We threw a huge party!

Why big events matter in discipleship movements.

What Role Do Large Gatherings Play in Disciple-Making?

In the 20+ years I’ve spent navigating conversations around the missional church, disciple-making, and church planting, one question consistently surfaces: What role do large events play?

Why Large Gatherings Matter

Large-format gatherings—whether they’re occasional conferences or weekly Sunday gatherings—play an essential role in sustaining a life of discipleship.

I firmly believe that moving away from a regular rhythm of large gatherings is a mistake. While I’m not trained as a church historian, as far as I can tell, whenever Christians have been free to gather without fear of persecution, they’ve consistently come together in large numbers.

However, there is a danger: large gatherings can become the mission itself rather than a tool for the mission. This happens when we:

• Make attendance the primary metric of success.

• Build gatherings around one or two talented leaders rather than a plurality of leaders.

• Allocate more money and staff to Sunday services than to disciple-making and evangelism.

• Have more people attending gatherings than participating in discipleship.

• Lack clarity about how gatherings fit into the broader mission of the church.

As a result, in some missional movements, there has been a perception that large gatherings—particularly Sunday services—are unnecessary or even counterproductive to the mission. In our context, this impression that we don’t value large gatherings sometimes arises because we emphasize Jesus-style discipleship and Simple Church (house churches) as the core of our ministry at LIFT Church.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, just this past weekend, we hosted our annual all-regions conference for our entire church family, and it was incredible. We pulled out all the stops—lights, loud music, guest speakers, loads of food, games, merch tables, and more. Essentially, we threw a giant party!

We also incorporated distinct elements, such as a two-hour prophetic prayer session. During this time, our entire church was invited to listen to the Holy Spirit and share what they sensed God saying, in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:26. (Perhaps I’ll share more about how we structure this without it descending into chaos another time.)

Using Large Gatherings Purposefully

At LIFT Church, we’ve intentionally designed our large gatherings—both conferences and weekly gatherings—to serve a specific purpose: to gather all the Simple Churches, celebrate what God is doing in our midst and remind ourselves of what matters most.

Here’s how we approach them:

1. Fostering Relational Cohesion:
   Since our Simple Churches are constantly on mission, regularly multiplying and rearranging, our weekly gatherings serve as a vital space to foster relational unity across the community.

2. Developing Leaders, Not Just Delivering Excellence:
   We emphasize a plurality of leaders in every role. We intentionally create space for young, emerging leaders to step into positions of responsibility. While we value excellence, it is never the sole metric of success. If relaxing the standard of excellence allows us to develop new leaders who can be sent out, we gladly make that trade-off.

3. Raising Up Teachers of Scripture:
   At LIFT Church, every leader is expected to effectively teach scripture to their community. Preaching is never the sole responsibility of one person. Currently, we have 25 leaders on our preaching roster, all with a demonstrated track record of fruitful disciple-making in our community. Most of these leaders are co-vocational ministers, and we’ve developed a systematic process to train them to communicate scripture effectively.

4. Empowering Bi-Vocational Leadership:
   Our weekly gatherings are entirely run by bi-vocational leaders. Across all campuses, we have zero full-time staff allocated to supporting Sunday gathering. This allows our disciple-makers to involve their disciples in crucial serving roles, integrating them into the life of the church.

5. Showcasing Diverse Leadership:
   We intentionally platform a diverse spectrum of leaders so that everyone in our community can see someone in a leadership role with whom they can identify.

6. Celebrating the Right Things:
   Sundays are a time of celebration—what we celebrate, we replicate. Before, during and after the gathering we take time to celebrate how God is moving and the leaders that are part of the story.

7. Emphasize Disciple-making
   We talk about disciple-making and Simple Church every single time, and we intentionally make it as uncomfortable to simply attend the gathering without committing to a Simple Church.

8. Keep the metrics in order:
   More important than gathering attendance is the percentage of the gathering attendance that is engaged in discipleship. According to our historical data, the ratio of gathering attendance to house-church engagement is 1:1. However, the total reach of the Simple Churches far exceeds gatherings if we include non-believing contacts.

9. Post-Event Next Steps
   The concrete action steps taken after the event are the primary focus throughout any planning. At our most recent event, we used software to survey all attendees in real-time and then place their responses into an automated pipeline. This way, we can empower their disciplers to capitalize on the energy post-event.

In Conclusion

Large gatherings are not the goal of the mission, but they are an indispensable tool for advancing it. When used wisely, they strengthen relational bonds, develop leaders, and keep the church focused on Jesus’ mission.