If you’re under 200 as a church, please don’t do THIS
Since my book, No Silver Bullets was published, I’ve received a ton of questions around mid-size communities. And what I’ve come to discover is that they’re not effective if you’re a church of under 200 people.
Mid-Size Communities, or MSCs for short, are critical if you’re over 200, but unnecessary if you’re under 200.
Why?
Well, before I answer why, here are a few bullet points on what they are in the first place:
- Mid-Size Communities are groups of twenty to fifty people who journey together to celebrate, grow, and be a blessing to those they live, work, and play with.
- A community that is formed around a common affinity, geography, or societal need—and this gathering point becomes the mission focus of the group. They are a community on mission with one another.
- A community where you belong before you believe. It’s not just a scheduled meeting, either. Typically, there is a large group gathering every other week, with smaller groups for study and get-togethers in the off weeks.
- Not a large small group, nor a small weekend gathering.
- An open, inclusive, and safe environment where friendships are formed and you can discover who you could potentially grow a “deeper” relationship with.
I get that this might be a new concept for you, so be sure to read through chapter 4 of No Silver Bullets to get a fuller grasp of the concept, but here’s why they’re unnecessary if you’re under 200 people.
You already have natural social space environments!
When you’re under 200 people, everyone knows each other. You can tell when a newcomer walks into the church, and there are natural environments and spaces for newcomers to get connected into the life of the church.
In addition, when you’re under 200 people, it’s easy to organize and participate in missional opportunites to serve your community and evangelize the lost.
However, once you’re over 200 people, both assimilation and missional engagement become a lot more difficult to do. Why? It’s because those natural social space environments begin to disappear! And that’s precisely when you should begin thinking about starting mid-size communities or other similar social space environments in your church.
If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about when I reference the social space, be sure to read this quick synopsis of the concept.
So if you’re under 200 people as a church, please don’t start mid-size communities.
Honestly, it’ll just over complicate what you’re doing. The point of mid-size communities is to get people into community and get them on mission. So instead of adding one more thing, just equip and empower your groups to notice the newcomers, invite them into their groups, and be a BLESSing into the community.
But once you approach the 200 barrier (or if you’re already passed it), you absolutely need to leverage the social space environment. Now, you obviously don’t need to use the MSC concept. But if you’re looking for a way to scale community life, close the back door, raise and release equippers, create a new level of leadership where you have leaders leading leaders, and increase the missional engagement in your church, then it’s something you need to look into deeper.
If, after you’ve dug through chapter 4 of No Silver Bullets, you’re looking for help on how to implement them in your church, just shoot me a message and let’s talk. I’d love to help.