Big Churches? Yes!

Does the Church need a new strategy for reaching large metropolitan areas? Mobility and anonymity have created problems for church outreach, compounded by rapid population growth and the continued movement of Americans to metropolitan centers (suburban and urban). The Church apparently does not have the finances or manpower to establish a neighborhood geographical parish for every hundred acres that is transformed into a housing tract. There seems to be no effective, all encompassing program for maintaining churches in cities when people move to suburbia. The apartment dweller tends to be a reluctant prospect for the corner church. And rural areas are witnessing more church closings each year; many ministers do not want to live in a rural hamlet and minister “out of the action,” to a small congregation. These facts suggest that the neighborhood geographic parish church can no longer hope to reach all segments of our society with the Gospel.

There is a new movement in American church life that not only cuts across neighborhood boundary lines but also transcends socio-economic barriers and reaches rural as well as urban dwellers. It is the large multi-service church, which offers a diversified program aimed at reaching various segments of the population and ministering to the total man. The large, multi-service church may be part of an emerging strategy that can help evangelize our country.

Churches like these have large staffs. First Baptist in Dallas, for example, which has a weekly Sunday-school attendance of 5,112 (probably the best criterion of size, since a church may have many members but little participation and attendance, and since few churches keep an accurate count of attendance at the morning worship service), has more than one hundred employees.

These large churches offer various services besides preaching and teaching, such as professional counseling, recreation, deaf ministry, foreign-language classes and church services, homes and treatment for alcoholics, senior-citizen homes, day-care centers, halfway homes for released prisoners, homes for unwed mothers, suicide-prevention centers, drug centers, Christian schools (kindergarten through high school), colleges, printing ministries, financial counseling, music lessons, and social activities for single adults. First Baptist in Van Nuys, California (3,167 attendance), lists more than sixty meetings each week in addition to regular services.

The large church usually centers in evangelistic outreach. Highland Park Baptist in Chattanooga, Tennessee (4,935 weekly Sunday-school attendance), which says “soul winning” is its main purpose for existence, last year began a program in which members plan to witness personally to all 322,000 persons in the greater Chattanooga area. Ten of the twenty churches with the largest Sunday schools as listed in Christian Life magazine televise their Sunday-morning service. The main purpose in most of these churches is to present the Gospel to those outside the church.

Roland Allen, an Anglican minister, examined missionary strategy in his book Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? He concluded that the Apostle Paul did not attempt to visit every hamlet but rather established strong centers to disseminate the Gospel. Because he began a strong church in the metropolitan center of Ephesus, the message reached all Asia: “And this took place for two years, so that all inhabited Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). The large church has an outreach similar to that of a powerful television station. A TV station does not establish a tower and station in every small town but covers a large area by means of a strong broadcast signal. Similarly, the large church can reach over wide areas, ministering to people where they are with the Gospel as well as pulling them from long distances to the church.

People will travel as far to church as they travel to work or to buy groceries. Some members of large churches drive thirty or fifty miles one way. Thomas Road Baptist in Lynchburg, Virginia (3,387 attendance), ministers to a large number of people living on farms; some drive fifty miles from areas where rural churches have closed because no pastor was available.

The large church is usually committed to evangelizing the city or metropolitan area, while the small church is limited to a geographical neighborhood. And along with the purpose of reaching the multitudes, the large church has finances and manpower to carry it out. First Baptist in Dallas has divided the city into square-mile sections, with members and deacons assigned to follow up new converts and evangelize prospects within their areas. Landmark Baptist in Cincinnati (4,103 weekly attendance) has more than one hundred Sunday-school buses that fan out into all areas of the city to bring children and adults to church. Several buses travel more than thirty miles one way. Calvary Temple in Denver (2,650 weekly attendance) has the financial base to televise its morning worship service to Denver and into the northern Rocky Mountain area, reaching to the Canadian border. Cathedral of Tomorrow in Akron (attendance 1,430) televises its service to more than 275 different stations.

The large church makes possible the exercising of many spiritual gifts. Each fulltime staff member has a particular ability or strength, called in Scripture a “gift” (Eph. 4:11), that makes his ministry different from all others. The large church with several specialists on its staff can give closer attention to the individual needs of members. At First Baptist in Van Nuys, California, one minister trained in counseling handles psychological problems, while other ministers visit the sick and handle pastoral problems. Youth, music, and education specialists can minister in their particular areas. Southern Baptists have advocated adding one fulltime staff member with the addition of every one hundred attenders. This includes secretaries and custodians, so that a church of one thousand should have a staff of ten.

Business has led in innovation and change among social institutions, followed by government, education, and the Church, in that order, at an interval of three to ten years. Therefore the churches should look at business to see what innovations are on the horizon. The greatest innovation in the business community in recent years has been the principle of the shopping center. Two or more large businesses are located together, along with a group of supporting smaller businesses, with ample parking space. One large business will not draw the crowds as will the multiple-service shopping center. This strongly suggests that the multiple-service large church is a coming thing.

Dancing The Rainbow

sharing covenant

with Rebecca,

grey December cat,

in downhill dance

lichens & moss

surrounded by sun

share covenant too,

afternoon spillings

of energy,

obligations to the Creator

whose rainbow upholds

the scruboak

whose right hand uplifts

the ant

& feeds the zinging

wasp whose covenant

includes the poorest

stone, slowest beetle

& all the flaming nuclear

angels of the sun

among jackpine

& scruboak, we dance

within the rainbow-ring

of sure Promise

F. EUGENE WARREN

Dr. Robert Schuller of Garden Grove (California) Community Church (1,913 attendance) says of the large church:

We are trying to set up here a team management on a large enterprising basis for Jesus Christ. If I am still alive by the year 2000 … I expect to be addressing a group of young ministers and saying to them, “While it is a thrilling thing to feel the power and the impact of the enormously strong church in America today, some of you would never believe that in the 1960s and the early 1970s leaders in the church in America were predicting its demise. They were predicting that the church of the future would be away from ground and buildings into small homes and private cells and commune groups. How wrong they were. Only the established churches with building and staff and people and program can form a base for operation for the generations to come” [Decision, March, 1971].

Following in the steps of the Old Testament prophets, a pastor may feel led to speak out against political corruption, social abuses, and other local sins. Dr. Dallas Billington, minister of Akron (Ohio) Baptist Temple (5,801 attendance), usually comments on the political issues of Akron on the televised Sunday-morning church service. Whether or not one agrees with this practice or his conclusions, the fact is that the community is aware of Billington’s position and politicians usually interact with what he says. If he had only a small church, he probably would not have the ear of the community.

Recently the town council of Lynchburg, Virginia, prepared to vote on a recommendation to loosen restrictions on liquor. The vote was expected to be close. Dr. Jerry Falwell, minister of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, told the council, “The only voice this council will listen to is power. My church has 10,000 members and our town has only 53,000 people. If any council member votes for liquor, I’ll see that you are defeated at the next election.” The vote was 9 to 0 against easing the restrictions.

Emphasis on the large church does not mean neglect of the community church or home Bible-study group. There is a place for both the large and the small gathering of Christians. Balance is needed to see the total picture of God’s strategy for evangelizing an area.

America keeps growing in population and changing in life style. The large church has the flexibility to adapt its ministry to changing needs. It can have the tolerance first to accept, then to incorporate new life styles among its members or innovative methods of ministry.

Two years ago there was one church in America averaging more than 5,000 in Sunday school; last fall seven churches were that large. Within this decade we will probably have more than 200 large churches (that is, churches with average attendance of 2,500 or more), at least one in every large metropolitan area. The seventies is a decade of the rapidly growing metropolis, and also of the large, multi-service church, which attempts to evangelize the entire area with the Gospel and minister to its people’s total needs.

Elmer L. Towns is vice-president and academic dean of the new Lynchburg Baptist College, Lynchburg, Virginia. He previously taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He received the Th.M. from Dallas Seminary.

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