By Arlin J. Rothauge
(produced by the Education for Mission and Ministry Office by Seabury Professional Services 2P/283/10M.
No copyright restrictions appear.)
Who has not been seduced by the fantasy of a perfect program that will solve the problems of all churches everywhere? Our experience tells us that such an idea leads to frustration. Why? The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how one important factor, the size of congregations, prevents us from using one program and one style of leadership for all church situations.
The size of a congregation acts as a key variable in those factors that determine the structure, functions, and style of relationships in its group life. For ease of analysis we will assign four categories of size to differentiate a pattern. small, medium, large, and extra large.
The small church will have up to 50 members active and attending worship with some regularity. This size we will call the FAMILY CHURCH.
The medium size church will have from 50-150 active members and will be identified as the PASTORAL CHURCH.
The large church will have 150-350 active members and it becomes the PROGRAM CHURCH.
The extra large church, called the CORPORATION CHURCH , includes an active membership of 350-500 and over.
One gauge of active membership is the average attendance at worship over a one-year period. We are not interested here in the number of communicants or baptized persons on the record. The following analysis assumes that each numerical range represents a membership that demonstrates a commitment and maintains a vitality in both their worship and work.
There is no intent in this presentation to attach any stigma or respectability to size as such. On the contrary, it is assumed that any size church is the right size, and any size church can attract and assimilate new members. However, the basic hypothesis is that the most effective means of carrying out a new member ministry varies with the size of the congregation. The hypothesis does not mean to deny the importance of other variables, such as context, available resources, local history, institutional and systemic cycles, etc. In the real situation no one variable can be isolated.
This presentation draws on available research* and my own careful observations. It uses these to answer five questions in each category according to the variable of size.
*Refer to the Selected and Annotated Bibliography