Miller Challenges “Bigger is Better” Mentality

Here are some more quotes from Calvin Miller’s O Shepherd Where Art Thou, this time related to the question of church growth. Of course we want to see more people saved, but Miller rightly criticizes the idea that amassing more and more believers in one place is the goal. Wit and wisdom are a good combination. I started to coment on them, but they stand alone well, I think.

…it seems to me in the era of megachurch we have opted to tell smaller truths to ever-bigger crowds. (p 26)

Sam knew his church wasn’t growing either, but at least he was doing his part in trying to please God by feeling neurotic about it. (p. 29) :)

Greatness of size may, in the end, prove the smallest of virtues. (p. 30)

“Well, there you go. We’re equal. You see, Ambrose, if every church was like yours, the Christian faith wouldn’t be here in fifty years.’
“And if every church was like yours, it wouldn’t be historically Christian in fifty years. No one would be left to who can even define the word Christian. The faith would die of secular syncretism.” (pg. 35)

“You wanted to know many I had in church, last Sunday, Biff. I’ll tell you how many. All I can take care of.” (pg. 39)

Most often when people do leave the church they are leaving because they feel the church failed to minister to them in a time of need. Yet pastors are often more stimulated to make their church grow than to take care of its members in their needy times. No one ever gets his or her picture in an evangelical magazine simply because they visited the sick. (pg. 42)

Calvin Miller on Pastoral Care

Here’s a great quote from Miller’s O Shepherd Where Art Thou, which I have commended previously:

…the church that only gets big but will not care for the sick and the broken, is no church of Christ…No legitimate pastor can delegate this concern. He may delegate the care of a specific person in need, but the moment he tries to delegate the concern, the church he pastors will be gone. (p. 16)

O Shepherd, Where Art Thou?

O Shepherd, Where Art Thou?, Calvin Miller
Broadman & Holman, 2006

I am writing a review of this book for the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology so in fairness, I cannot write a full review here. Let me just say that this is a very valuable book on pastoral ministry, a tract for our time. There are things I would say differently, a place or two which concerned me, but overall this is an excellent book. If every pastor would read it and heed it, we would be much better off. It is a short, easy read as well so many might read this when they would not read other things.

In typical Miller story-telling fashion he lampoons a common view of success in pastoral ministry (gathering more and more people into your service) and argues that pastoral care is an essential part of pastoral ministry. He focuses on hospital visitation, but the principle points to the larger issue of the oversight of souls, keeping up with each of those under our care a ministering to them as individuals. Readers of this blog will know that this resonates with the key theme of what is written here. Get a copy for yourself, and give copies to other pastors. It would make a great gift for pastors this Christmas.