Two. Jesus, and someone to talk about him.
Of course, to actually become a church you'll eventually need more than one person who knows Jesus. But to start with, you just need one person who knows Jesus who's willing to talk about him.
The moral to the story; there may be ideal numbers of people depending on the type of gathering you wish to grow, but for the most part I need to quit my whining and get on with it. You may wish to start with 30 (15 core and 15 partners) you may wish to start with 50, you may wish to start with 150 - and there is wisdom to each. But if we want to start something new, we have who we have. So let's get to work.
We started Cumberland Uni Church (that's university, not unitarian) with 13 people. After 4 years, of the original planting core there were three of us left. I went to type 'just three' but had to stop myself. We have who we have. Let's get to work.
Tomorrow*: why starting with 13 people didn't really work.
*Should the Lord not return.
Hahaha - Cumberland Unitarian Church - didn't someone mistake our name for that one time??
ReplyDeleteThe numbers game is a difficult one to play and assessing whether a church 'works' or not is even harder - I look forward to your post tomorrow!!
Hey Dave,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Someone came after a letterbox drop and was explaining how relieved they were after the service that we weren't unitarian.