Starting a mega church? You don't need Jesus, yes you don't need God.

Did you know that if you want to start a big church, you don't necessarily need God in your service?

Photo from The Thinking Atheist

If you want to have a big congregation, a mega church for example, focus on having a charismatic speaker, excellent musicians, and a power house production team. I am sure people will come to your service. But they are coming not because they are longing for God's Word, and the fellowship of the believers. They are coming just because you made an atmosphere that suits the taste of people.

One of the most heartbreaking goals for most church leaders is to count the number of attendance weekly, and seek for more, and then give little attention to the depth of the spiritual maturity of the flock.

How do you know if your flock is in this direction?

1. If you focus too much on numbers. While it is not wrong to keep a track of the attendance of your flock to evaluate your effectivity and fruitfulness, there is a thin line between counting your attendance for evaluation purposes and counting it for the sake of, "yea we're growing, let's show it to the world by posting it on Facebook, and they'll see how cool we are."

These are people you're ministering to. They are not just numbers. If you want numbers, go work as an auditor, or in a finance department, not a church leader. This is mainly the reason why some churches blatantly proselyte other believers from other churches just to increase their numbers.

Do not always equate your church attendance to the success of your ministry. If that were the basis, then the most successful ministries in the world are the cults.

2. If your messages are becoming man-centered. Have you noticed your messages focusing too much on what God can do in and through your life? There's a lot of truth about that, even Jesus said we can do the same and greater things than He did (John 14). But sadly many preachers overused this phrase. Some have gathered passages from different books in the bible and try to speak of a topic out of the verses they've collected, rather than choosing a passage, studying the passage, meditating on it, and then preach.

It is saddening to know that the take home of many Christians after services today is the question; what will God do in MY life. What does God want for MY life. What blessings will God give ME? I am not saying these questions are wrong. Only the person who asks those questions will know whether his/her heart is right to really seeking God's will. I believe that many Christians have grieved the Holy Spirit by choosing the gift, rather than the giver. Some preachers have thought and taught of God as a means to an end, rather than the end Himself.

Jesus promised success, the real success -not the success in the standards of the world. If you want to know what success really meant for Him, look at His followers. Check out Peter who, traditionally, was crucified upside down. Check out those who were stoned to death. Check out Paul, who was shipwrecked, imprisoned, lashed, and beheaded.

Have we lowered down the standard of becoming a follower of Jesus so that we can have more people to attend our church services? Instead of dying to sin everyday, we preach of cleaning our room everyday, we preach of our dog, our work, more than discussing the Word. Jesus didn't die for anyone so that we can live the life we've always wanted.

3. If your old-timer flock started looking for other regular sunday messages for their spiritual growth. This is scary. If the people in your flock are no longer growing, then what may be the reasons why they choose to stay? Probably, the fellowship/ friends, the food maybe, or they are just being kind to stay with you.

Congratulations, you've made another social-structure where people can go and stay and feel loved! But after the service, there are no expectations of radical dying to sin and living for Jesus.

It is true that you cannot cover everything that your flock needs for their current personal spiritual journey. But if they are not growing at all from your messages, then something is wrong. Are you humble enough to ask those who used to be a regular attendee, and then stopped attending your weekly services, if it's for you as a leader, and the church's improvement?

4. Lastly, if prayer is just an extra, or a thing to do for your team. You know something is wrong when your team is no longer eager to pray. I can't over emphasize this. You know your team spent more time in team building, eating, playing, planning, more than praying.

Have you really considered starting a prayer and fasting with your team? You can measure the dependence of your team to the leading of the Holy Spirit by tracking your time to pray for and with each other.

Let's face it. Many Christian groups seldom spend an hour praying as a team. We even find it hard to pray without the background music we used to hear during prayer meetings.

Conclusion

You don't need God to have a big church. But you need God, the power of the Holy Spirit, to start a movement of people who will daily put to death the selfish and evil desires they have. You need Jesus to satisfy those who are addicted to sex, drugs, relationships, and other things that temporarily give pleasures.

Don't get me wrong, means are important. Paul have become all things to all men, it is vital to anyone's ministry. But means should stay as MEANS, and should never become the END itself, just as the gifts are just means for us to get closer to the giver.

Evaluate yourself today, do you really need God? Is it obvious in your life? Because Jesus has overcome everything, and in Him we are "overcomers", we are able to live out the calling to start a movement, worthy to be called assembly of Jesus' followers. We can start it today. :)