Only being four months into our stay at our current facility, Beth Yeshua is already bursting at the seams. The building we’re renting space from holds perhaps 80 people comfortably and would max out at about 100, which would require opening up the balcony.

It’s a small facility that fortunately is new enough not to need dehumidifiers, but ideal for a church just getting off the ground. But in the last few weeks, we’ve been hitting attendance in the 70s and we’re still growing steadily. We’re ready for a new facility.

This is a great blessing from the L-RD, but one that ought not be taken for granted as an automatic sign of the L-RD’s approval. After all, there are mega-churches that serve congregations that can fill 20,000-seat basketball stadiums, but mere popular attendance is no sure sign of teaching the L-RD’s truth and having those efforts blessed.

In fact, the most popular of pastors and rabbis often have to abandon the core principals of faith simply to gain such wide acclaim. Some folks dream of the day when the Messianic movement will be widespread enough to play host to the first Messianic mega-churches.

Not me. The burden of leadership over a congregation should never grow beyond the ability of a head rabbi to oversee it all. Of the best Messianic churches in the US, few are more than perhaps 250 people in size. And that’s plenty, because beyond that a congregation grows a bit larger than one head rabbi can handle alone. The best results for keeping theology and instruction consistent come when one rabbi and one board of elders pursue one consistent vision.

Megachurches with staff rosters bigger than most Messianic congregations simply can’t do that. They grow beyond themselves. So while it’s exciting to see Beth Yeshua growing to the point where it can seek a facility that might seat up to 250, I’m not sure I’d want to see it grow beyond that.

Tags: dehumidifiers, growth, megachurches