Yet Another Perspective On Small Church Ministry and Small Churches

Happy Friday from Jeff and Jonny at 200churches! We have spent the week talking about the bigness of small church ministry, and we will end the week talking about it.

Do you think that the smaller sites of a multi-site megachurch have inferiority complexes because they are smaller? Ever consider if the staff in the larger venues struggle with pride because their site has more people? Ever wonder if the leaders of the smaller worship venues in a church with multiple services ever stew because another venue with a different worship style or service time is attracting more people?

Yeah, us neither. We’re too worried about how many people are in our small church, or how many are in the church across town. We may be wondering why our church is not growing as fast as Mark’s or Susan’s or Bill’s.

Do we spend the same amount of time concerning ourselves with our walk with God? Or, the spiritual growth of our people? Or, the poor, orphan, or widow in our community? Wow, talk about a guilt trip! Let’s change direction before this plane hits a mountain…

Are you ever glad for the small church you pastor? In the part of our conversation this week with Karl Vaters that did not get recorded, we talked about the following dynamics in larger churches:

Karl told us about his friend’s church of 3,000 people that had multiple sites, multiple venues, and multiple services. He said that in that church of 3,000 no group ever met for worship with more than about 350 people. Some of the services had 50 people in them! Listen, in a church of 3,000, some services have 50 people!

Now, how do you feel about your church of 50?  Pretty good, we hope. What if the ten churches in your community that total 3,000 people pretend you are just one big church in your town and that each of the buildings are just another “site”. Yeah, so there, what if?! Now how do you feel about your church of 100?

Do you see how it’s all so relative – size of congregation?

Finally, what do the big churches have to do – break themselves down into smaller groups so that they can do ministry effectively. Yes, it’s called, multi-site, multiple venues, multiple services, etc. In fact, so many churches have what we call “small groups” so that they can do life together. Something they can’t do on a Sunday morning in the bigger crowd, whether that’s 40 or 40,000.

So you see, having a small church simply means you can do ministry with people and cut out the part about breaking everyone into smaller groups.  Get to know the other pastors in your town, all of them, and just make pretend they are all on your staff and pastoring the other sites in your multi-site church!

Enjoy your small church ministry. It’s the only kind of ministry Jesus ever did. Your leadership and shepherding matter HUGE in your 200church.

Comment below on just one thing you like about pastoring a small church...