Karl Vaters

How to Deal with Church Staff and Volunteer Problems Without Losing Good People

/ 6 minutes of reading

This isn’t a one-sided issue. It’s a two-sided issue with a two-sided solution. I know, because I’ve also had conversations with Small Church pastors about how hard it is to get good staff and volunteers.

Usually, it’s hard to get anyone to help at all. But sometimes I get complaints from pastors that go like this.

“No matter what I do, I can’t get these young leaders to turn off lights or take stinky garbage out to the dumpster! And when I tell them to do it, they get such an attitude about it! Like they’re too good for that. Don’t they understand that this is what a lot of ministry is about? Especially in a Small Church?” Sound familiar?

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Front-Load the Value: One Simple Step that Can Make Any Church More Appealing to Guests

/ 5 minutes of reading

According to church leadership experts, most people will subconsciously decide whether-or-not to come back to a church within the first 7-10 minutes of driving into the parking lot.

If your church is doing everything great, keep it up. But that’s not the case for most of us. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit we do some things well, but there are other aspects of the Sunday morning service we struggle with. And some parts we’re just awful at.

What’s worse, many churches take the things we don’t do well and put them at the beginning of the service. That means our church guests have made a yes/no decision about being a part of our congregation when all they’ve seen are the things we’re not that good at.

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Big Church Sins vs. Small Church Sins: Who’ll Throw the First Stone?

/ 6 minutes of reading

Big churches and Small Churches bring different gifts to the body of Christ. They also face different sets of temptations, based on their size.

The biggest problem with church size isn’t that there are too many big congregations or too many small ones. I also don’t think there is an ideal church size or a bad church size.

The biggest problem with church size is when we use it as one more excuse for Christians to throw stones at each other.

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8 Reasons Why It’s OK to Call Your Church a Small Church

/ 4 minutes of reading

For decades (yes, decades!) I refused to acknowledge that my church was small or that I was a Small Church pastor. Not any more. Now, I’m not just OK with it, I celebrate it.

Some people don’t like using the term Small Church because, in their minds, that term equates with a church being sickly, settling or worse. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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When People Leave: The Private Pain of the Small Church Pastor

/ 6 minutes of reading

It’s taken me a long time to hit “publish” on today’s post because, when I raise an issue, I like to provide solutions or alternatives. But I don’t have a solution to this one.

So today’s post is not about answers. It’s a recognition of our shared pain. With the hope that we can find some sort of solace by knowing we’re not alone in these feelings. Here are some painful truths many of us have felt when people leave our churches.

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Yes, My Church Still Calls It Easter – Here are 5 Reasons Why

/ 4 minutes of reading

I wish Easter wasn’t called Easter. It would be great if everyone knew it as Resurrection Sunday. But they don’t. So, while our church uses both terms, Easter is our go-to – especially when we invite people to join us.

If your church doesn’t use the word Easter, I’m not arguing that you should. But here are five reasons why we do.

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