I'm amazed at how the church is constantly reinventing itself in new forms. At Fairhaven, we're obviously following a megachurch model, as our community has grown to several thousand. Yet across town, there's a church called Apex, a large church in its own right, which borrowed a model from overseas (or at least that's my understanding) and is planting a network of almost self-governing house churches. These house churches teach, baptize, serve communion, fellowship, and accomplish almost all the ecclesiastical functions that were normally reserved for the traditional church. We're launching a satellite church, following yet another model first introduced by North Coast Church in San Diego. Last week, I read about microchurches. That was a new one for me. These churches start small and stay small; not that they don't want to reach people, but that as they do, they intentionally spin off other small churches:
Microchurches have been around since New Testament days but have become more popular in the past decade. Though the groups differ widely in their practices, the majority serve less than 100 members, typically don't own the building where they meet, often practice nondenominational evangelism and intentionally offer believers a worship atmosphere unlike that of established churches. Many of the groups wish to remain small and will plant a new congregation if numbers grow too large.
"People are yearning for a more intimate type of fellowship that they, in many cases, did not find in the very large church," said Carol Childress, founder of FrameWorks, a church consulting firm based in Texas. "In the course of one generation, as a culture here in the United States, we made a 180-degree turn - from valuing strong individuals to searching for a sense of community."
The key is community. No matter what model you choose, people want to feel connected to a church. They don't want to come to a church, they want to belong to a church. They want relationships, support, friendship and someone who knows their name. To the end that you can do that effectively--connect people to a real, authentic relationship with God and with others, then I don't think it matters which model you choose. In fact, I think it's cool that so many models and so many forms exist from which people can choose.
