The Church Army’s latest research bulletin has some interesting articles and helps with an ongoing discussion. The bulletin is particularly asking:

Are larger churches a help or a hindrance in our mission to reach the non-churched?
Are they a relic from the past, or a vision of the future?
Do they limit maturity or create the right environment for growth?
If we look closely at the numbers, is the numerical growth we see actually hiding the number of people leaving through the back door?
Are there ways they could better cater for those who are struggling?
Is their theology too rigid for people searching for deeper answers?
How does one decide what maturity looks like for church communities; is it individual or relational?

Steve Hollinghurst kicks the paper off by asking, intriguingly, whether we can learn anything from larger retailers and how they have operated in a  changing world. He ends  by suggesting, rightly in my opinion, that ‘a greater diversity of churches is needed, but not a greater commercialisation of them.’

Go have a read here