Professional Documents
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046 - Tim Keller - Managing Church Growth PDF
046 - Tim Keller - Managing Church Growth PDF
Specific Size-categories.
House church: 0-40 attendance
basis of membership and tenure and faithfulness. In and money to the work. Crossing the threshold to the next size-category:
larger churches, the distinctive mission and vision The house church like any small group, gets
of the church becomes more important. Therefore it Decision-making is democratic, informal, and to saturation rather quickly. Once it gets to 40+
is important to enlist without apology leaders who requires complete consensus. Decisions are people the intense face-to face relationships
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become impossible to maintain. It then faces An ongoing problem for the stand-alone church of prepare its people to do this by admitting the losses of
a choice: either a) multiplying off another house- this size is the low quality of ministry to specific intimacy, spontaneity, informality and agreeing to bear
church or b) growing out of the “house-church groups like children, youth, singles and so on. these as a cost of mission, of opening their ranks to
dynamics” into the next-size category of new people. This has to be a consensus group decision
being a small-church. If it opts for “a” above and multiplies itself to honor the dynamics of the house church even as it
into another house church—and eventually opts to change those dynamics.
If it does not do either: several—the two house churches can form an
Evangelism becomes essentially impossible. association which does things like youth Small church: 40-200 attendance
ministry together. They could also meet for joint
The fellowship itself then can easily become worship services periodically. Character: This category includes churches that
ingrown and “stagnant”—somewhat stifling, are just barely out of the house church stage up to
sometimes legalistic. If it opts for “b” above and grows out of the house CONTINUED ON PAGE 26
church size into a “small church,” it needs to
have to let the staff and individual volunteer leaders More online: Check out the Cutting Edge page at www.vineyardusa.org/ministries/planting.aspx for an
make decisions on their own. extended version of this article.