Should We Know Everyone At Church?

“Pastor, I miss the old days when we knew everyone at church. I’m glad for the people getting saved, but we’re getting too big.”That was part of just one conversation I’ve had over the years with concerned church members over the changing atmosphere of the church as it grows.But let me ask this, do you think it is really that important to God that you know everyone in your church? Can we find that value anywhere in Scripture? If God wanted us to know everyone at church, why would he have made the first one, the model, so big (the church in Jerusalem was several thousand)?Isn’t it more important that many more learn of Jesus, than that we know everyone in our church? After all, the mission of the church is The Great Commission, introducing as many to Jesus as we can. If we do that, we can’t remain so small that we will know everyone.I fear that by insisting that the church remain small enough for everyone to know each other, we are desiring something for the church that God never intended. We are trying to make the church what we want, rather than what He wants. That’s not good.Of course, small churches matter to God, and there were plenty of them in the New Testament. I spent my formative Christian years in small churches and for my first five years as a pastor, my church was small. But if any church is true to its calling, is faithfully offering hope and forgiveness to its community, reaching out and caring for people, and if it is surrounded by any kind of population, it cannot help but grow. That’s the nature of the Gospel. Healthy churches that are faithfully proclaiming God’s Good News in populated areas, grow. They just do. And if they do, they don’t stay small.I think it’s fine for us to reminisce about the past and remember the “good old days.” But we also have to remember that there were challenges in those times, as well, and the good old days were not always good. Remembering fondly the smaller crowd is almost like being ungrateful for the many who have been saved and added to the family, since. How can we rejoice in seeing lots of people saved but still long for fewer people? Remember, the struggles small churches face are all met with the goal of reaching more. So let’s not wish ourselves back. Let’s be grateful for what God is doing, and let’s keep striving to be the church HE wants us to be.“And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47 NET).