Church Size

Is Your Church Measuring Health Or Size? They’re Not The Same Thing

What’s better, a healthy church of 50, or a healthy church of 5,000? The answer should be obvious, but often isn’t.

They’re the same.

Certainly a healthy church of 5,000 is ministering to more people than a healthy church of 50. But a healthy church is a healthy church.

We need to weigh small and large churches the way we measure feathers and bricks. 100 healthy churches of 50 have the same spiritual and numerical weight as one healthy church of 5,000.

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Is Your Church Measuring Health Or Size? They’re Not The Same Thing

What’s better, a healthy church of 50, or a healthy church of 5,000? The answer should be obvious, but often isn’t.

They’re the same.

Certainly a healthy church of 5,000 is ministering to more people than a healthy church of 50. But a healthy church is a healthy church.

We need to weigh small and large churches the way we measure feathers and bricks. 100 healthy churches of 50 have the same spiritual and numerical weight as one healthy church of 5,000.

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Supporting Small Churches Does Not Mean Bashing Big Churches

I like big- and megachurches. I wish there were more of them.

I like small churches even more. I wish there were a lot more of them.

As I continue to write and speak about the value of small churches, I’m noticing a disturbing mini-trend that I want to opt out of. It’s the tendency in some people, when they hear that I’m for small churches, to start talking trash about megachurches.

“Megachurches are so shallow,” they say. “Big churches don’t care for their members as much as small churches do.” And “a large crowd is the sign of a shallow church,” are just a few of the comments I’ve heard recently.

And, of course, there’s the meme that keeps making the rounds showing a huge megachurch, with the words “When you tell them what they want to hear”, contrasted with a photo of a small, empty church, and the words “When you preach the truth.”

Ugh.

Not only is that not an accurate picture of reality, it undermines the power of the Gospel to draw people to Jesus, in both large and small crowds.

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How Church Size Culture Is Affecting the Decline of Denominations

We live in an increasingly post-denominational world. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, it’s just the way things are now.

Years ago, virtually every friend I had in ministry was within my denomination. Every program we used came from our denominational headquarters. The idea of ministering in any significant way outside our ranks wasn’t forbidden or scary – it just didn’t occur to me.

Not any more. Now my denominational connections are just one factor among many that determine my pastoral friendships, my church’s programs and my ministry opportunities.

I haven’t rejected my denomination. They haven’t rejected me. It just doesn’t factor into our decision-making in the way it used to.

Something else has taken over as a stronger factor in how my church makes its decisions.

The size of my church.

And I’m not alone in this.

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When 200 Seems Huge: Five Reasons Churches of 200 Are Considered Small

If you pastor a church of fewer than 50 people, the fact that I refer to a church of 200 as small may surprise you. 200 in your situation may seem huge. In fact, 200 may be bigger than the biggest church in your town or county.

But I still consider 200 to be a small church. No matter how many people live in the community. Here are five reasons why:

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The 6 Types Of Small Church Pastors (Descriptions & Cautions)

There are so many types of Small Churches in the world! The variety is staggering.

Correspondingly, there are a great variety of Small Church pastors, too. But as I talk with more of them (us), I’ve found that there are some patterns that keep repeating themselves.

Specifically, I’ve discovered that Small Church pastors tend to fall into one of six categories. Or some hybrid of two or more.

If you’re a Small Church pastor who doesn’t fit into any of these categories, that’s fine. Maybe there’s a seventh or eighth one I haven’t run across yet.

But I offer these six to you for three reasons:

First, to let you know you’re not alone. There are others who feel what you feel and know the challenges you struggle with.

Second, as a way of supporting each other. Once we know there are others like us, we can reach out and help each other.

Third, each type comes with areas of caution to be aware of. I offer those cautions today as well.

So here they are. You might be a Small Church pastor…

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Rick Warren’s Surprising Video On Church Size & Attendance

“Nobody likes a big church – except pastors.”

If you hadn’t already read the title of this post, you probably wouldn’t think that quote was from Rick Warren.

But it’s just one of several similar quotes in a short video in which Rick Warren shares some very helpful thoughts on our misperceptions about church size and attendance.

The video originally appeared on Thom Schultz’s When God Left the Building YouTube page. You can scroll down a little to watch it right here.

Here’s another quote from Warren:

“I think one of the things we need to do is change what we reward in churches today, because for the last 50 years denominations and organizations have rewarded size, attendance.”

I have no idea what those “rewards” would look like – I’m guessing Rick my not either – but he’s absolutely right that we need to change our thinking in that regard.

As he says in the last quote of the video, “Big isn’t better. Small isn’t automatically better. Healthy is better.”

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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.

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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?

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Why My Church Is Better at 200 than It Was at 400

There are a lot of reasons why the church collapsed and nearly folded. But the main one was this. The pursuit of numbers made us sick. And sick things start to die.

I’m grateful that our sickness was evident in our shrinking numbers. It forced us to deal with the problems. Some churches start dying internally, but keep getting bigger externally, so they don’t see their sickness. No, not all of them. Not even most of them. But some of them. Including mine.

Through that process, I learned several painful lessons. I’m grateful for every one of them.

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