Different pastors will differ in philosophies of ministry on how to best reach out to and shepherd a community. Some believe the best way is to have a mega-church and gather people to itself through advertisement, programs, and relationships. Other models, like where I am currently serving at Redeeemer, will put next to no money in advertisement (outside a website), and rely totally on members and regular attenders inviting folks.

Perhaps influenced by growing church plants, pragmatic economics, or God’s Spirit, some mega-churches may be re-thinking their strategies for reaching people. Instead of building the biggest congregation possible, they are considering becoming locally smaller and more incarnational. In other words starting new smaller communities, either satellite or self governing entities (from what I can tell) may lead to an overall large number of folks brought into Christ’s Kingdom and Church. Check out this article by a very missional small town pastor Chuck Warnock.