An idea thats been rolling around in my head for a while came up a couple of times in the last couple of days. Once with my friend the rock star and once with my sister who works at a megachurch.
It’s not that earth shattering an idea, and I think I may have stolen it from someone else, but it is a helpful way of looking at church numbers. Plus with my sister at the megachurch talking about it someone might write a book and I want to be able to take credit.
The basic idea is this: In any gathering that calls itself church, there are at least two groups. The first group is smaller. They are people who are committed not just to your gathering but also to the mission of Jesus in your context. They get that church isn’t just about meeting their needs,but that their needs will be met by participating in what God is doing. They care enough to commit what is most valuable to them, be it money or time. We call this group the church.
There is another group that makes up the larger whole. They come to the church. They participate in what the church does. They may contribute financally. They may even be quite vocal and opinionated on church matters, but ultimately, their role is that of an observer rather than a participant. We call this group the audience.
Now, to be clear, the audience isn’t bad. It may contain people who don’t follow Jesus yet, or wounded people who need time and space to heal. There are many valid reasons why people are part of the audience.
The point of drawing the distinction isn’t to force decisions, but to be helpful data in influencing decisions.
When I was in Medicine Hat the church grew in attendence from around 80 people to around 180 people within a few years. Within that the church numbers grew from roughly 50 in the beginning to probably eighty later. The fruit was that we couldn’t pat ourselves on the back to much because while the church had grown, we really needed to invite the audience to become part of our community.
So for friend the worship pastor, does here gear their services toward the church or the audience? He gears toward the church.
Church and audience. Just a helpful question to ask while planning.
If anyone recognizes who I stole this from let me know.
Leave a Reply