When I asked a German church planter how large his church was, he responded: “We have 90 people meeting in cells.” That’s an interesting answer. Most American pastors would immediately have indicated the size of their worship service. I then discovered he was planting out of a mother church. “What is the size of the mother church?” “They have 360 people gathered in cells.”

How you answer the question “How big is your church?” says a lot about your view of what church is. If you answer with regard to the number of people involved in discipling communities, I think you have something a lot closer to the New Testament view of church. Jesus didn’t command us to plant churches. He commanded to make disciples. Those disciples then naturally gather together, and those gatherings are what the New Testament calls churches… even if it’s just in twos and threes.