Church: Big or Small?

Are churches more effective as multiple smaller units or as fewer, larger congregations? Or, does each several a unique purpose?

I've been attending the church I'm currently attending for 4 (ish) yers now. Sometimes, I'm frustrated because I'll walk all the way from the parking lot to my seat in the gym (where services are held) and not know anyone's name. I have been involved in college ministry, high school ministry, and band at some point during the last four years, so, it seems like this should be impossible. While its better all the time, something just feels odd about it.

Thriving churches have people with healthy relationships. What I've found, is, the larger the community I'm a part of, the harder it is to feel really connected to people. Its much easier to have lots of shallow relationships than it is to have fewer, deeper, more meaningful ones. It's my preference and belief that more is done for the kingdom of God through deeper relationships. In my experience, nothing of eternal value is accomplished when I'm hanging out with people that I don't have deep relationships with.

On the flip side of all that, maybe bigger churches have their place. I emailed the vision leader for the church that I'm a part of about this issue. He agrees that larger churches often have a harder time getting people connected. However, he also told me that our church helped out dozens of other, smaller churches in some way over the last year. What an impact! Also, its not that deep relationships can't happen in a big church, they just often take more initiative than those of a smaller church.

So, as of now, I'd say that its pretty hard to say that the best church size is ____. No church is perfect and if someone claims theirs is, they're not thinking hard enough or aren't telling you somthing.