pat loughery

It’s obvious, if you’ve been to a variety of church gatherings, that the size of the gathering radically impacts its dynamic. For us, this is certainly true as well.

The church planting training stuff generally tells you not to begin meeting publicly until you have gathered some 40 people together, or elese it doesn’t “feel like church” to guests who would come to check you out. I think there’s some wisdom in this, even though we went public much smaller than that.

We’ve been plugging in more people this summer and fall though, and we’ve moved from averaging a bit under 20 through the summer to low 30s this fall. Yesterday we had 32, and the dynamic with that number is fun. Worship changes from more intimate to a bit more celebrative; there’s a sense of joy because “the gang’s all here”, people are asking each other out for lunch afterwards.

Part of this is happening because one of our families has been gone for more than a month – he went to help with disaster relief efforts in Florida after the hurricanes; she and the kids went back to visit family in Japan. It’s nice to see the joy that the church felt at their return.

32 and it feels rockin’. Wonder what it will feel lik when we add a few more families, break the “40 barrier”, and now we’re a “real church” :-).