How big should a group be?

I had a lady in Ohio come out of her chair to disagree with me at this point. “I disagree, Josh. I like big groups.” “How big?” I followed up. “About forty.” Pretty big by my standards, but, let’s go with that. Not all groups have to be the same size. It is O.K. to have some big groups. God has gifted different people with different kinds of giftedness. Let’s go with forty. But, let’s suppose she doubles every two years or less. Let’s suppose she does it twice in the next four years. How many will she have in four years if she doubles twice? About one hundred and sixty. That is not a small group any more. It is a church. It is about twice the size of the average church in America.

But it is not likely it will get that size. The likelihood is that growth will stall long before it reaches one hundred and sixty, or even half that size. That is not to say all groups have to be the same size. It is O.K. to have smaller groups and larger groups. Some teachers are very talented, not only with teaching, but also with organizing and setting up care groups and sub-groups and teams and a whole organizational structure. I never was very good with that, but I have known teachers that have.

The church is like a tree. A tree has a certain balance about it, but it is not the symmetry that an engineer would produce. Every limb is not the same size. There are big branches and smaller branches. So it is with the body of Christ. There are bigger groups and smaller groups, but all of them must buy into the vision of growing and dividing, growing and dividing, growing and diving.

I talked to a teacher recently who said he had reproduced his group four times in the last year. Each group has close to forty, as does his group. He is doubling groups using groups of forty to do it. Pretty big by my standards, but he is doing it. Good for him. We don’t all have to be of the same size. We do have to embrace the vision of doubling groups.