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The Small Church Matters

By charlie worley
 Most churched people in North America and maybe around the world attend or are being ministered to by small churches. I am defining a small church as one that has fewer than 125 in face-to-face, average attendance during worship services. These churches and their leaders need not apologize for being small and seemingly insignificant. In fact, they are the churches that may have the greatest impact for the Gospel in their communities. They matter! This blog offers some reasons why, so keep reading to find out why the small church matters to God and to its community.

     Most churched people in North America and maybe around the world attend or are being ministered to by small churches. I am defining a small church as one that has fewer than 125 in face-to-face, average attendance during worship services. These churches and their leaders need not apologize for being small and seemingly insignificant. In fact, they are the churches that may have the greatest impact for the Gospel in their communities. They matter! This blog offers some reasons why, so keep reading to find out why the small church matters to God and to its community.

     First, the Lord of the church doesn't love them any less than a growing megachurch that appears to have much greater numbers and more of everything. He loves all God-honoring and Gospel-preaching churches the same (Eph. 5:25-27). The local church however its size, even your church, is far from perfect but it is loved by Jesus with that same love that took Him to the cross.

     In the small church, people know one another and can care for one another. The one another's of the Scriptures can come to life when people know one another in ways that show the Kingdom of God. Larger churches tend to limit these relationships to their small group ministries at best.

     The small church can be a great environment and culture for leadership development when it's intentional. As a church grows larger, the ministry of developing leaders tends to be staff-led and clergy-led. The small church can better develop discipleship and leadership pathways. It often calls for an "all hands on deck" approach to ministry. The potential is great for developing ministry champions unless the small church becomes pastor-driven and pastor-led, a move that stifles leadership development.

     The smaller church can better focus on doing a few things better than trying to do a lot of things with excellence. The reality is, the small church cannot and should no try to do many ministries throughout the week like the larger church. The smaller church that knows and uses how the Holy Spirit has gifted its members can have a greater impact in its geographic community.

     The small church can better focus on attracting people to the church rather than attracting people to Jesus. It can be a "go to" church that is continually sending church members to its Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth as it makes disciples who make disciples (Acts 1:8). Larger, growing churches may rely too much on the opposite approach, a "come to" way of reaching people with the Gospel (Matt. 28:18-20).

     Smaller churches can communicate better, but their communication needs to be intentional and multi-dimensional. Even though it may act more like an extended family, like larger churches it needs to use multiple methods, multiple times, and in multiple places. The small church that understands the what and why of networks has the potential to communicate better than the larger church.

     If you are part of a small church, celebrate what God has given to you with its strengths, opportunities, and open doors, but never be satisfied with a lack of growth and the way your congregation grows content with a lack of new visitors or new followers of Jesus.

      So, what do you think of small churches?

[Photo by John Cafazza on Unsplash]