Thread: Andy Stanley apologizes for small church, 'selfish' parents comments

It's impossible for some of us to get to a mega-church. When our kids were little, we attended a local congregation of about 40 adults + kids that had a Sunday School. When our oldest was about to reach the age of needing a youth group, we changed churches, which meant a 25 mile drive instead of 10 min, and joined a PAOC church of about 125-150 which is a decent size for a church in our area.

There's NO WAY I'd ever attend a mega church, not that I have a choice. Even in our largest cities in western Canada, there are large churches of several thousand ppl, but the vast majority are from less than 100 to possibly several hundred. We would all have to fly to one church every Sunday morning to have mega church together.

In my opinion, as long as there's a Sunday School and a youth group, both with strong leadership, your kids will be ok. Kids rebel. No matter who the parents are (think Billy Graham) or the size of church the family attends.

And if the parents feel called to a small church where there is no youth group, then that's their call. Christian parents, and please correct me if I'm wrong, usually don't do what they believe is harmful to their kids. But that's just MHO.

Andy Stanley needs to be grateful people are taking their kids to church, not criticizing them. Maybe he was just trying to get free publicity to draw even more people into his mega church.

Underneath it all, I believe he promotes a "how to grow your church" formula, more than a what is best for the children.

Originally Posted by victoryword

I agree with most of what you said. My only dispute is with what you believe may have been Stanley's motives. I believe that he did what all of us preachers do occasionally, which is get out of the Spirit and say dumb things. If I seem to be sympathetic to Stanley it is because I have said a dumb things at times that I had to apologize for the next week after getting a good verbal beating from my wife, children and occasionally the leaders who serve with me. Preachers are human and say dumb stuff.

But I fully agree with you on the fact that kids do NOT need to go to a large church to turn out to be good God-fearing children. It is an asinine thing for anyone to believe that.

That was totally tongue-in-cheek.

We all say dumb things at times. It's just not in the size of audience he has or the influence he has, which means he SHOULD be more careful and expect to be held more accountable.

Heck, I was at a deacon board meeting last night and I think I said more than one dumb thing.

Originally Posted by A.J.

That was totally tongue-in-cheek.

We all say dumb things at times. It's just not in the size of audience he has or the influence he has, which means he SHOULD be more careful and expect to be held more accountable.

Heck, I was at a deacon board meeting last night and I think I said more than one dumb thing.

Heck, you say dumb stuff here all the time.

Originally Posted by fuego

Heck, you say dumb stuff here all the time.

Originally Posted by victoryword

Now that wasn't right. I expect you to put out an apolgy on Twitter immediately for all of the AJ in the world that you have insulted.

Thank you.

We go to a small church. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. In a small church, for instance, if you want to have a really great choir, it will be hard to find enough people. Or consider a person who feels called to form a drama team or a dance team. In a small church, it's almost impossible. However, the advantage to a small church is (at least in our case) is everyone pitches in to see that things get done. Also, in the small churches we've been in, we grew much tighter with the brothers and sisters. In fact, we're still in touch with people from small churches we attended 30 years ago, but in the one large church we attended, I don't think we're still in touch with anyone.