[A.6] The simple answer is to accommodate more people that are coming and will come when we have the parking and space to serve them. God has already grown us to be a huge church (with over 4000 members). Though obviously not all can attend in our current location. We are like a redwood tree in a bonsai pot!This is a worthy question which has been studied and debated by scholars, pastors, church sociologists and missional leaders for years. Lyle Schaller is one of those who brings research to bear on his answer for us. These are a few of his observations.

1. Larger churches tend to have higher expectations for their members active participation than smaller churches.
2. Larger churches tend to present clear, authoritative teaching from Scripture while theological pluralism tends to thrive in smaller churches.
3. Larger churches tend to have a pastor of long tenure with good pulpit skills, an attractive personality, and sense of humor.
4. Larger churches tend to have a higher number of higher quality ministries.
5. Larger churches are governed more by local leadership in the church while smaller churches often rely on regional or national leadership for their direction.
6. Larger churches often function as extended families to help people raise their children since their blood families are often uninvolved.
7. Larger churches tend to have longer worship services than smaller congregations.
8. Larger churches tend to hire specialists in ministry areas while smaller churches have pastors who are trained in seminary to function as generalists doing a wider array of ministry activities.
9. Larger church leaders tend to function as a collection of teams while smaller church leaders tend to function as a single unit.
10. Larger congregations are more likely to plant churches or function on a multi-site model that forces them to develop and deploy new leaders.

Dr John Vaughn is another authority in American church life who recently stated that of the churches in America on any given Sunday the ten largest churches account for 250,000 worshippers in attendance. If you total attendance of the top 100 churches the number moves to 1 million. Every two days in America another church passes the 2000 worshippers in attendance mark. His assessment was that God is clearly moving in America through large churches.
According to Dr. Vaughn UBC worship attendance at present places us in the top 1450 churches in America and as such (top ½ of 1%) is accountable and responsible to reach as many for Christ as we can as soon as we can and become as strong as we can so we can then help other churches. To whom much is given, much is required. This is why we are building – to become all that we can be in Christ so we can serve even more to His glory.