Paul_S said: Of course having an involved pastor presupposes an upper limit on church membership. For example, making 1 in-depth visit per week to a member household, everyone in a Cheers-sized* church, could be visited about once a year. By contrast, at the same rate, it would take Joel Osteen about 400 years to visit everyone in his church at least once.
Theo, you mentioned there might be a denominational effect on this issue: if it matters, I'm a Congregationalist.
* "You wanna go where everybody knows your name"
I am sure he is not the only one. There are southern baptist churches with close to 10,000 members it would be hard to vist all of them in one year.
