![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/home_page_header_text.jpg?fit=1920%2C518&ssl=1)
Subscribe to our newsletter
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Matt-Steen-De-Sizing-Graphic.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-Sizing the Church (pt 8): Are We Too Quick to Replatform Fallen Pastors? with Matt Steen (ep 076)
The importance of offering a path to repentance and restoration without re-victimizing those who have been hurt.
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Big-Small-Gap-Growing-2.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-sizing The Church: Why The Gap Between Big And Small Churches Is Growing
An obsession with church attendance has been with us for a long time. But it’s a bigger deal today because we’ve become really good at it.
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/anxious-1000x562-1.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
Six Ways To Be A Non-Anxious Presence As A Church Leader
When you walk in the room, do you raise the anxiety temperature, or lower it? Mature leaders learn how to be a calming presence.
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Dan-Darling-De-Sizing-Graphic.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-Sizing the Church (pt 7): How To Use Your God-given Platform Well, with Daniel Darling (ep 075)
Fame is not evil, but it is dangerous. Yet it can also help get good information to as many people as possible.
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/More-than-attendance-1000x562-1.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-sizing The Church: What’s More Important than Attendance?
Healthy, de-sized churches prioritize worship, ministry, discipleship, evangelism, and fellowship not as a means to an end, but as the purpose for which we exist.
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Dave-Gibbons-De-Sizing-Graphic.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-Sizing the Church (pt 6): Reframing Ministry Success to Reach the Misfits and the Marginalized, with Dave Gibbons (ep 074)
What happens when a pastor decides to reach people who look as different from his current congregation as possible?
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Discipleship-Fixes-1Kx562.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-sizing The Church: Discipleship Fixes Everything
“All numerical markers — increased attendance, bigger and better programs, a larger budget — must take a backseat to listening to Jesus. Jesus calls us to abide in him.”
Peter Scazzero
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SCOT-McKNIGHT-De-Sizing-Graphic.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-Sizing the Church (pt 5): Forming a Goodness Culture In the Local Church, with Scot McKnight (ep 073)
“Meritocracy has reshaped pastors and churches, and a new culture has taken root, based on achievement and accomplishment rather than holiness and Christlikeness.”
![](https://i0.wp.com/karlvaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/De-sizing-Integrity-Lasts-100x562-1.png?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1)
De-sizing The Church: Integrity Lasts
The Bible constantly calls us to strengthen our integrity. We’re never called to increase our numbers.
Follow, Contact or Subscribe
Author
-
Karl 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.
Karl has served in small-church ministry for over 40 years, so he speaks and writes from decades of hands-on pastoral experience. He and his wife, Shelley have three children and two grandkids.
View all posts