numbers

So I went to a Christmas concert last night at the Grantham Brethren-in-Christ church. Several years ago, they changed the name of their church to The Grantham Church. Their use of the word "The" struck me as unusual. Until I recalled that they were the ONLY church in Grantham. And that got me thinking, "How many churches are in other areas?" Would you believe that Dillsburg has more churches than Hershey? Dillsburg has 28 congregations, to Hershey's 18. The little town of Marysville has nine churches, while the tiny town of Bowmansdale (which I think is smaller than Grantham) has two churches. Mechanicsburg appears to be the granddaddy of the west shore with 64 congregations, while the upper-class of Camp Hill (no offense meant Camp Hill residents) has a mere 28 congregations.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that we have a lot of churches in the central Pennsylvania area. And we have more churches than some countries. Which makes me wonder: "Do Americans need more churches?" I'm currently answering this question with a "no." I think we need to do more with the churches we have. Once we see more people coming to Christ and causing a much-wanted strain on resources, then we should consider additional churches. But I'm not a big fan of the field of dreams mentality when it comes to churches (for those non-movie buffs, that mentality is "if you build it, they will come"). I suppose I'm more practical in that regard, in that I would plan ahead, but I wouldn't try to plan way-ahead, if that makes any sense.

And that's what I've been thinkin'.