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<\/a><\/p>\nThe Church Growth Movement of a few decades ago promoted the use of marketing techniques to attract as many people as possible to form a \u201cmega-church.\u201d\u00a0 But today\u2019s marketing philosophy, enabled by online technology, focuses not on reaching vast numbers but on identifying individuals with highly specific interests and targeting them with tailor-made appeals.\u00a0 So the Church Growth Movement is now trying to adapt the \u201cniche marketing\u201d approach by creating not \u201cmega-\u201d but \u201cmicro-churches.\u201d<\/p>\n
These are not to be confused with small traditional congregations.\u00a0Micro-churches are built around their targets\u2019 common interests.\u00a0 Where I live, I have seen Cowboy churches and Biker churches.\u00a0 But, it turns out, the possibilities go far beyond those:\u00a0 Warrior Church.\u00a0 Taco Church. Coloring Church.<\/p>\n
Christianity Today<\/em> has published an approving article on the trend.\u00a0 From\u00a0Kara Bettis, Carving Out a Niche for Micro-Congregations<\/a>:<\/p>\n O<\/span>n any given Sunday at 7:30 a.m., a visitor to Schlitte Boxing & Fitness may find two dozen or so men and women hitting punching bags, cranking out pushups, or congratulating one another after a particularly tough bench press. It\u2019s not CrossFit. It\u2019s Sunday morning worship at Warrior Church.<\/p>\n To the side of the gym, there\u2019s a stack of milk crates that form a makeshift altar. Before the workout starts, Sean Steele, founder of Warrior Church, kicks off the hour with a 15-minute prayer and discussion from a lectionary. Founded in 2017, Warrior Church is one of four\u2014soon to be six\u2014communities aimed at military veterans and others experiencing trauma that help compose the network of St. Isidore Episcopal Church in and around Spring, Texas.<\/p>\n The St. Isidore network also includes\u2014along with a few house churches\u2014Taco Church, where men gather for prayer at Taco Bell, and Coloring Church, dedicated to \u201cdialogue and artistic expression.\u201d But if you\u2019re hoping to visit St. Isidore\u2019s main building to attend their gathered Sunday service, you will be disappointed. These gatherings aren\u2019t just small groups and outreach programs; they are the church\u2019s primary venues. According to its website, St. Isidore is \u201ca church without walls.\u201d. . .<\/p>\n Leaders of these gatherings feel that the attractional model, in which churches use outreach programs to draw visitors to their Sunday morning services, is less effective in a secularizing culture. Instead of assuming visitors will voluntarily walk through their doors, these leaders take a proactive stance by starting smaller, localized communities where unchurched people live and work.<\/p>\n Reggie McNeal, missional leadership specialist for Leadership Network, views these contextualized communities as a \u201charbinger that something really big is underfoot\u201d that will undo the Western church\u2019s \u201csingle modality church expression\u201d in the congregational model.<\/p>\n [Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What do you think of this?\u00a0 Do any of you have any experience with these sorts of churches?<\/p>\n Though there may be some cases that justify a congregation tailored to specific groups\u2013for example, the deaf, or particular language groups, or a chaplain\u2019s services on a military base\u2013in general, I do not approve.<\/p>\n Both Micro-Churches and Mega-Churches share the Church Growth technique that the founder of the movement, Donald McGavran brought from the mission field:\u00a0 the homogenous unit principle<\/a>.\u00a0 That is, the notion that, in the words of the Wikipedia article, \u201cindividuals are more likely to convert to Christianity\u00a0en masse<\/i>\u00a0when they share similar demographics.\u201d<\/sup><\/p>\n Whether you have a big group of middle class white suburbanites with families, or small groups of Cowboys, Bikers, Weightlifters, or Colorers, the congregation will consist of similar people who do similar things.<\/p>\n Whereas traditional congregations typically consist of elderly folks, young families, and children; people of all income levels and social classes; individuals with different interests, educational backgrounds, and vocations.\u00a0 (Also, historically, people of different ethnicities, though American congregations need to work on that.)<\/p>\n This is in accord with the Biblical principle that the Church is a unity of diverse individuals, as different from each other as eyes and ears and hands:<\/p>\n 12\u00a0<\/sup>For just as\u00a0the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,\u00a0so it is with Christ.<\/span>\u00a013\u00a0<\/sup>For\u00a0in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body\u2014Jews or Greeks, slaves[d<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0or free\u2014and\u00a0all were made to drink of one Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n 14\u00a0<\/sup>For the body does not consist of one member but of many.<\/span>\u00a015\u00a0<\/sup>If the foot should say, \u201cBecause I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,\u201d that would not make it any less a part of the body.<\/span>\u00a016\u00a0<\/sup>And if the ear should say, \u201cBecause I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,\u201d that would not make it any less a part of the body.<\/span>\u00a017\u00a0<\/sup>If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?<\/span>\u00a018\u00a0<\/sup>But as it is,\u00a0God arranged the members in the body, each one of them,\u00a0as he chose.<\/span>\u00a019\u00a0<\/sup>If all were a single member, where would the body be?<\/span>\u00a020\u00a0<\/sup>As it is, there are many parts,[e<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0yet one body.<\/span><\/p>\n\n