This sort of challenge isn’t unprecedented in NSW.  John Spooner’s Archbishops of Railway Square : a history of Christ Church, St Laurence (Sydney: Halstead, 2002; ISBN 1875684557; at pp.130-132) briefly outlines C.M. Statham’s response to the Influenza outbreak of 1919.

Perhaps I should explain my earlier comment. It sounds like I don’t care about anyone in my church!

At the moment, we seem to be averaging around 30 or so visitors every week. I know that’s abnormal, but that’s where my comment is coming from. Our church is in the city, so we come from all over Sydney. This makes it harder to get to know each other. I have a full-time job and I fit ministry into my non-work time. I am drowning.

So the idea of meeting with just two people each week, and concentrating perhaps on one other thing (like evangelism), is incredibly appealing. I might not feel so guilty about all the things I’m currently not doing but feel I am supposed to be doing (another problem, I know).

But then, I prefer fewer and deeper relationships. I know other people are different; some thrive amongst large numbers.

I’m interested in whether others feel this tension (and what you do about it - especially as you get older and meet more and more people!).

Tony, I hate it when you left-field thinkers force these thought experiments on us. Largely because they often make us see our blind spots or our inflexibility.

However I also hesitate because of the simplicity with which you present the pyramid ministry structure. It sounds so easy. But of course, it does not take into account the enormous ‘decay’ along the way. The man who turns out to be unable or unwilling. The person who gets seriously sick or dies. The bloke who moves away for work (good for the kingdom that he’s trained, but a spanner in your works)

It’s the same when the approach is applied to church growth - such mathematical possibility exercises almost never factor in death rates which can be in excess of birth rates in some place, not to mention incompetence and unwillingness - the ‘wastage’ due to different aspects of sin. Factor it in, and it’s not quite so simple!

But in trying to engage with the experiment, would you still envisage the pastor preparing a sermon to be delivered electronically? As Emma said, that (for want of a better term) ‘expert’ level of teaching might be missed by relying only on personal Bible study.

Some problems with Tony’s model:

1) Time. It presumes that those 10 most committed men will have the time to do all the visitations. But in this world of blackberrys, laptops & teleconferences, even though they’d be stuck at home, work would still go on, and the grind of being out on church business 4-5 nights a week would soon get to you.
2) Distance. Tony’s model would probably work okay in a regional town or suburban church setting, where most of the congregation lives close to each other. But running it in a church like mine, where people from all 4 language groups often travel considerable distances to come to church, would be more difficult.

At the end, the people from the congregations probably would want to start meeting together again. If for no other reason than the chance to rebuild relationships and remind themselves that they’re part of something bigger. In the end, face-to-face contact still matters.

Despite my nay-saying, thanks for the post. It did get me to think about the issue.

Pastors of (_underground) churches in Ch*na are rarely ever leaders of just one large group. Instead they oversee multiple small groups in a relatively large areas, having to travel extensively (often on foot or by bicycle) to teach and encourage believers meeting privately in homes.

In the UK I meet so many keen Christians who want to go to China with the intention of starting up new churches, doing evangelism, drawn by the statistics of large numbers of believers.

Instead, what is sorely needed are trainers who can coach these pastors to teach the bible clearly so that they are encouraged to carry on in the ministry faithfully.

Many of these believers come to faith not through big rallys, huge conferences or organised networks but through personal testimony of Jesus and the cross. In God’s wisdom, 1-to-1 ministry has become the very foundation for gospel and church growth in Ch*na.

Hi Tom

Yes, you’ve got the point—it’s not a matter alternatives, and I’m certainly not suggesting we scrap meeting together as a large group! But just to take the example I used in the thought experiment: if we believe (as I think most of us do) that fathers should be leading their families spiritually, how can we train and encourage men to do this? Our minds seem to default to programmatic approaches (run a seminar, preach on it in church, etc.), and these are useful and good! But I don’t think we put nearly enough time and effort into personal work—into putting time into individuals, and then training and helping them to do likewise with others.

TP