Hello all,
I apologize for not posting in a long time where being on the road and living in and out of hotel rooms has worn me out. Oh did I mention I work 12-13 hour days on top of that? This is not a complaint by any stretch of the imagination. I absolutely love my job where there are two things I think about when I leave the client site: 1) I'm hungry, what do I want for dinner? 2) Sleep, need to go to bed and sleep! So where has my job taken me since my last posting on Nov. 16th? Lets see Union, NJ (the only highlight of that trip was that I got to see Ethan (the best nephew in the world, my sister, and brother in law) Chicago for our annual trainers conference, (its getting cold there!), and then the last two weeks Northern Virginia (Arlington and Fairfax). That was pretty cool where I will post pictures soon of my visit to the Iwo Jima Memorial.
My trip to Northern Virginia was also exciting because I got to visit Mclean Bible Church. It was another one of those megachurches 8,000 people attend I think. Thats pretty small compared to when I visited Willow Creek which had 22,000 attending on the weekend. As much as I enjoyed visiting these megachurches I wondered how does anyone really get plugged in there? I mean how do small groups form? How do you experience intimacy in such a large venue? I am not bashing megachurches but well for you readers out there, whats your take on megachurches? I used to be part of church that growing into a megachurch size and well felt connected only because I knew the Pastoral staff when it was its infant stage if you will. I already knew some people from college and the church didn't feel so big. There is one thing that I was glad to see at Mclean and that was that it had a college ministry with a College Pastor. It seems sometimes churches forget about the college students and well I think thats wrong. College is where students are most vulnerable and impressionable where it could be a turning point whether people grow closer to God or further away from Him. I thank God for the teachers I had when I was in college at the church I attended but was very disappointed when I heard the church was discontinuing the college ministry at that church. They said they wanted to focus on the "Next Generation" which was meaning the high schoolers, middle schoolers, and elementary students. Excuse me but shouldn't college students be included as part of this "Next Generation"? Alright I am getting off my soap box here but something to think about. So readers give me your take on megachurches. What do you think of them? Do you have any stories or experiences of visiting one or attending one?
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2 comments:
Hey! Great to hear from you again!
I completely understand busy... if you look at my blog you'll see a serious lack of posting there for the same reason!
As for megachurches... I have never attended one. I love BVBC now that I'm part of it and starting to be more involved... but when I first started going there I thought it was too large and had even attended because it would be easier to blend in and hide in the crowd. Let me tell you, BVBC is definitely big enough to do that if it is your goal, but it's also small enough to make it more reasonable to plug into ministries although you find there are some you want to do and can't because others are more talented or even those you feel you need to do but don't want to (like me and children's ministries, I don't mind helping from time to time, but I often feel guilted into it). I think in many ways a mega church would be similar. Easy place to hide, many activities to participate in, many more ministry opportunities, but at the same time always someone better to fill the role which can leave someone feeling as though they don't have a purpose in God's family.
I don't know, I have never had much love for the idea of a huge church although I have to admit I would love to attend a service at Willow Creek sometime just because I know some of the progress they have made, but if I had the opportunity to visit I would also make sure I made the time to talk with someone to find out how small groups work for them, etc... I like having the answers to things when I can get them!
I'm rambling, sorry. Talk with you soon, good to hear from you again!
Hugs & Love
I for one don’t like mega churches. It's true they have a lot more resources available to more ministry, but they tend to draw people from other churches because there programs are better and thus they put many smaller churches out of business. They also allow for far too many people to become pew sitters as it is easier in bigger churches to just come to church and be in any ministry. That is not the case in smaller churches as people cannot get lost in the crowd as easily. I know that there are definite times in life when you need to recuperate and not do any ministry as you are feeling burnt out or life is just too much at the moment, however that does not mean you should be that way long periods of time. We are all called to be part of a ministry people just need to pray about it and find out what that is. As for being in a megachurch... technically you're in one any church with populace over 1000 is considered a megachurch. So tell me what do you think about being a megachurch?
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