How Big Is Your Chenis?
**Warning**
Crude Jr High Locker Room Humor ahead, only the locker room is now conferences with church leaders.
This post is a spin off of one of the best comments ever left on Ragamuffin Soul.
Answering my post below, Ryan responded with…
“we call this the “chenis
how big is your chenis (church penis)
it happens at every conference and luncheon- the chenis competition.”
This is SO true.
I remember the first 3 years at Sandals.
We went from like 100 to 1000 in like 3 years I think.
It happened when we started meeting at The Grove Community Church. (Formally Victoria Community Church)
We met in the evernings and it seemed like overnight 700 people showed up!!!
It was awesome. Amazing. God was “moving”.
Then it came time to move out of the church and move to Cal Baptist University.
I remember the first Sunday at Cal Baptist.
This is a guess.
But I swear we had less than 350 people there.
Where did everybody go? Where was “God’s Movement?”
You know where everybody was?
They were back at their church.
VCC.
We were measuring God’s blessing by the size of our attendance.
Our chenis.
God is just as pleased with 3 people meeting in their living room sharing communion and life as he is with Buckhead Church and the thousands that show up. And I believe He IS pleased with microchurches and the thousands they reach.
I would dare say that the percentage of authenticity in worship in the room of 3 is higher than every church of 5000 on the planet. But in the long run, I don’t think God even cares how big YOUR church is…He cares how big HIS church is.
So stop counting the size of your chenis as to your self worth.
Because the truth is…
It’s not the size that counts.
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
Size may not count so much as growth. If the church of 3 or the church of 5000 do not increase in size, there is likely a problem. So, it’s not the size of your chenis, but is it growing?
You know- I will quote Bobby Gruenewald (one of our Lead Staff Members)- “There is no such thing as a Mega church. Only Micro churches with Mega vision”. You’re right, size doesn’t matter.But there sure are a LOT of lost people out there:( sadly enough. Here is his original post: http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2007/01/16/there-are-no-megachurches/
@Kelly
hah! That was clever.
Thank you for reminding me this. I am in Dominican Republic and I came here to be a missionary as a teacher. I love being here but I miss my big church. Yet, I needed to remember that it is not the size that counts because within one month of being here, God opened up the doors for a Bible Study that is growing. It is not huge but it is growing. I have to remember even in that one night a week Bible Study God is there.
Thanks for the reminder
Kelly: Re, Growing…this is true but another question is what are we using to grow it…because it seems to me a lot of our growth is like the kind of growth they promise in those spam emails or promise on late night infomercials.
Your line of thinking is an echo of some things I read in a book recently. I found this book recommended in the back of “The Shack”.
The book is titled “So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore” by Jake Colsen.
As members of the body of Christ we can always grow in our understanding of what God’s measure of success is in the church.
“Chenis” is the new phrase when talking church growth. This is going to make for some pretty sweet discussions.
Carlos your blog never ceases to amaze me. The creativity that takes place here, and not just from you, but those that take part here every day is incredible.
Lovin’ it Bro’!
from a church of 20,000 (just saying, not bragging) authenticity of worship between 3 or 20,000 — it all boils down to 2 really – you and God. We care about quantity and we care about quality. Growth inside and out.
this is awesome
That’s what she said.
I agree with everything said here thus far. In my line of work we have a saying. “A body’s a body.” However that should never become the motto of Gods true church. I fear too often it has though. God doesn’t care how large our “church’s” are, He cares about how large His Church is. I have to wonder what good all the numbers are when truth be told, 50% or maybe even more are there because it’s what they do and not because of who they are. I pray God would break our hearts over this.
Sorry for the rant guy’s, but thanks for allowing me to have it.
amen, amen and amen.
good thoughts los. keep em comin
AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN!
amen!
something just occured to me as I misread your post. I read the idea “there are no mega churches” to mean that beyond a certain size, whatever you’ve got is not a church – like depending on your definition. (here I’m getting into mathematical graph theory). Let’s define a church … no, let’s define a “church” as a “zurk”. church = zurk. And define a “zurk” = a group of believers who know and support each other and worship God together. No zurk can exceed the size of the relationships in the zurk. If this is true, than you can’t have a zurk larger than like 20 or 50. (My zurk would be like 4 or 5). church = zurk = <= 50ppl. So, perhaps, what we call a “church” or megachurch is really not a church, but a group of zurks/churches that really matters to the individual.
In a sense, if I only know 30 people at my mega church, my church is a size of 30 people. Although there are 5,000 other people there – they are essentially invisible to me. Sadly, I can easily be attending the megagroup, but not know anyone and therefore attending a church of size.
I wonder what the zurk sizes are like at a mega church?
Jesse. GREAT thoughts
It’s seriously not the size. I’m so incredibly grateful for my “little” church of 85. My pastor KNOWS me. No… I mean he KNOWS me…stuff I wish nobody knew but he knows… and because we are so small, him and his wife can actually rub off on me. Their lives have affected my life in such an incredible way. I won’t ever go back.
It’s the who, not the how many.
Ronni-
Cool. I’m really stoked that you are experiencing Jesus in a real, life transforming way. My kickback to that would be that there are hundred’s of other people in our communities that need to be known and loved like that. So it seems we should passionately seek to extend the influence of our churches of 85 or ignite new churches of 85 to care for those outside of the sphere of that type of care. Trackin?
I am claiming 25% royalty rights to the word “chenis.” Ryan and I were at Gordon Biersch one day for lunch talking about this very thing and he dropped chenis on me. We laughed, and thought about putting it on Urban Dictionary. Since I bought lunch that day, I get 25% ownership of this word. Cool? Cool.
Oh, and remember, its not the size that matters… its how you use it.
WoW that is an awesome post… I have suffered from this many times… it is a sad condition to suffer from… thank goodness I am recovering – maybe I should start a support group to help others identify it and get delivered from it…
As long as there are still hundreds and thousands of people to reach in my community I will still count the ones we are reaching.
Numbers are important.
Comparing numbers is not.
@nasolas I’ll give you 12% and nothing more. I’ll probably have to hook Kerry up too… he laughed more than you did.
that was funny
I actually came here because of the word chenis
i just had to find out what it was
lol now I know, still laughing
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My wife and I just left a church of about 800 to help a church plant of about 25. As George Costanza would exclaim, “There was shrinkage!!!”
Seriously tho, we could only make this move if we firmly believed that THE CHURCH matters more than a church.
So true…it’d be nice if we (my church) could still take attendance but stop checking it every week and let God work. That would be an interesting change
good stuff. out of curiosity though…did you run the average on the numbers?
upsidedown- chenis shrinkages are to be expected… especially when it’s cold outside.
kerry- there’s nothing average about Carlos’s chenis. he said it had something to do with being half black. must be a georgia thing?
john- you’re creepy, but i think that’s what you were aiming for.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
You are all crazy…. but awesome. I love the freshness of new ideas and words. Very Awesome
I like Malachi’s Office reference.
So size doesn’t matter in church community … but does it matter in your blog stats?
Can’t it be said that every person in church is a heartbeat, a story to tell … same as blog stats.
I don’t see the difference.
I think each church has a role to play. Some have a larger influence, some smaller. We are all on the same team – what role do we (individual churches) play in the Body of Christ is the question to me with regard to size.
I do not attend North Point and have only been there once in my life. But, from afar, this is the very thing I absolutely LOVE about it. While Andy (among others) is an extremely gifted communicator, the emphasis at NP is on smallness, as in small groups and personal relationships.
People are hurting everywhere, outside the church and inside the church. While great sermons will attract 2k-20k+ people every weekend, it has been my experience that lasting change comes only through messy conversations and involvement with others…which rarely occur during a weekend church service.
Which is all to say that Jesse’s church, I mean zurk, theory is probably dead-on. So with that, the size of my zurk is 8 although a 9th is starting to grow. Would that make it and 8.25?
ALL your chenises are important and special and can be used by God. Heh
Stretch, but I see your point kinda.
I just don’t think that if one has 3 readers a day they are any less than 3000 a day.
So no. It doesn’t matter.
That was to doug.
why use unwholesome words to make a valid point or question. Why?
So does size matter or not? LOL
Truthfully that is so true. I get tired of these types of luncheons and actually have stopped going to them.
You ask an average minister how “HE” is doing and they instantly talk about their church. I have to interrupt them and say, “I wasn’t talking about your church.”
oh, I wasn’t leaving you out ladies (”SHE”) it just seems that the fellas, seem to deal with this more, I don’t know? Ask my female minister friends and they actually answer the question.
Brad…what makes it unwholesome? Are you implying that a penis is by it’s nature unwholesome? Because if you are I have to say that my wife would disagree with you.
The point is very apt…and if you have an issue with church/penis references you should totally go blog against God for what he said in Ezekiel 23:20 and ask him why he would use such unwholesome words to refer to Israel.
D
Size doesn’t matter…it’s what you do with it!
But seriously, what is your church, or zurk, or whatever you want to call it, doing to impact the community around you? What is making a lasting impact? What is your chenis doing? that’s what matters?
Well since we’re goin’ there…Chenis size may not matter, but……
I actually like bigger churches. Here’s why… I live in a rural area with a tiny church on every corner. They’re horribly underfunded and understaffed (usually sharing part-time preachers), and the pastors are barely qualified to do their jobs. If all these churches got together, they could afford to do great things and have a great communicator as their senior pastor! But as it is, they live in the land of mediocrity (if even rising to that level).
Do we NEED a church on every corner with three people attending each? The answer is, no, we don’t! But these churches are so tied to their history (often driven by a single family), that they’re not willing to change. So they’re just waiting to die off. How sad!
my chenis also gets really big around Christmas and Easter…go figure.
Comparison of size, whether we are talking about how big a guy is or how big a church is, is ego-driven. Thanks for pointing that out.
Comparison of size, whether we are talking about how big a guy is or how big a church is, is ego-driven. Thanks for pointing that out.
We all have our own take on this, don’t we? It’s a beautiful thing.
@brad How is “chenis” an “unwholesome” word? How is “penis” even an “unwholesome” word? Anyway….
Boil it all down, I think Los has got it as tight as it can humanly be. If we all understand that we’ll never have everything right in our own humanity.
Almost everyone here is right, it seems. A church of any number of people should have a heart for the lost and do what they can and are designed by God to do to reach the lost.
My experience is that not every church is designed exactly the same way in terms of how or how many lost people they reach. Whether they’re reaching a few or dozens or 100s or 1000s isn’t the issue. The heart is the issue.
Amazing to me that God designed the physical body that we’re all unique. Why wouldn’t His spiritual “Body” be the same?
Just my thoughts….