{"id":1464,"date":"2010-07-30T06:13:59","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T10:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2013-06-17T16:47:29","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T20:47:29","slug":"a-move-towards-intentionally-smaller-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=1464","title":{"rendered":"A Move Towards Intentionally Smaller Churches?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brandon O’Brien in his new book Strategically Small Church, The: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective<\/a>\"\" writes,<\/p>\n

“Despite the fact that the Bible compares the spread of the gospel to the mustard seed, which appears insignificant and unproductive, the dominant expectation of most pastors is that success is measured in terms of numerical growth.\u00a0 Fifty years from now, this may not be the case.\u00a0 We may all look back on our preoccupation with church size in the late twentieth century and say (as we do now about big hair and head-to-toe-denim), ‘What were we thinking?’\u00a0 When the history books are written about our mega ministry efforts in the future, I suspect that the era between the 1970s and the present will appear the anomaly. In the decades preceding the church-growth movement, small-church ministry will prove to have been the norm by necessity.\u00a0 In the decades to come, small-church ministry will be the norm by choice.”<\/strong>\u009d (39-40, emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to cite trends in Christian publishing which back up this bold prediction including:<\/p>\n

-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Weariness of the burden of perpetual numerical growth<\/p>\n

-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Realization that the Bible defines ministry success differently than we have done<\/p>\n

-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Increased interest in leadership development, discipleship and spiritual formation are squeezing out emphasis on size<\/p>\n

-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the fact of the matter is that many people are finding that large-church ministry simply isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t working anymore\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (40)<\/p>\n

I think he is on to something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brandon O’Brien in his new book Strategically Small Church, The: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective writes, “Despite the fact that the Bible compares the spread of the gospel to the mustard seed, which appears insignificant and unproductive, the dominant expectation of most pastors is that success is measured in terms of numerical growth.\u00a0 Fifty years …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘A Move Towards Intentionally Smaller Churches?’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2769,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/2769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}