“‘Bigger is better’ is not always right. We all know big churches that, from our vantage point, don’t look to be preaching the gospel faithfully or ministering the way Christ would want us to minister. But we also don’t want to say that bigger is automatically ‘badder’—that those churches automatically have sold out.” – Kevin DeYoung
In 2012, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, and Kevin DeYoung sat down to talk about how we should think about church size. Chandler was and is the pastor of The Village Church in Texas. A large church by anyone’s definition, The Village’s leaders announced in 2017 that they would transition their five campuses into five autonomous churches. Dever is the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) in Washington, D.C. where attendance averages around 1,000 people. CHBC leaders have made a convictional choice not to hold multiple services, thus capping attendance at the capacity of their auditorium. At the time of this recording, DeYoung was the pastor of University Reformed Church, a congregation of around 500 in East Lansing, Michigan. He has since moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to pastor Christ Covenant Church, a congregation with around 1,800 members.
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