Small Churches, Leadership And Culture: Karl Vaters Interviews William Vanderbloemen

William Vanderbloemen is the CEO and Founder of the Vanderbloemen Search Group, a company that works with churches to help them hire staff, plan for the future and more. Recently, William and I (Karl) did an interview exchange. He interviewed me for his podcast (click here) and I interviewed him for this blog post. In this exchange, William expresses his appreciation for small churches and their leaders, talks about the importance of your church’s culture, and offers some great ideas and encouragement from his experiences working with hundreds of churches of all sizes. Karl Vaters: You work with churches of all sizes. For many people, the advantages of big churches are obvious. What strengths do small churches have that they should lean in to? William Vanderbloemen: Small is a four-letter word. People talk about small churches, and they don't remember that what they mean by saying small is actually the average, normal church in the United States, with 100 or 150 people gathering on a weekend. One of the major strengths this type of church brings to the table is they are much more resilient to a change in leadership than a large church. One time I heard it said that when a small church loses their leader, it's like a cat with nine lives. They'll be fine. They bounce back. If a large church loses their leader, it's like a beached whale, and they have a hard, hard time getting things right again. Resiliency is a huge strength for small churches.