With several large multisite churches drawing Greater Boston believers out of their zip codes, some argue the resources and community are worth the commute — while others insist Christians should root themselves in the literal neighborhoods they inhabit. Which model better forms disciples?
Join the debate to comment
Reading is free. Members pay to post — that's why it stays clean.
Add your commentI pastor a small congregation in East Boston and I will tell you plainly: we have lost good families to the campuses and it hurts. Not because I'm territorial. Because I watch those same families have no Christian presence in their actual neighborhood Monday through Saturday. Their church relationships exist entirely in a building they drive to. That's not incarnational ministry. That's a club.
Born and raised in Dorchester. My grandmother walked to St. Peter's every single Sunday rain or sleet or whatever Boston throws at you in February. You want to talk about discipleship? That woman knew every widow on her block, brought soup to the sick, prayed with people she actually LIVED with. No campus pastor on a jumbo screen ever built that kind of thing. Sorry not sorry.
anyone wanna ask how many of the people defending the neighborhood church model actually know their literal next door neighbors names. asking for a friend who also does not know his neighbors names. we are all failing at this regardless of which church we drive or walk to
Just moved here from Atlanta six months ago for grad school at BU. Back home I went to a megachurch and I thought that was just how church worked. Found a tiny congregation in Allston that meets above a laundromat and I have never in my life been known by Christians the way I am known there. It's genuinely unsettling in a good way. Nobody here knows what PowerPoint is apparently.
Respectfully disagree with a lot of what I'm reading. My family drives to the campus out near Framingham. Yes it's 40 minutes. You know what else is out there? A full counseling ministry, a food pantry that serves thousands, recovery programs, a thriving disability ministry my son actually fits in. You think the little storefront church in my old Somerville neighborhood had any of that? I love the idea of walking to church. I also love my son having a community.
Can someone explain to me why this is even a debate? Acts 2 is pretty clear — believers met in HOMES and TEMPLES in their own city. They didn't carpool to Nazareth because the rabbi there had better production quality. I genuinely do not understand how Bible-reading Christians look at the multisite model and see anything other than a departure from ecclesiology.
My hot take: the megachurch vs small church debate completely misses the real question which is whether ANY of us are actually being transformed into the likeness of Christ OR just consuming religious content in whichever format we prefer. I've seen shallow disciples walking out of both models. I've seen genuinely formed believers in both. The commute is a red herring.
I grew up going to a small church in the South End and then spent my 20s church hopping to all the big exciting campuses and I am here to tell you I retained almost nothing spiritually from those years except a very refined opinion on worship music. Came back to a neighborhood church at 32 and it is completely different when people actually know where you live and can show up.
I drove out to that big multisite campus in Waltham for three years and honestly? Best preaching I ever heard. Production value incredible, small groups were organized, children’s ministry had my kids actually excited about Sunday. Then we moved to JP and started walking to a little Anglican church and I realized I had no idea how to actually BE IN a neighborhood as a Christian. Both models taught me something but in very different ways.
ok but has anyone been to the parking situation at some of these smaller Boston churches lol. truly a spiritual trial
Fun fact: Charles Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle drew people from all over London by horse and carriage. Spurgeon himself never complained that long-distance worshippers were spiritually compromised. The idea that proximity automatically equals formation is a very modern American assumption dressed up in theological language.
Theologically speaking the New Testament concept of the "local church" was geographically bounded because people literally could not travel. The early church didn't choose proximity — it was imposed. So arguing that walking distance is spiritually superior because the early church did it is actually historically illiterate. The early church also met on Sunday because it was a work day and they were avoiding detection. Should we do that too?
the whole megachurch suburb thing is just consumerism with a worship band lol. you pick the church like you pick a netflix subscription. good content, easy to cancel when something better comes along
Should Christians pray to saints — or is asking Mary and the dead for help straight-up idolatry?
56 comments
Did Christianity give birth to modern science — or did the church spend centuries trying to strangle it in the cradle?
56 comments
Does God choose who gets saved, or do you choose God — and is Calvinism secretly making God into a monster?
55 comments
Do humans have an immortal soul — or did the church steal that idea from Plato and dress it up as Scripture?
55 comments