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When We Treat Small Churches Like a Problem, We Get More Problem Churches
Church leaders are always wringing their hands about the problem of Small Churches.
I heard it again recently. A church leader complained that 90% of the churches in their group had less than 200 in attendance, then introduced a plan for getting those numbers up.
(Never mind that the “90% under 200” figure is shockingly consistent across all church groups – which should make us consider that maybe God is up to something with that.)
I watched as many of the pastors in the room tried to hide their “here we go again” faces. Then I left the room wondering again about what happens when we do what that church leader did.
As I was pondering the implications, this question hit me over the head like a hammer.
If Small Churches weren’t seen as a problem, would they stop being a problem?
Think about it. When we treat people like they’re problems, they become problems. When we treat them like they’re a blessing, they often become the blessing we see.
Churches are the same.
“A Healthy Church Will Always Grow” – Or Will It?
A friend of mine pastors a wonderfully healthy Small Church.
One of the ministries they have invested in is a partnership with a nearby halfway house for men who have recently come off of drug and/or alcohol dependency. Each week, faithful church members drive 8-10 of these men to and from church.
The people in the church invite these recovering addicts in with open arms and hearts. They befriend them in many ways, including inviting them into their homes for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Through this church, these men receive tangible evidence of the love of Christ during a particularly difficult time of their lives. Many of them come to faith in Christ.
This wonderful, Jesus-style ministry to “the least of these” is just one evidence of the compassion, health and outward-reaching attitude of this great church.
But the loving care they’re showing towards these men has not and probably will never add one single permanent member to the rolls of their church. And it certainly doesn’t add to their financial bottom line.
A Simple 5-Step Discipleship Process for Any Small Church (That Won’t Wear Out the Pastor)
For many Small Churches, discipleship just becomes one more item on a pastor’s already full agenda. Few Small Church pastors are happy with the way discipleship is being done in their church – if it’s being done at all.
But it doesn’t need to be that way.
If you pastor a Small Church without a discipleship program, or with one that’s not working well, I have some good news. You don’t need an expensive, staff-heavy discipleship program to do great discipleship. And it doesn’t need to kill your already-over-busy schedule either.
After a few hit-and-miss attempts, our church has discovered a simple 5-step process that can work for any Small Church. And it looks suspiciously similar to what Jesus, Paul and many other early church leaders did.
Should the Church Be About Transformation? Or Stability?
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.
Don’t Do Church Small, Do Small Church Really Well
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.
Our Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size – Now What?
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.
5 Clues Your Church May Have Reached Its Shoe Size
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?
6 Lessons, Blessings & Cautions from 2 Years of Blogging
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.
The Invisible Scandal: How Bad Debt and Poor Stewardship Are Killing the Church
There’s a scandal going on in the church today.
It is one of the biggest scandals in church history, yet it remains invisible to most of us.
No, it’s not the sexual sins of some of our leaders. It’s not the physical, emotional and spiritual abuse of church members, or the cover-up of those sins. It’s not the self-righteous legalism on one side, or the moral compromise on the other. It’s not even our tendency to quarrel and back-stab each other.
Those scandals are horrifying, for sure. They’ve been well-documented and need to be exposed to the light of day even more.
The scandal I’m talking about has flown under the radar for a long time – centuries, actually. It’s so common we seldom even think of it as the scandal it is, or how badly it hurts people and tarnishes the reputation of the church in the eyes of those affected by it.
The most widespread sin of the modern-day church is poor stewardship.
