Small Churches Archives - Page 18 of 28

Do We Need A Broader Definition Of Church Growth?

May 2, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

There’s more than one way for churches to grow.

But over the last forty years or so we’ve been given one model of church growth almost exclusively. Get more people in the building.

That model is so prevalent that when I dare to suggest that many small churches are healthy churches with something to add to the body of Christ, I’m met with an incredulous chorus of how can it be healthy if it’s not growing?

The answer? Nothing in nature keeps growing continuously. Everything grows bigger until it reaches maturity, then it grows in other ways after that.

Why would we expect local churches to be any different?

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Getting Unstuck: Innovative Small Churches Find Alternatives, Not Excuses

May 1, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

What’s a small church pastor to do when we’re working hard, seeing signs of health, but the numbers are stuck?

Don’t look for excuses, look for alternatives.

Most of us have an image in our heads of what church growth should look like. Some see a bigger crowd or a bigger building. Some see a currently large, but empty building getting full again. But for many of us, that church growth image comes down to one final result. More people in my church.

As much as we like to deny it, most of us think and act like a bigger church is a better church.

But is it always better?

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5 Mistakes More Likely To Be Made By Big Churches Than Small Churches

April 20, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

Big churches serve many great roles in the body of Christ. And the church growth movement that spawned many of them has been a great blessing to me and so many others in ministry.

But numerical growth, while great, does not come without challenges.

In my last post, 5 Mistakes More Likely To Be Made By Small Churches Than Big Churches, I wrote about some of the challenges that small congregations need to be aware of.

In this post, we’ll look at the other side of the numerical bell curve to see what potential missteps big churches need to be aware of falling into.

If this list feels familiar, it should. Each point is a one-for-one parallel to my small church list.

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7 Reasons to Consider a Small Church Internship

January 17, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

Church internships are great. For the church and for the intern.

If they’re done right (yes, that’s a big “if”), they can confirm or define a call to ministry, provide real-life experience to enhance classroom learning and bless a local church.

If you’re a pastor who thinks you can’t run an internship program because your church is small, think again.

And if you’re a college student or high school senior considering a church internship, a small church may be your best option.

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Supporting Small Churches Does Not Mean Bashing Big Churches

January 15, 2017 / 1 minute of reading

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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Does Jesus Want Every Church to Be a Big Church?

December 8, 2016 / 1 minute of reading

The church growth movement tends to be focused on the growth of individual congregations. Sometimes that’s expanded, usually through a denominational strategy, to include a multiple-church plan, including church planting, but a denominational focus is too narrow also.

What if, when Jesus said, “I will build my church,” what he had in mind wasn’t a world filled with grand cathedrals and megachurches? What if the current breakdown of 90 percent small churches to 10 percent medium, big and megachurches, instead of being a problem to solve, is actually closer to what Jesus intended?

Shouldn’t we look into the idea of taking small churches more seriously?

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They Just Don’t Get It: Why Big Church Solutions Can’t Fix Small Church Problems

December 1, 2016 / 1 minute of reading

You can’t drop two zeroes from an idea that works in a church of 5,000 and expect it to work in a church of 50. Even if it’s healthy, strong and growing.

Big church principles only scale down so far. By the time they reach the average church (the median size is 75 people), most of them don’t work any more.

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3 Assumptions & 5 Realities About Why So Many Churches are Small

November 29, 2016 / 1 minute of reading

Why are there so many small churches in the world?

Ninety percent of churches have fewer than 200 people. Eighty percent have under 100.

Small churches are not in the minority. We are the overwhelmingly dominant way people have always chosen to worship Jesus.

Yet, despite this, there are many misunderstandings about the purpose, the nature, the needs, the blessings and the realities of small churches, based on our assumptions, rather than reality.

Here are 3 of those assumptions, followed by 5 often overlooked realities.

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