One of the more well-known megachurches in the US is Willow Creek Community Church. This past year, they completed and published a self assessment that among other things, looked at the correlation of ministry dollars spent and growth in spirtual maturity. The results of the WCCC were definitely one of the more interesting developments in the past year. The results basically said that the correlation was extremely weak, if not non-existent. Since then, folks have reacted in a number of ways. The good conversations (like the one that finally moved me to write about this) have been about “what does this mean for God’s church writ large?” Others have been more along the lines of: “See, we were right all along, you mega/contemporary/business thinking churches stink” I don’t think these voices are the loudes more most numerous, but there are plenty out there who have and will continue to use the results that way.
One of the discussions that is being stimulated by the results is about the issue of balance between churches focusing on discipleship and being “seeker friendly”, with an inherent assumption (somewhat accurate) that many of the newer megachurches are build on the idea of seeker friendlyness. To me, this particular issue is not so much a church size issue as a choice-of-focus challenge. Churches can either choose to be specialized or generalized. They can specialize in introducing and converting followers to Christ or specialize in providing opportunities for Christians to become deeper disciples of Christ. To choose to do both is by definition generalization. Each approach has its trade-off. Add to that questions like “contemporary or traditional”, “sacred dance or childrens choir”, “liturgical or not-so-much”. The more of these questions a church says “both” or “all of the above” to, the more generalized they become. A hard truth about generalization is that the more of it you do, the less likely that you will do any one thing with excellence. Churches (large and small) have a very hard time with that. When your beloved charter member comes up to you and says “God has put it on my heart to start an alto-only-Gregorian-chant-a-capella-contemporary-praise-band”, its always going to be difficult to say, “That’s fantastic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the kind of church we are, but the one down the street would be a perfect fit.” Because of this dynamic, most churches are going to trend towards generalization as they mature. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. However, it leaves you at the risk that a) you may not reach the potential you would have if you kept it simpler and b) you may loose sight of why you are doing the endless variety of programming in the first place.
Ultimately, the most telling thing about the Willow Creek report is that they asked the question. Its very easy for a church to get in the mode of “I’m doing it for God, so it HAS to be good”. They asked the question “what are we getting back on the talents we’ve invested”, and that is a lesson from which we could all benefit.
