Christmas In The Small Church: Why Intimate Is Better Than Epic

When your congregation is smaller, embracing the benefits of your size can make you remarkable.

December 6, 2024

by Phil Cooke

Christmas and Easter are not always banner days for small churches. As I wrote in Facing The Small Church Easter Sunday Blues, they can often have a smaller attendance than regular Sundays.

In this guest article, Phil Cooke shares why small churches should counter-program our services by going smaller and more intimate, instead of bigger and grander. It’s a helpful reminder.
— Karl Vaters

Here’s an idea: If you’re not a big church, then stop trying to be something you’re not. Every Christmas and Easter I see small churches trying desperately to make a big impact – and they usually fail.

Sure your communications, media, and tech teams want to do amazing things. So they bring out the fog machines, fancy lights, and the worship leader reaches far beyond the capabilities of the choir or worship team.

And too often, it ends in disaster.

This next Christmas or Easter, embrace your size – because intimate can be a far more powerful an experience than epic.

A number of years ago, our family celebrated Christmas at a historic resort in rural New York. On Christmas Day a local pastor came to the resort to have a Christmas service. It was a hotel, so a small ballroom was all we had, and since it was a resort, not many people showed up.

But that pastor knew exactly what really mattered, and he was brilliant at orchestrating a small, intimate, and meaningful Christmas service.

And I’ve never forgotten it.

Sure we want to stretch toward a greater potential, but not with the result of an inept and fake experience.

So for this next holiday service, stop trying to compete with the big guys, and start being you.

Your congregation will be grateful.

This article originally appeared as If You’re a Small Church, Stop Trying to Look Big, at PhilCooke.com. It has been used here with permission from the author.

(Photo by Fort Walker | Flickr)

Author

Phil Cooke

Filmmaker, writer, media consultant, and founder of Cooke Media Group, Phil Cooke, Ph.D. has produced film and television programming in more than 70 countries, and his client list includes studios and networks like Walt Disney, Dreamworks and USA Network as well as major faith-based organizations such as The Salvation Army, Museum of the Bible, and many more.
He wrote and produced “The Better Hour,” a feature documentary for PBS on the work of William Wilberforce eliminating the slave trade throughout the British empire, was executive producer of “Hillsong: Let Hope Rise” released to theaters nationwide, produced “The Insanity of God” premiering nationally as a Fathom Event, and the feature documentary for television “Inexplicable – Asia: The Great Wall and Beyond."
His books include Ideas on a Deadline: How to Be Creative when the Clock is Ticking, Unique: Telling Your Story in the Age of Brands and Social Media, The Way Back: How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Get It Back (cowritten with Jonathan Bock) and One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do, named by the Washington Post as one of the Top Five Business Books for 2012.
His most recent book is Church on Trial: How to Protect Your Congregation, Mission, and Reputation During a Crisis, based on decades of helping churches and nonprofits navigate a wide range of challenges, scandals, and crises.
Phil is rare – a working producer in Hollywood with a Ph.D. in Theology. He’s appeared on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and his work has been profiled in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. He’s lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA and Yale, and is a visiting professor at Oral Roberts University.
You can follow Phil at PhilCooke.com, and on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
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