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Visiting Churches

Reflecting on Church #19: Having God’s Perspective

Small Churches versus Bigger Churches

With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #19.

We’ve visited many small churches on our journey. Except for this one, all these tiny congregations desperately desired to grow numerically. But is this God’s perspective?

52 Churches: A Yearlong Journey Encountering God, His Church, and Our Common Faith

Increasing the number of people in a church is partly for survival, since a church needs to maintain a core base of people to function and pay their bills. However, striving to be larger also buys into society’s unshakable conviction that bigger is better.

Yet evaluating the significance of a church based on their size is man’s perspective. Whereas God’s perspective judges success by a different standard.

I suspect that from God’s point of view, it’s not numeric size that matters. Instead a kingdom focus—one that values unity and spiritual depth—is more important.

This pastor is one man who truly understands this. His focus is on growing the kingdom of God, not the size of his congregation. His view is so refreshing.

He wants to help all of Jesus’ church, not just one branch. We need more ministers like this and more churches with this perspective.

[See my reflections about Church #18 and Church #20 or start with Church #1.]

My wife and I visited a different Christian Church every Sunday for a year. This is our story. Get your copy of 52 Churches today, available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

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