vendredi 26 novembre 2004
Big churches vs Small churches?
Neely has a point in regards to statements made about big churches.
We all need to respect each others' church communities. Big churches are not just places where lukewarm Christians come every Sunday only to say that they went to church and to spend the rest of the week doing their own thing. Usually a big church is made up of smaller communities of people who have chosen to come together to partake in fellowship with one another outside of meeting with their small groups. I have on more than one occasion been told that a big church is not a real church because it is so large that you can never find "true" fellowship there. These people have not really taken a good look at what makes up a larger church and have already made a judgment as to what it is made up of. Mind you, I am not saying that everyone from a small church does this; I would actually like to think that it is only a small group of people.
Last night, we discussed James 2 (Good job by the way Neely :) ). In that chapter, it talks about not showing favouritism and how our faith is displayed through our actions. Are we not showing favouritism when we say that because a church is larger it is not a good church because it cannot be a true community so smaller churches are better, or that because a church is bigger it is growing more so a smaller church is not as good because they are not growing? Are we not all a part of the body of Christ regardless of the size of our church?! Are we really showing that we have faith and truly believe in the God who has shown us such grace and mercy by attacking our brothers and sisters in Christ, over all things the size of their church?! God doesn't judge us in regards to the size of our church, so why should we? He judges us based on what is going on in our hearts.
Thank you Neely for bring to light such an important topic that I think doesn't get addressed enough.
Libellés : church
