Not long ago, someone was expressing some appreciation for a program that our church was offering and I jokingly said, "That's what we try to be...a full service church." But it wasn't true. We really don't try to be and, for most churches, that isn't a great goal. Somewhere along the way we got the idea that to be a great church we needed to provide a ministry or program for every request that came in. In other words, the goal was to become a spiritual shopping mall.

It is easy to be jealous of the menu of all the services that mega churches provide and think that is why they are a big church. But there is a flaw in that thinking. Recent research has found that the favored size of a congregation is 200 (give or take).  BUT the amount of programs desired by people would take a church of at least 2,000 to provide. See the problem?

Since we are in the life transformation business, we are better off getting really clear about why we are here and what our mission is first. Once that is not only clear but embraced and compelling, we need to plan only those things that help us pursue that goal, allowing God the room and environment to work. We don't have to provide everything to everybody or be the primary social center. We do have to align all our efforts in connecting people to God.