For where two or three are gathered together
in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.
Matthew 18:20
I was raised in a very small
conservative Southern Baptist church a few miles from our home. And often times
I would go with my grandmother to her church, which was very similar to my own.
Both churches had less than two hundred members. You could have combined both
churches and still not have filled one of their sanctuaries. Everybody knew
everybody, and I felt like I was home when I was there. I loved the church I
grew up in and find myself missing it more and more with each passing day.
I am now a member of a much larger
Southern Baptist church in the same area as the one that I grew up in. What
made us leave that quaint little church nearly ten years ago I’ll never know.
But I miss it. I feel that it was the size of the church that made it so
special. When your church is so small, it is almost like the whole congregation
is just one big, happy family. You know each other’s needs and you all work
together to meet those needs. You are there for one another. If something
happens, it doesn’t take long for everybody in the church to know about it.
We have been at the church where we
are now for almost ten years now. Even after that length of time, I still do
not know everybody’s names. And I am constantly discovering new people that I
did not even know attended our church—people that have been members of our
church for years. I find it difficult to be a functioning church family when it
is virtually impossible to know every member of that family. It is sometimes a
little strange when a name you have never even heard before is mentioned on the
prayer list. My mom is constantly taking out the church directory to see what
so-and-so looks like. Or she will often ask me “Do you know who they are”? It
actually can be quite discouraging at times.
I can remember going to my
grandmother’s little country church as a kid and being known by every member
there, even though I did not live in the area or attend their church on a
regular basis. And they did not know me as “Sue Ann’s grandson;” they knew me
as Tommy. There was even one lady that called me “Little George” after my
father. While I didn’t particularly care for the nickname, it gave me a sense
of comfort to know that the people there were so personable. I felt like they
cared about me as a person, and not just because my grandmother was a member of
their church. You don’t get that feeling at larger churches.
I feel that churches nowadays are
more concerned about numbers than they are about serving God and serving each
other. When you visit one of these new mega churches, they have no way of
knowing you were even there until they find the slip that you filled out and
put in the offering plate. If you were to visit my grandmother’s church or the
little church I grew up in, you would be greeted by every member, know their
names and the names of all of the children and grandchildren (and probably even
the name of the dog), and know their occupation and where they live all before
you leave to go the restaurant that day. It would feel more like a family
reunion than your first visit to a new church, and that’s exactly the way that
it should feel.
About a year ago, the interim pastor
of our church talked about accountability within the church. He said that the
one major flaw in mega churches is that it is virtually impossible to have
accountability within those churches, if only for the fact that it is virtually
impossible for everybody to know everybody within those churches. Not only is
accountability important, but I feel that a church family should be able to
walk the journey of faith together. And you cannot walk together if you do not
know each other. It is critical that members within the same church have
relationships with one another, and that is virtually impossible within larger
churches.
Maybe I am taking Matthew 18:20 too
literally, but I long for the days of the little wooden church out on the hill.
I am tired of being discouraged because I cannot find a likeminded person within
my own church. Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider one another to provoke
unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching.” I find it hard to believe that God ever
intended for his people to go to church just for the preaching. I believe He
intended for His people to know one another, love one another and to love and
serve Him together. But how is that
possible if we do not even know each other’s names? That is why I believe that
it is imperative we return to the days of the little old wooden church out on
the hill.
