One who is running it? It's HIS church, not ours. If so, the Word of God will reign supreme, and the slightest amount of leaven will be considered as deadly cancer. God will bless it, it will be healthy, and God will be the One that grows it.

Absolutely agree.

Interesting. I'd like to see that study. There again, if looking to Jesus and His Word is the primary thing, the fruit of the church will be the fruit of the Spirit. Love, the agape kind, will be in abundant supply.

 

Pastor Larry writes: "But, if a church such as WC or Saddleback, devotes their Sunday morning service to outreach, when is their corporate worship time where the whole body gets together for the purpose of worship and instruction in the Lord? That is what we do on Sunday nights.
If a body does not gather for corporate worship, they are sinning. If they decide to devote their weekend services mainly to outreach nad immature Christians, then they have to do it some other time."

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I don't know about Saddleback, but this is what WC's midweek Wednesday service is for. Wednesday night's service is when the "church" gathers for worship, in-depth Bible study, communion, etc.

They call that service "New Community", and it's not an outreach service in either style or format: it's intended for & geared toward believers.

 

Best I can tell, around 1980.

 

Yes, indeed ... But by Hybel's own admission, his teaching has wavered in there at times.

I think one of the issues of megachurches is this idea of accomplishing all we are supposed to. For us, Sunday morning is an expositional preaching/teaching time for the unconvinced and uncommited; Sunday night is mostly a worship and expositional preahcing/teaching time for believers; Wednesday nights is a doctrinal/practical time for believers (also with divided groups such as men's/ladies) and probably four times a year we spent 4-6 weeks devoted entirely to prayer on Wednesdays. So I can't really justify cancelling any of them from a practical standpoint, nor can I see any legitimate reason to. If we were just repeating ourselves, I would cancel them.

 

I like that format, Larry.

 

I've been to Dr. Rogers' Belview Baptist and Dr. Vines' FBC, Jacksonville, FL---basicially what I found is what Bro. Larry described about his church---and I also found that they(Drs. Rogers and Vines) do what we do at our church---except on a much larger scale(10,000 in SS verses 100)

Neither Belview nor FBC, Jacksonville nor my church comes equipped with Burger King nor Subway!!

I can handle Expositional style preaching in the mega church and mini----I just can't handle Burger King or Micky D's inside the confines of my church---no matter how large it is or small!!!

 

The restaurants don't bother me, though I don't know that I would have them. I can see hte benefit of being able to bring a friend, and have lunch right there, to meet others and fellowship with them. We Baptists do that, we just dont call it a restaurant and we don't do it every week.

 

BiR; "Also, if someone is going to use sarcasm, they should take appropriate steps to ensure that their spelling is correct."

Nice... Nice... Nicely done slur.

MY spelling is perfect. It is this computer that won't follow directions!


In HIS service;
Jim

 

Sorry that this is all you took from my post......

 

Just curious, Scott, what do you think these families are doing the other six nights of the week? And what are they doing on Sunday afternoon.

I am not saying one has to have a Sunday night service, though I do think there are good reasons for them. I am saying we should avoid these kinds of excuses for not attending one. The best thing a dad can do for his family is have them in church. </font>[/QUOTE]Many of them are in church two other nights a week, with a mid-week worship service and a small group Bible study.

 

Shucks...since it seems that so many folks think that more is better, why don't we just go ahead and have church 7 nights per week? I mean, if two nights a week is what we need to raise us to a high spiritual status, just think what 7 nights would do !

 

I am all for it!
24/7 would be great! But then who would "Go into all the world"?

One day we WILL be in "church" 24/7, but until then, "Occupy 'til I come".

In HIS service;
Jim