My Take: The World of the Small Church
by Raj Attiken, September 17, 2015: Most Christian churches are small. More Christians, however, worship in large churches. According to a recent National Congregational Study done by Duke University, 43% of churches in the United States have fewer than fifty adults and children attending, and 67% have 100 or less.[i] These are generally classified as small churches. In those areas of Adventism that I am most familiar with, a small church might be one with fewer than 30 or 40 adults and children in attendance, some as few as 20 or 25.
The following are my perspectives on small churches.
- The smallness of small churches is not a sign of failure. Size is not a useful metric for congregational “success.” The typical “bodies, bucks, and buildings” criteria used to assess success in the church are not helpful with small congregations.
- Small churches are not underdeveloped or malformed versions of big churches. Although many small churches try to imitate big churches in how they worship and conduct their life, they are a different “species,” with different and distinct congregational dynamics than a large church. Happy is the small church that embraces this reality!
- Small churches are usually not on their way to becoming large churches. Most small churches remain small. This is not a reflection on their faithfulness, commitments, loyalties, or spirituality.
- Some small churches were once large.
- Small churches are resilient: they have “nine lives” (see my Opinion piece of August 15 in AT).
- Small churches, like all churches, are not immortal. They die. By some estimates, between 4,000 and 5,000 churches close their doors permanently each year in the United States. Like individuals, churches have life cycles: birth, infancy, adolescence, prime, maturity, aristocracy, bureaucracy, and death. Each stage has its distinct features and challenges. The sequence is not inevitable – it can be intercepted.
- Small churches have some things that large churches don’t. Among them is the possibility of relational intimacy, caring, and support.
- Small churches don’t have some things that large churches have. They don’t have the money that large churches have. They don’t have the multiplicity of skills and abilities that are present in the memberships of large churches. They don’t have what it takes to offer numerous services, ministries, and programs.
- Most seminary graduates will pastor a small church some time in their career. This is not due to a negative assessment of their skills, abilities, or dedication. It is just the way it is.
- Most one-size-fits-all denominational programs are irrelevant to the small church. These programs are designed by denominational staff who are often far removed from the realities of the small church.
- Small churches are resistant to change. This is particularly so in churches that have a long history. They have become comfortable and settled with how things are done, and look at change with a degree of suspicion.
- Small churches can change. If the one or two major influencers in the church can be convinced of the value of the change, the rest are likely to embrace it.
- Small churches have particular expectations of their pastors. They care less about how good a pastor is in planning programs or delivering deep sermons, and more about how much the pastor cares about people, visits them in their homes, and is available to them when they are in crisis.
- For many small churches, the church building is a liability. Buildings consume a large percentage of the church’s financial and human resources in maintenance and upkeep. Additionally, for many churches, the seating capacity of the building is multiple times that of its weekly attendance. This not only affects the relational dynamics when the congregation meets, it also conveys a negative impression to any guest who might show up. The visual impact of walking into an almost empty church building is generally unfavorable.
- Small congregations, especially older, declining ones, have strong attachment to their buildings. The building represents to them the last visible, tangible symbol of the enduring nature of their hopes. Giving up the building for a more conducive and functional setting is a difficult choice.
- Like all other churches, each small church has a unique personality and “soul.” Its personality is shaped by its story. This is another reason why the one-size-fits-all denominational programs have little appeal to small churches.
- Small churches can be tightly knit, closed communities that seal off admittance to anyone new. Such churches have subtle ways of sending messages to newcomers that they don’t belong in the family.
- In some small churches, family feuds become church feuds. An understanding of family systems and family dynamics is helpful if one attempts to facilitate conflict resolution.
- Small churches take vicarious comfort and pride in big denominational events and programs held in far away places. They claim the success of these programs as their success. These “successes” add legitimacy to their existence.
- Small churches generally do not have a pastor of their own; typically they are in a district with other churches that share the services of a pastor. Tithe generated in a small church is usually inadequate to support a pastor.
- Small churches rely heavily on the leadership and involvement of many or most of their active members. They have to, in order to keep operating.
- Small churches claim legitimacy for their existence in the assurance that where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, He is present.
- Some small churches live with a diminished sense of self-worth. Some suffer an inferiority complex, partly due to their size, limitation of resources, and lack of recognition by the larger denomination.
- Some small churches feel disenfranchised from the larger denomination and its activities.
- In their missionary efforts, small churches are best at being incarnational rather than attractional. Members can incarnate the gospel among their families, neighborhoods, and communities more effectively than they can attract people to their church through programs and events.
Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying: “God must have loved the common man because he made so many of them.” Perhaps the same could be said about the small church. There are many of them. And they matter. They matter to God. They matter to those who belong to them. Sometimes they matter to their communities. Small churches are here to stay. Though each one is small, together they have the potential for spiritual impact. They deserve attention. They deserve care. They deserve to be valued. That’s my take!
[i] https://www.soc.duke.edu/natcong/
Many people understand truth by implication, more than theological articulation. This probably is true especially in small churches.
In which case, you may expound some profound theological truth, and some would simply say, “So”? Meaning, “So what, we always understood and believed that.”
Articulate theology is only helpful, if and when, a false idea is attached to some objective given. And this usually happens when some high influence individual has an “enlightenment” experience that is contrary to obvious truth, or simply some limited view that is less than comprehensive in all the bible may say on any given subject.
It is then advocated that any view that would challenge the limited view is false. As an example, historically, some of our pioneers claimed the atonement was not made on the cross. They wanted to emphasis the final atonement made in the sanctuary in heaven. And denied that the atonement was made on the cross. They advocated a limited view that was less than comprehensive, and created unnecessary confusion about the word “atonement”.
Of course, EGW never endorsed this limited view. But this idea of a limited view on many theological subjects has created a lot of controversy in the Christian community in general, and Adventism in particular. A modern example would be the “Moral Influence Theory” that advocates the love is God is a moral influence (true) but deny the vicarious atonement is a payment for sin.
The fact is, it is both and not an “either/or” scenario that some would advocate. Just like the atonement is not solely limited to the cross, but neither is it solely my way of the application of the forgiveness of sin, either to the end time, or a daily reconciliation of the mind of man to the mind of God.
So, the words, “salvation, atonement, justification, sanctification…..” and many others have a more expanded meaning in the bible than the limited way people want to define them, and then claim any expanded view is false doctrine.
As a mission family we often met under the trees in branch (pun intended) Sabbath schools with 15-25 people. We had no electricity, no electronic musical instruments, no amplification.
Because of this bondedness at an early age with small groups worshiping the Lord, I still prefer that level of worshipful interaction. I can say, however, that for pure emotional uplift, the larger (mega) church offers very special effects that can help draw (especially) depressed and downtrodden people into a higher sphere of attention, where they are better prepared to hear the gospel from the pulpit, as well as via the still, small voice. Not being a depressive-type person, I do not “need” that stimulus, but I am amply aware that there are those who do and I do not condemn those who find great connections with God and their fellow members in a convocational setting.
Sometimes, however, I have witnessed pitched battles between those who favor, on spiritual grounds, small gatherings vs those who strongly favor a larger setting with tremendous opportunities for program development. We would do well to recognize that diversity is a hallmark of a healthy denomination (not uniformity) and we should rejoice that we possess a wide variety of preferences and expertise from which to draw in our churches. We are a larger denomination, and growth automatically produces diversity. We do well to respect those differences and nourish them appropriately.
Raj,
Those are some insightful observations. By your description it appears my church has outgrown being “small.” I have been so blessed by it that I look for the same level of blessing when I am visiting somewhere else and unfortunately have several times so disappointed that I treasure getting back to my local church family. Most difficult of all for me is visiting a large church where I can quickly feel lost in the crowd. If they have a pipe organ, I’m gone because it is just too formal to bless me and it makes me miss my once-small church so severely.
There should be no stigma or status attached to a church because of it’s size. We have all been blessed and bored by small or large churches!
When it comes to athletics, sports teams have a specific number of team players: A basketball team needs five, baseball nine, and soccer 11. But when it comes to the dynamic of a church, where teamwork is increasingly widespread throughout complex and expanding families and sub-groups, there is no hard-and-fast rule to determine the optimal number to have in each church.
Some have suggested that large church teams simply break down, reflecting a tendency towards “social loafing” and loss of coordination. Given that there is a core belief that each person counts and that there is probably no magic church team number, a recognition of the fact that the best number of people is driven by the church’s task and by the roles each person plays.
Maximilian Ringelmann, a French agricultural engineer born in 1861 discovered that the more people who pulled on a rope, the less effort each individual contributed. Size is not necessarily the first consideration when putting together an effective church team, it all depends on what the needs and preferences of the church team are.
The smallest church my dad pastored had 13 members. Like some other small churches Raj describes, it was indeed one extended family. Unlike those same churches Raj describes, they were very warm and friendly and open, at least to us.
Many small churches have contributed their sons and daughters to the greater Adventist cause. I could name several here that I know. Unfortunately, that means the children grow-up and move elsewhere. Then the small church dies along with the parents who raised those children. Like families, churches often become “empty nesters”.
Let’s consider any interesting scenario, Jim, that would apply to a small church like the one you mentioned.
Suppose that small church decides that a member is apostate and decides to dis-fellowship that member. This means a very few people have the authority to put someone out of the whole SDA denomination. They are no longer an SDA by virtue of 20 people or less. And if the vote is close to 50/50, then it is even less than that. Maybe 10 or 12 people.
What we can see, is that is not possible in the world of sin to create a perfect and ideal church that can function without possible error on not only this issue, but many others as well.
So, like a single human being who God can use as a “means of grace” to communicate some aspect of His kingdom, it can be very faulty in any given circumstance.
I know a disfellowshipped person can appeal to the conference. But theoretically, it is inane to give such dynamic authority to a few people who can put someone out of the whole denomination by a very small number of individuals.
Of course, we should be aware that no church can put anyone out of heaven nor make an final decision about that issue. Only God can do that, of course the Catholic church thinks they can.
Unfortunately there are small churches that degenerate into fratricidal conflicts. One quite close to my extended family was seriously damaged by “family matters” that became “church matters”. Just as there are dysfunctional families where there is a need to “punish” someone (not necessarily the instigator) when things go wrong, so there are dysfunctional churches.
I would say that in such cases it may be wiser to “shake the dust off of your feet” and go elsewhere.
Unfortunately this can be very difficult and painful if there is nowhere else to go. Many small churches are also isolated geographically. There may be no other fellow believers within a “Sabbath day’s journey” in some places. Essentially you become a “shut-in” for relational rather than physical reasons.
I know people in such circumstances who join the “church of the Internet.” On Sabbath morning they watch Doug Batchelor or Dwight Nelson or Randy Roberts or David Asscherick. Take your pick depending on your tastes – there are an abundance available.
I happen to enjoy very much a church with a pipe organ and an orchestra and a choir. There is such a church in my part of Oregon. And their pastor (who is now retiring) is a great guy who preaches very good sermons.
But we do not attend this church. Why? Because God has called us to a “mission” in a very non-traditional church. Even though they do not do “my” kind of music, I love the people.
I also happen to enjoy a church where most of the people are younger than I, where there are lots of children. Children and young families inject a lot of energy into a church. Churches of any size with few children feel lifeless to me. This is far more important to me than the style of worship.
What is written in the great controversy that would be contrary to Seventh-day Adventist teachings?
What does this comment have to do with small churches?
I am afraid you have lost me?
Raj Attiken said, “Most one-size-fits-all denominational programs are irrelevant to the small church.”
Boy, isn’t that the truth. And what I read in many of the denominational papers seems to be geared toward large, urban churches. I live where most of the churches are in rural areas, and many of these programs are either impossible to implement in small, rural churches, or are, as stated, “irrelevant.”
Raj Attiken said, “In their missionary efforts, small churches are best at being incarnational rather than attractional. Members can incarnate the gospel among their families, neighborhoods, and communities more effectively than they can attract people to their church through programs and events.”
Very insightful, and a concept that is difficult for many, both of clergy and laity, to accept.
It is not the size of the church, but the spiritual strength of the church that counts! Many of our churches need to stop depending on their conference led, poorly trained pastors. The way we make decisions needs to change
I would like to see the decision-making process in our local Adventist churches become more biblical, efficient, and effective. Women and young people need to be included at all levels of local church government. What we have now is not working well. Our local churches have allowed pastoral incompetence and malpractice to prevail at the local level of church governance. At our seminary there is not one required course on the practical aspects of church leadership and the conduct of church business. Most pastors are not able to analyze and plan a church budget, fundraising effort, or deal with the church as a business.
1. Our church meetings should be fewer, more joyful, and more productive.
2. Educating our congregations to a better way to do business and become an ongoing resource for implementation.
3. Minutes should be kept, studied, and distributed of all of our meetings. I am shocked to see how much effort is wasted and when this does not happen.
4. Local church Elders are to be accountable to the church board as it was originally set up. Too many times the Elders have preempted the board by for a Board of Elders on a co-equal basis.
Pastors are a church resource. They also should be accountable to the local church an not just the local…
Sam,
I particularly appreciate your point about the decision-making process in our churches needing to be more biblical, efficient and effective. When my church was organized one of our frustrations with familiar ways of “doing church” was a long history of dealing with utterly dysfunctional church boards that were dominated by a few narrow-minded individiuals. So we restructured. We eliminated the Nominating Committee and instead have a Connections process where people who have interest in particular ministry and are gifted by the Holy Spirit are recognized and put to work in that area. We divided the Church Board into two teams. The Spiritual Focus team is focused on ministries, chaired by the head elder and is composed of elders and ministry team leaders. The Administrative Team is chaired by the head deacon and deals with the physical plant and financial matters. We also have business meetings that would amaze most people because of how focused and productive they are. Yes, we’ve had to wrestle with some challenging issues where there were strong differences of opinion, but we remained respectful and came to decisions. What really surprises visitors is how those meetings often seem more like a church social because of how friendly they are.
This is a perfect model for all!
May your “tribe” be multiplied! Thank you!
Cont.
conference.
It is God’s church! It deserves our best!