Is A Big Church A Better Church?

I want to give you a serious warning about megachurches. In Acts chapter 20:28-30, Paul is talking to the elders at Ephesus and says, "I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them."

That's not a warning for the first century church only. That's happening right now, in plenty of churches, including some of the biggest ones in the country.

I think about the megachurches. And I want to ask a real question, not a rhetorical one. Is a church of five thousand people actually able to function as a New Testament church?

A pastor is supposed to shepherd the flock God gave him. So how does one man shepherd five thousand people? Does he know their names? Can he sit with them when a marriage is falling apart, or when someone gets a bad diagnosis, or when a family is grieving? He can't.

But some would counter that statement with, "But that's why there are associate pastors. That's why there are small groups. That's why there are small group leaders." That's a rationalization, not an answer. It's just an excuse to justify one man being a "pastor" of five thousand people. That's not an honest answer. That's a recitation of the organization chart of the church.

When a church gets that large, it stops functioning like a church and starts functioning like a business. A five-thousand-seat building costs real money to run. Lights, sound, staff, the whole facility. And the only way that money comes in is if the seats stay full and the people in them keep giving. So the pressure on the pulpit is obvious, even if nobody says it out loud.

Can that pastor preach on sin? Can he preach on hell, and judgment, and the need for repentance? Because if he does, and people don't want to hear it, attendance drops. And if attendance drops from five thousand to twenty-five hundred, that's half the revenue gone. It takes money to run a company, and that's what a lot of these places have become. They use Jesus to draw people in, and the less they actually preach about Him, the easier their job gets.

Now, people go to church for real reasons. They've had a hard week. They got bad news from a doctor. They want comfort. That's fair, and church should be a place where a hurting person finds support. But that support isn't supposed to come from a sermon designed to make you feel good.

A sermon that's actually preaching the gospel is going to convict you. It's not going to leave you feeling worse than when you walked in, but it's going to press on your sin and your need to follow Christ more closely. I need to hear that as much as anybody. I'm not standing outside this looking in.

But when a church runs on five thousand people's tithes, the pastor has to watch what he says. He can't afford to offend anybody, especially not the people writing the big checks. So the sermons drift. They become topical talks on how to feel good, how to manage your money, how to stop worrying, and how to live your best life. That's not the gospel anymore. That's a TED talk that happens to open with a Bible verse.

And I'll say this plainly. If that's the church you're in, leave. You're not helping yourself or your family by staying in a building where the man behind the pulpit is really just a motivational speaker with a sound system. And if that's genuinely the kind of talk you're after, you don't even need a church for it. You can get the same thing free on YouTube. Save your tithe, because if that's what it's funding, it isn't funding a church.

Listen to what your pastor is actually preaching. If it isn't the gospel, week after week, that's not a small thing. Staying there will cost you something spiritually. Find a church where the preaching might send you home convicted, driving you to your knees, asking God to forgive you. That wouldn't be a bad Sunday. That would be the point.