The Small Church’s Biggest Need, Biggest Blessing, and Biggest Opportunity

May 12, 2019

by Karl Vaters

The typical church has about 75 attendees every week.

So if you pastor a small congregation, your church isn’t broken, it’s what’s known as normal. And normal doesn’t need to be fixed.

But for the most part, the books, conferences and classes about pastoring tend to concentrate on big church principles, or on how to help the smaller churches become bigger.

That’s not a bad thing, in fact it’s expected, since we all want to learn from those with growing ministries.

But when those are our only sources, we can miss a valuable aspect of church life – the vibrant, healthy small church.

Author

Karl Vaters

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.

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