Karl Vaters

Karl Vaters produces resources for Helping Small Churches Thrive at KarlVaters.com.

He's the author of five books on church leadership, including his newest, De-Sizing the Church: How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession, and What's Next. His other books include The Grasshopper Myth and Small Church Essentials.

Karl also hosts a bi-weekly podcast, The Church Lobby: Conversations on Faith & Ministry, featuring in-depth interviews about topics that concern pastors, especially those who minister in a small church context. He has served in small-church ministry for over 40 years, so he speaks and writes from decades of hands-on pastoral experience.

You can follow Karl on Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and LinkedIn, or Contact Karl to inquire about speaking, writing, and consultation.

Should the Church Be About Transformation? Or Stability?

/ 4 minutes of reading

Transformation or stability.

Sometimes it seems like every pastor I meet lives in one of those two camps.

On the transformation side are churches with names like Catalyst, Thrive and Elevation. They’re led by pastors who are constantly driving for their church to be an agent of change. Some have even changed the title of “pastor” to “lead catalyst” to reflect that. These churches thrive on finding new, innovative ways to present the Gospel.

On the other side are churches and pastors that are digging in. They’re fighting what often feels like a losing battle against waves of negative societal change. They like to describe their church as bible-believing, fundamentalist, and/or “First (insert your denominational name here) Church”. One church sign I saw recently told everyone who drove by that they were Old-Fashioned, Hymn-Singing and Bible Believing.

So who’s right? The church as change agent? Or the church as a stable foundation?

Both. And Neither.

Both are right, because the church needs to be a transformative community. And the church needs to stand for eternal truths.

Neither are right if they’re picking one side to the exclusion of the other, because we’re not called to be one or the other, but both/and.

Any church that sacrifices eternal truths for current trends is making a big mistake. And any church that refuses to change their methods to reach a new generation with eternal truths is just as wrong.

One is too trendy to last. The other is too stuck-in-a-rut to be relevant.

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Don’t Do Church Small, Do Small Church Really Well

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If you’ve been slow to embrace the idea that Small Churches can be great churches, I get it.

If you haven’t read The Grasshopper Myth yet, or you’re new to the ministry of NewSmallChurch.com, let me take this short post to challenge any presuppositions you might have, too.

Ministry to Small Churches is not about doing church small. It never has been and never will be. It’s about doing small church well. Really well.

So what’s the difference between doing church small and doing Small Church really well?

Here are two starter lists to give you an idea. Many of these points are linked to previous posts that explain these ideas in more detail.

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Our Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size – Now What?

/ 7 minutes of reading

If some churches have a shoe size, what do you do when your church reaches yours?

Sit back and take it easy? The temptation to do that is one of the main reasons many people (and by “people”, I mean me) feel very uncomfortable with the idea that a church can have a shoe size at all.

But a church doesn’t have to settle for less just because they’ve found themselves at a numerical size that works well for the kind of ministry God has given them – at least for a season. Maybe for longer than that.

And by the way, shoe size isn’t limited to Small Churches. In fact I’ve noticed that a lot of people who bristle at the idea of a shoe size for a church of 25, 50 or 100, are just fine with the church that’s stayed at 2,000 for a decade or more. Some churches have a bigger shoe size, is all.

In my last post I gave you 5 Clues Your Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size. In today’s post we’ll follow up with the three foundational principles that have helped the church I pastor make sure we’ll never use our current shoe size as an excuse for settling, laziness or compromise.

Our Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size – Now What? Read More »

5 Clues Your Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size

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What happens when a church is healthy, yet the numbers stay in a holding pattern?

There are a lot of books, blog posts and seminars about how to assess and remove obstacles that hinder healthy growth. My church and I have been helped by many of them.

But is it ever possible that a church may have reached its optimal size? Is there a point at which pushing for greater numbers might be counterproductive to the life, health and effectiveness of a church?

And, if there is, how would we know that?

I struggled with that challenge for years. My story is detailed in The Grasshopper Myth, so I won’t go into it again, but one result of that struggle was that we realized our church is better, healthier and more effective at around 200 than we were at around 400.

200 is our optimal size (let’s call it our shoe size). For now anyway.

It’s not that we aimed for this size or plan to stay at this size. It’s just that this is where we seem to do our best work for now. And it may be that way for a long time.

But how does a church know what their shoe size is? And, if we have in fact reached that place, do we just sit and settle? What about growth?

5 Clues Your Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size Read More »

6 Lessons, Blessings & Cautions from 2 Years of Blogging

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Last month, the second anniversary of NewSmallChurch.com passed by without notice. No, I don’t feel sad that none one sent me a card. Hallmark is still working on a set of “Your blog is two years old today!” cards.

I just didn’t remember it myself. I’m not big on anniversaries.

But we have passed that two-year mark, so I decided to take a moment to reflect on what’s happened in the last two years, and what I’ve learned from it.

Truthfully, it’s almost hard to remember what my life and ministry was like before I started this. Writing, blogging, travelling and speaking has taken up such a chunk of my time that it’s completely changed my schedule. I’ve met so many great people that I would no know today without this.

But mostly, the last two years have re-affirmed the premise of this blog and The Grasshopper Myth – that playing the numbers game in ministry is a dangerous thing.

Yes, reaching more people is better than reaching fewer people. This blog and my book have reached ten times more people in these two years than I expected to reach in my lifetime, and I’m profoundly grateful for that. After all, we write, preach, teach and pastor to touch people’s lives. It’s appropriate that we want those efforts to have a positive impact on as many people as possible.

But readership and attendance numbers can only tell us so much. And some of what we think they’re telling us is false.

6 Lessons, Blessings & Cautions from 2 Years of Blogging Read More »

Why Hasn’t Church Growth Elevated Our Communities? (A Sincere Question Seeking Honest Feedback)

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Today’s post is filled with questions I don’t have answers for. That’s where you come in. Warm up your typing fingers to add feedback in the comment section. But first, a little background. For the past 20 years I’ve pastored a Small Church in Orange County, California. In the past 50-plus years this county has given birth

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The Elements of a Healthy Small Church – And the Hidden Agenda that Can Kill It

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What does a healthy Small Church look like? It looks like a healthy big church – in all the ways that matter, anyway. No, a healthy Small Church is not just a miniaturized version of a healthy big church. Pastors who try to do that are usually concentrating on the externals. And it never works

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Grow It or Close It? Is There a Third Option for Struggling Small Churches?

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What are we going to do about all those struggling Small Churches? That question has been the subject of endless ministerial (especially denominational) hand-wringing in the last several decades. A lot of time and money has been invested in conversations, books, seminars and classes attempting to fix this problem. Struggling Small churches are usually given

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“How Will We Measure Our Success?” – The Question the Disciples Forgot to Ask Jesus

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“If it’s OK for a church to be small, how do you suggest we measure a church’s success?” Since starting the ministry of New Small Church, I’ve been asked that question more than any other. Maybe more than all other questions combined. At first I didn’t know how to answer it. Now I answer that

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