HOW BIG A CHURCH SHOULD BE AND WHY MEGA CHURCHES ARE BAD

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Luke 9:14

14. There were about five thousand men.  Jesus told his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each."

Mark 6:40

39. Then Jesus directed them to have the people sit in groups on the grass.  40.  So, they sat down in groups of a hundred or fifty. 

I believe Jesus was showing us how many people he would like to see comprising one church community, and it's between fifty to one hundred.  Why would this be?  Because of pride.  If any more people come together, then they divide themselves into smaller groups and become rivals, and then jealousies start.  What's more, the pastors start thinking they're more than Jesus meant them to be; and they become proud, and the word of God suffers. 

The race today has been to build mega churches where Christians become little more than an audience for stage performances.  Church for these people is long gone, and theater conducted by a few "popular" people is all that's left.  It's devilish, and yet, for many, this is today's church: secularized, proud, selfish, greedy for gain, and competitive.  Church has become a bastion of self-righteous sinfulness. 

I learned firsthand about this very thing, and I'm well aware of its evils; and I wrote about it in my book: Abba's House, Dr. Ron Phillips, and The Silence of the Spirit. 

A group of fifty to one hundred is like a very large family that you can get to know; and there's no need to divide people. Jesus said, "Call no man on earth your father, leader, teacher, for you have one, and it is the Lord." (Matthew 23:8-10)

When Jesus fed the thousands, two different times, he didn't have to say, "Have the people sit down in groups of fifty to a hundred," and he could have just instructed the whole crowd to sit down at once.  I believe it was to instruct his body on the appropriate size for future churches.  It is a size that is manageable but that discourages pride and rivalry and over-much money coming in and over-much money needed; because when you need millions to run a church, then fear about money enters in; and craving for riches comes in; and giving too much honor to one man enters in; and the word of God becomes second to it all, which is idolatry. 

As well, the temptation to form a worldly hierarchy enters; and I believe, through research, that this was one of the evils of the cult of the Nicolaitans that Jesus said in Revelations 2 that he hated. He had already told his followers in Matthew 23:11 that the greatest among you shall be least of all and servant of all; and worldly hierarchies are the opposite of Jesus’s way. 

Jesus told us, his followers, that we are all equal; and those who think otherwise mistake the matter, both in thinking they are greater, or in thinking they are less than someone else within the church body. We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves and have peace with one another, without provoking jealousy and envy in one another; but large churches, needing so much money and organization and performances and security, do exactly that. 

Read my book:  Abba's House, Dr. Ron Phillips, and the Silence of the Spirit for real-life proof of all I'm saying. Fifty to one hundred people comprising a church-gathering prevents and resolves many problems for churches today; and it allows for the pastor and his family to have rest and peace in good proportion too. We are called in 1Timothy 2:2 to live quiet, humble lives in godliness and dignity.