I recently entered into an online conversation concerning MegaChurches. As a member of a MegaChurch, I made the following statement:

“What [my wife and I] miss about the smaller church: the sense of community - a core element of the biblical Christian culture. Even though the senior pastor knows us by name, we miss the ability to sit down to visit with him in casual conversation. Even as a member of one of the (over) 1,000 cell groups, one wouldn’t usually have the broad circle of personal relationships within the church that we had in [a previous] 500 member church. True community is missing.”

His response:

“… I would venture to say the “sense of community” is more of a perception issue than a reality, b/c most people can only have 8 to 12 meaningful relationships that would constitute “community.” What I think people perceive in a smaller church is recognizing the faces of practically everyone, and having a personal connection with the preaching pastor. What people can also have in a larger church is the same number of meaningful relationships for a sense of community, but not likely to have the personal connection with the preaching pastor.”

Well, as they say, “Perception is reality.”

I really think his definition of community is too narrow. I believe “community” encompasses those one interacts with in a meaningful way. One person may not be in my inner circle of friends, but because I know them I can offer a word of encouragement, or a compliment, or a meaningful touch. I can’t offer those things to one I see often, but don’t know personally. Community should also include those who are involved in the same activities I’m involved in, such as a church work project or a ministry outreach. When my wife and I taught 10-12 year olds in a weekly evening class, we counted their parents as part of our community. Those parents weren’t in our inner circle of friends, but we interacted with them concerning their children, and affected their lives because of our involvement in the class.

In a local (secular) community I may have regular interaction with certain members of society… shop keepers, teachers, service people. In my job I work with others who join together to attain to certain goals. These are part of my community, but not my inner circle. Given time, some may enter my inner circle because of shared beliefs, interests or experiences.

Currently I regularly travel to a specific client site and stay (usually) at a particular hotel. There are a few people at the hotel I come in contact with on a regular basis. Opportunities to positively affect their lives now appear each time I interact with them because of our regular contact and because I have taken the time to learn their names and hold (brief) conversations with them… taking time to find out a little bit about them. They (in my estimation) have become part of my community.

At one client site I spent a lot of time with a counter-part from their company. In the course of his career he had moved his family from Arkansas to Tucson, then to Atlanta. When they chose a church, they chose one close to their house so they could be more involved. A benefit of that community to him was this… Other trustworthy adults were now involved (peripherally) in his children’s lives. He was benefiting from their interest, observations and input, and felt his children were gaining an understanding that they were responsible to the community, as a whole.

Since residing in Tulsa, we’ve been members of two churches. One of the main reasons we switched to our current church (after 3 years) was Community. We found it difficult to develop community relationships at the first church. We tried… but there’s only one person from that church I still communicate with. Diane came away with no friends, and there was no draw for our high school kids. Our children were attending school at the MegaChurch. That’s where their circles of relationship were, so we decided to go with that. In retrospect, that was a good decision, for the children. This move completed their community, which was a valuable asset concerning realms of influence. Diane and I became a part of a cell group, but it finally fizzled and died. (That group always felt like washing your feet with your socks on… something was never really fulfilling about it.)

Our community relationships at the MegaChurch began to develop around the school (not through cell groups or other means). Diane would participate when parents provided a senior class lunch… We began to develop relationships around the weekly football games. That’s actually where our current community of core relationships started. They were a result of the football games. We had a common interest with others there… our children… our boys. That environment provided: a common interest; fun; excitement; regularity (during football season). Football was our “interest group”, so to speak.

The MegaChurch can:

• run an excellent pre-K through 12 school with sports programs that truly compete with the public schools, and offer college-level high school courses
• develop bus and street ministries to reach over 3,000 children per week
• own a campground where underprivileged children can be sponsored for life-changing weeks during the summer
• build an outreach center in a crime-ridden section of the city that the police point to as a primary reason the local crime rate dropped two years straight
• fund missionaries and Bible Schools in over 150 nations
• provide telecasts and streaming video to penetrate the Islamic nations with the Gospel
• and more…

What the MegaChurch struggles to provide is Community.

Regular contact with people will open the door for significant interaction. My personal experience tells me that my opportunities for touching others in a meaningful way, and allowing others to touch me, were far greater in a church of 500 than they are now in a church of 14,000.

Note: I believe we can provide the benefits and influence of the MegaChurch through a network of community churches who band together to pool resources for the purpose of impacting the city and the world. The obstacle here… it must be accomplished through a spirit of cooperation and teamwork - characteristics easily found in a MegaChurch with specific leadership in place, but hard to obtain when multiple congregations come together with the intent to act as “one”.