How small can a church be and still be a church?

[OakWood]

 

 

you can build a building and go there to pray and worship singly.

 

 

 

 

 

a  small church we saw near Marblemount, Washington on the way to Vancouver Canada seats 4 comfortably and 8 all crunched up.

 

i think if a single person came here to worship and pray it would still be a church.

 

 

Where 2 or 3 are gathered....

 

Well then it's a "prayer hut" until one more person squeezes in, then it's a "mega prayer hut"

 

One more and a tent at the back to house the pastor, and you have a church! 

 

Gives a new meaning to a "church plant". Load it on the back of a pickup, throw it off at the nearest corner, and you have a church. 

 

 

Mobile, inflatable churches... now that's a business idea!

[other one]

the little thing was really pretty nice inside.  i don't have the inside pictures loaded on photobucket and it would take too long to find them in the cloud with the other 34,000 pictures there.....

[Fez]

 

 

 

you can build a building and go there to pray and worship singly.

 

 

 

 

 

a  small church we saw near Marblemount, Washington on the way to Vancouver Canada seats 4 comfortably and 8 all crunched up.

 

i think if a single person came here to worship and pray it would still be a church.

 

 

Where 2 or 3 are gathered....

 

Well then it's a "prayer hut" until one more person squeezes in, then it's a "mega prayer hut"

 

One more and a tent at the back to house the pastor, and you have a church! 

 

Gives a new meaning to a "church plant". Load it on the back of a pickup, throw it off at the nearest corner, and you have a church. 

 

 

Mobile, inflatable churches... now that's a business idea!

 

Yep, and without the breath of the Spirit they deflate.....

[Fez]

the little thing was really pretty nice inside.  i don't have the inside pictures loaded on photobucket and it would take too long to find them in the cloud with the other 34,000 pictures there.....

So it's your fault the cloud is so slow!

[Guest man]

Yep, and without the breath of the Spirit they deflate.....

 

 

 

As does any institution that calls itself a church.

[other one]

 

the little thing was really pretty nice inside.  i don't have the inside pictures loaded on photobucket and it would take too long to find them in the cloud with the other 34,000 pictures there.....

So it's your fault the cloud is so slow!

 

probably so....

[Fez]

 

Yep, and without the breath of the Spirit they deflate.....

 

 

 

As does any institution that calls itself a church.

 

Which was my point! 

[missmuffet]

 

you can build a building and go there to pray and worship singly.

 

 

 

 

 

a  small church we saw near Marblemount, Washington on the way to Vancouver Canada seats 4 comfortably and 8 all crunched up.

 

i think if a single person came here to worship and pray it would still be a church.

 

 

Where 2 or 3 are gathered....

 

Yes man

[Fez]

 

I put this into General Discussion because although it's a serious question, it's also meant to be a bit of fun too. I'd like to see some creative ideas here.

 

Imagine that you discovered a new country (like the North American pioneers), or you were forced by war or famine to flee to some remote wilderness and build a new community with just friends and family, or maybe several families.

You set up a new community. You build dwellings and you use local resources - wood and stone. You grow crops and maybe build a village.

You decide to build a church. Maybe it's quite a big church, maybe it is little more than a small chapel.

You are all Christians, or maybe the majority of you are. Do you have a pastor or can one of you act as a stand-in pastor?

Your village may be tiny but after a few generations you are expecting it to turn into a town of hundreds or thousands. If your community gets bigger you may have to build several churches or places of worship - perhaps one day, a cathedral may be built.

 

But when you are still small - how many people do you need to attend your place of worship in order to call it a place of worship?

The Bible tells us that when two or more people come together and pray, then God listens. So a church is not one man, but at least two.

But is two enough? What about three? One person can be the pastor (but is really just a prayer leader) and the other two are the congregation.

What about four people? That is even better. What about five or six, then you could have a family together - father, mother and children.

 

My original premise is: What would you do to get your community together as a church? How many do you need before you can be considered to be a church? What would the inside of your humble church be like? Does everyone have somewhere to sit, or is your church so small that everybody has to kneel down?

How small can your church be and still be considered a church?

If your community expands and you can eventually build more places of worship or build bigger churches, at what point do you decide that a church building is full? After twenty people?After fifty people? After a thousand people? You would eventually have to start dividing your community into parishes.

 

But let's go back to the small again. Is my church big enough with just two people in it, or do I need more people to really call myself a church?

If I was to go into town, rent a store front, put up a sign and call it a church, and show up to worship God, I would consider that a church.  I believe the place could hold a handful or a multitude?  Once I open up a house of worship, and make it available to others to come and worship with me, it is a church, even if nobody shows up.

 

I am not so sure about that.

 

One needs to qualify the "worship" part. I have been in buildings full of people calling it the church, and yet could not see it.

 

Unless the Spirit is in the church it is not the church.

[Willa]

The early church consisted mostly of home churches when they were under persecution. 3000 were converted at Pentecost but they had gathered from all over the Mediterranean areas at Jeruselem for the feasts. No doubt not all stayed there with the apostles. A church was also mentioned at Antioch before Peter and Paul took the Gospel to the gentiles.

I am a great believer in home churches or home Bible studies. To me there should be several families involved. Those that are based on a book for study, such as a Navagator bible study, are more successful. Otherwise, meeting together in a larger body assures more orthodox teaching.

I have seen more weird stuff pop up in other home studies. One little guy who was always quiet in church stood up in a home meeting and proclaimed that we are going to hell if we don't believe his teaching. This was reported to the pastor who took care of it. In another church that boke into home studies, the leaders started having envy of other growing groups and party spirit arose. In one they were convinced that my hubby was not a Christian. While he had not become a member of that church, he had been a Christian for 13 years and had led other members of that church to the Lord. It had to do with the spiritual maturity of the leaders. In another a leader said that the blood of Jesus only covers our sins and we are not justified by faith. So I really prefer teaching to be from the pastoral staff of a larger church if a study series is not used. We lay people can come up with some not so bibical notions. Small groups are better suited for prayer and praise, and for perhaps discussing the pastor's sermon. Our wednesday night and sunday night services serve that purpose, allowing for questions, discussion and indivdual prayer. They have between 50 and 200 in attendance.