City, Tribe and Clan: Thinking Unichurch

As our church has grown in the past couple of years (Soli Deo Gloria) many of us have noticed that the whole feel and experience of Unichurch has changed in the process. At our current size, some things are better, some aren’t. For what it’s worth, here’s a way of thinking about the nature and possibilities of church size: I call it City, Tribe and Clan

1. The City
In a city, you don’t expect to know everyone. Even though that might be a shame, the expectation would never occur to you.  So, why do people live (in increasing numbers) in cities? Well, among many reasons are that cities provide resources and possibilities that country towns never could. That is, we live together in cities to bless each other by providing resources for each other that we couldn’t in small communities. That’s why ethnic and religious and sexual minority groups love cities: because the resources to be who they are are available in cities.

In Perth, I don’t know the guy who runs the art gallery, or the gal who runs Subi Oval, or the people who manage Kings Park, or whatever, but they all bless me by providing me with things that a small town just couldn’t.

My theory is that, once a church gets over about 150, it begins to function more like a City. The possibility of knowing everyone vanishes, but the possibilities of blessing each other in other ways increase. To be positive about being larger would surely involve re-jigging expectations about church: putting aside some that are no longer possible and embracing other that are possible in a whole new way. A good question: How can we bless our community and each other in our present shape?

2. The Tribe
A Tribe in this theory is a group between about 20-100. In this group you can reasonable expect to know everyone. You don’t expect intimacy, but you do expect community. You expect to be able to share life together, to have meaningful relationships and, most of all, to band together in common causes to make a difference. In the past our church was like this, then our Tuesday Hub became the Tribe. Now we have Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday morning’s Unichurch International. They are all Tribes, and we need to work out how to nurture and strengthen these tribal units for God’s glory.

3. The Clan
The Clan is the group of 5-20. This is the group that you do expect to know well. You reasonably expect a degree of intimacy here. A place where people know your struggles and are able to speak into your life personally and deeply. When our Bible studies met in homes, they were strong Clans, but we didn’t have a strong Tribe. Hub gave us a strong Tribe, but at some cost to our Clans.

At the moment, people in the Unichurch leadership are busily working away on a proposal for the next step for Unichurch. We would greatly value your prayers for this, and we hope to have something to present to the congregation for your consideration and feedback by the time of the Weekend Away (24-26 April). If our proposed model includes something like a City (=a continuing congregation of over 150 people), I’d love your thoughts on the following questions:

- How can we maximize the City-type blessings of our community?
- What can we do to strengthen the Tribes? Where and how could we build new Tribes?
- How can we build and strengthen the Clans?

Love, Rory