What are your thoughts on churches with 10,000+ members in your personal experiences and connections, are these people being discipled?

These two questions were asked by students at Columbia international University.  www.ciu.edu

1) God must like congregations of all sizes since churches ranging from less than 10 to over 100,000 do exist.

2) All of the largest congregations in the world are outside the United States and yet most congregations around the world are quite small (less than 50).

3) I am not convinced that size is the critical factor in effectiveness of community or disciple making.  I have observed some very unhealthy small congregations and some very fruitful large congregations.  The focus of the leadership, the values guiding how the church invests its time, money and communication, the quality of the personal and group prayer life, the level of joy in the group life — and I am sure there are other elements — these have more to do with impact and community than the number of people.