Tim Keller,
The Prodigal God

The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, button-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If out churches aren’t appealing to “younger brothers” they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.

After listening to the sermon and reading the blog post found here, I decided to send the church a message, via their Mission and Vision blog. I’ve posted the whole message below. If you’ve listen to or read the post on voxpop and agree or disagree I’d love to hear some feedback on what I said.

I know this comment is worth as much as one of those 90’s camel bucks, but I was disappointed in lasts week sermon. I felt that you didn’t give most regulative principle guys much credit.

In Christ your Bro,
Sam DeSocio
Pastoral Intern
City Reformed Church

Growing up Ive attending churches that range from 400+ to less than 15. When I started seminary 2 years ago I thought that a church over 300 was wrong, if not sinful. Then I sat down with Luke and read that it turns out that the first church had at least 1000 people in it, so I began to re-examine the value judgments I put on church-size.

I wrestling through this issue I came across an article written by Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC. He has some great incites about how we judge a church by its size.

Here is the first thing that he lays out church size can have more influence in shaping the culture of the church than denominational affiliations.

“The difference between how two Presbyterian churches, one of 100 people and one of 2,000 members, function may be greater than the difference between a Presbyterian and a Pentecostal church of the same size. The staff person who goes from a church of 400 to a church of 2,000 is making a far greater change than if he or she moved from one denomination to another.”

Secondly he notes that people moving from one size church to a church of a different size cannot expect the same culture.

“Every church size presents the pastor with particular obstacles and opportunities for biblical functioning peculiar to the category. For example, smaller church sizes make discipline and accountability far easier than it is in larger churches. However, it is easier to practice lay ministry and the priesthood of all believers in larger churches, where pastoral care must be done on a large scale by lay leaders. Smaller churches tend to acquiesce to clericalism. To use another example, larger churches in general have something of an advantage in evangelism; they can provide more “doors” into the church through their numerous programs. Also, many (not all!) non-Christians feel too visible to visit smaller churches.”

One of his most volital statements is this article is that “There is no ‘best size’ for a church.”

He argues:
“Each size presents great difficulties and also many opportunities for ministry that churches of other sizes cannot realize (or, at least, not as well.) If you truly think there is an ideal size, it is most likely because you tend to emotionally value some biblical aspects of the church more than others or because you are unbalanced in your own concept of what Christ desires from the church. Only together can churches of all sizes be all Christ wants the church to be.”

Finally in the article Keller lists out a number of principles about churches as the grow.
The whole article can be found here: Leadership and Church Size Dynamics

So what are your opinions about church-size? Do you agree or disagree with Keller? Why? What are the biblical reasons for your view of church size?

Check out this link to see a series of photos chronicling the divide between the rich and the poor around the world.

Robbie has an interesting post about visiting a Zen Buddhist Center in Pittsburgh.

There have been a great set of posts over at set ‘n’ service about evangelism.

I have been learning over and over again that this clip is actually a pretty good picture of what Christians are supposed to do as missionaries. We are supposed to observe how people are communicating, and learn the best way communicate to the people we are trying to communicate with. This is how we are supposed to go about communicating with people its the same for someone, in urban africa, rural india, or Post-Christian-America. Its called being missional.

I have been reading about the practical side of being missional(being a missionary in a Post-Christian/Non-Christian context). One of main work on the topic,The Missional Church, is also one of the shortest, and guess who wrote it? One of my favorite Pastors-Tim Keller surprise, surprise.

Here is a one sentence summary of the work:

Stop thinking like its all about the alreadys(Those already the church), and focus more on the not yets(people not yet part of the kingdom).

Here is a good example from the paper:
“Now the culture’s story is– a) to be free and self-created and authentic (theme of freedom from oppression), and b) to make the world safe for everyone else to be the same (theme of inclusion of the ‘other’; justice). To “re-tell” means to show how only in Christ can we have freedom without slavery and embracing of the ‘other’ without injustice.”

If you still think that people need to act like you in order to fit into your church, I beg you, please repent. Open you Bibles to 1st Corinthians 9, and ask the Spirit to give you a heart like Paul has in that passage. While your at it, pray that everyone else will get a heart like Paul as well.

Dr. Tim Keller Why Plant Churches?

In reality I think most guys in ministry are the same as I am, they have certain rock stars, or Celebrity pastors they look up too. I’d rather not call them idols for obvious reasons.

Some guys I know really like D.A. Carson, others like John Piper, others John McArthur, and the list can go on and on.

So here is the question: Is it good to have these Church Celebrities? Do we do churches an injustice when we just focus on one of their leaders? Tim Keller is not the only leader in Redeemer, and Mar’s Hill has 24 elders, but most people just think of Mark Driscoll.

I have friends that visited Redeemer and they said that Keller is sort of whisked away, after he is done preaching.

Here is another question do having these celebrities send a message to other pastors that success in ministry is truly attained when you and your church are on the national stage?

Id love to know if other men in church leadership struggle with these questions.

Mark Driscoll points to the signs of burnout.

David Fairchild talks about the Top 25 Church planting churches

And in other news:

CNN reports that the N-word was buried this week.