Shrinking the church for Jesus
Tim Suttle has written a provocative column for the Huffington Post. He writes:
Pastors and churches spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year attending conferences, buying books, hiring consultants, advertisers and marketers, all to try and accomplish one thing: to increase attendance -- to be a bigger church.I'm absolutely convinced this is the wrong tack.
Success is a slippery subject when it comes to the Church. That our ultimate picture of success is a crucified Messiah means any conversation about success will be incompatible with a "bigger is better" mentality. Yet, bigger and better is exactly what most churches seem to be pursuing these days: a pursuit which typically comes in the form of sentimentality and pragmatism.
I suspect Suttle is speaking primarily to an evangelical audience, but what do readers think about applying his ideas to mainline congregations?
