Why Satan fears small churches more than megachurches
by Tim Chester
Here's a quote from Organic Church (p 211-212) by Neil Cole. It's a story that made me cry when I first read it.
While doing some teaching in Japan, I had a dream that Heather, my daughter, started a church. In the dream, a room was full of young people who were all seriously worshiping God. When I returned from the trip, I mentioned it to her just to let her know that she was on my mind and in my dreams while I was away.
The next day she said, 'Dad, my friends all want to do it!' 'Do what?' I asked. 'Start a church.' I told her that she would have to do most of the work, and I would coach and lead only a little. She said that was fine. The next day she arranged a house to meet in, picked a night of the week, and found a worship leader; flyers were soon being passed out to friends on campus.
After the church had been meeting for several months, I met with these students and we all sang praises to the Lord. I felt the Lord's pleasure. I asked the students what was the biggest church they had ever been to. Living in Southern California there are many options of megachurches, and a number of churches were mentioned, ranging in size from two thousand attendees to more than fifteen thousand.
I then told them that I think Satan is more intimidated by this little church of fifteen high school kids than by any of those Godzilla-sized churches. They all sort of chuckled and looked around the room at one another with smiles.
I showed them why I thought this way: 'How many of you think you could start a church like one of those megachurches?' No one raised a hand. I asked, 'How many of you think you could start a church like this one?' and all raised their hands. I asked them to look around the room at all the raised hands, and I said with a new found soberness, 'I assure you, Satan is terrified by this.'
Small Churches
Hello,
My name is David Dobert,I am part of a small house church in Troy,NY.
The reason I would agree with the small church rather than the large mega-church, well actually there are many reasons.
First, This is the new testament model. The early churches met in homes. This is partly because it was easier to avoid detection. The early church was heavily persecuted and those that attended we're fearful for good reason, to be seen as a christian was a death sentence.
Second,
The early church emphasized the importance of intimacy. They were part of each others lives and depended on one another, don't forget to confess Christ not only could get you killed but it also got you thrown out of the temple which in turn made it unlawful for people to associate with you.
Third,
Jesus sent His disciples off two by two he didn't send them as one large group. This was partly so they could cover larger areas
but I believe it was also so they would become more dependent on Him rather than each other.Large groups become easy to get lost in making it easier to look to the stronger minded few for direction rather than to God and His word. This makes it easier also for church abuse to take place because intimacy is often sacrificed and replaced by bureaucracy, the chosen few often become the leaders and the people often blindly follow rather than search the scriptures and be led by God's Holy Spirit.
Well there are many other things I could say but being that this is my first post I think I'll leave it at that.
In Christ,
Dave Dobert
I can't agree more
I remember Nicky Gumbel saying in one of his Alpha course presentations that the church has become like a football match with a handful of players sweating it out on the field watched by thousands of spectators who are desperately in need of a workout.
I believe megachurches generally thrive on the exceptional giftedness of the minority (e.g. the charismatic senior pastor, the professional worship leader and team), which is the "key success factor" for the numerical growth of the congregation. But this is exactly the thing that works against raising up enough people from the congregation who would believe that they can plant a church; they always seem to be second-rate or not good enough when compared to the super-stars occupying the front of the auditorium. So much for the "one another" and "each other" passages in Paul's letters.
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