Laying the groundwork: Small churches can be healthy, viable, and effective

In a recent conversation about the looming shortage of small/solo church pastors which I mentioned in my last post (“There is a crisis looming”), I was challenged by a friend to realize that, if we are going to recruit men and women willing and prepared to lead small churches, we must first convince them that small churches are actually worth leading.

To be frank, it is an almost insurmountable challenge, especially given the fact that, as Keith Drury notes, the vast majority of ministry students in his classes at Indiana Wesleyan University are from churches which are undeniably, unmistakably large. They are therefore accustomed to all of the programs, budgets, personnel, facilities, marketing, and more of a larger congregation, all of which can be leveraged to make a spectacular impact in a community or even the world. To them, this is the image of a normal, healthy, effective church. In comparison, a 2001 study by Barna found that the median total operating budget for churches of less than 100 was just $68,000 (http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/59-a-profile-of-protestant-pastors-in-anticipation-of-qpastor-appreciation-monthq). Of course, this figure has increased some over the last ten years, but when you add in that the same study found that 8 in 10 of those churches was paying a full-time pastor (some would point to this as yet another fault of small churches), you realize that there simply are not as many resources available to make such a large splash.

But I like a challenge. So here we go.

The primary argument for the potential of small churches must come from Scripture. In Acts 1, just before the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples gathered in the upper room, we are told that “the number of people who were together was about 120″ (vs 15 HCSB). A few verses later, after the Spirit had been poured out, it was these 120 who rushed out into the street and proclaimed the gospel, inspiring 3,000 to be baptized and join the newborn church.

One hundred twenty people may be a bit larger than a small church, but it’s far from a large church. And yet, this is what God used to start the Church (please note the distinction between individual congregations (i.e., churches) and the Church as a whole).

But maybe the Acts 2 church isn’t the best example of a small church. It did, after all, become a megachurch on launch day. Or did it?

Maybe not. The truth is perhaps found in the fact that it was Pentecost. You see, Pentecost wasn’t just your average Sunday around Jerusalem. No, it was one of the major feasts of the Jewish year, and so the streets of the city would have been absolutely flooded with pilgrims from around the known world. This is why it was so significant that the disciples emerged speaking in tongues: the people on the streets of Jerusalem that day spoke all sorts of different languages. And so it’s reasonable to assume that, once the feast was done, these men and women started trickling back toward their homes. And in fact, even a significant chunk of the 120 were probably from places other than Jerusalem and, sooner or later, started heading for home. Not because they gave up on the faith, mind you, but because they needed to get home to tend to businesses, families, etc. As they went, they certainly took the Gospel with them, but their departure also meant that the church at Jerusalem contracted until was once more a medium – or maybe even a small – church.

In the aftermath of Pentecost, as Acts 2 comes to a close and the church settles into a routine and begins to figure out what it means to be the Church, we have a brief profile of the things they did which has often and rightly been advanced as the description of a healthy church. We read in verses 42-47:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. (HCSB)

To be clear, there are at least 14 ingredients which comprise a healthy church:

1. Devoted to the apostles’ teaching (aka, Scripture)
2. Devoted to the fellowship (i.e., working together toward a common goal)
3. Devoted to communion (i.e., memorializing Christ’s life, death, and resurrection)
4. Devoted to prayer
5. Reverence for God
6. Wonders and signs
7. Unity
8. Generosity
9. Devoted to meeting in public
10. Devoted to communing in private
11. Joyful and humble attitude
12. Praising God in every situation
13. Positive relationship with everyone
14. Evangelism

All of these traits were present in the church at Jerusalem, however small it was, and as the masses from Pentecost began to disperse – and especially as the believers in Jerusalem scattered as a result of the persecution which followed Stephen’s martyrdom – they were present in the churches which were planted wherever the Gospel was taken. And by and large, those churches which were planted were small churches, too.

Further, I think you could make a compelling case that some of these traits are actually easier to find in a smaller church than a large one. For instance, in a large church, it’s much more difficult to have everyone devoted to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and communion. There always seems to be a group devoted to the charismatic leader, exciting youth program, awesome worship team, etc. It’s certainly far easier to unite twenty people than two thousand. And if you’ve ever tried to get twenty people all on the same page, moving in the same direction at the same time, you know what a challenge that is!

Certainly, small churches can be healthy. And I would submit that the fact that the Church sprung from the church at Jerusalem demonstrates soundly that small churches can be viable, too.

But what about effective? I mean, let’s face it. There aren’t too many small churches out there seeing 3,000 people saved in a single day. And when you hold up the typical small church stats on salvations, baptisms, sanctification, etc., to the same stats from large and megachurches, they pale in comparison. Are small churches really effective when measured against that last statement of verse 47?

I believe that they are. And to show this, I would draw your attention to a single key word found in that very last statement of Acts 2:47: “added.”

I think this word is key because, if the church at Jerusalem continued to experience the kind of growth detailed at Pentecost, Luke the physician would have used the word “compounded.” I mean, there is no getting around it: 3,000 converts / 120 starting disciples = a compounding factor of 25. Like when the bank figures interest, compounding is an exponential function. And the thing you need to know about exponential functions is that they snowball. On day 2, the church would have seen 108,000 converts. Assuming the most ambitious population estimates, that would mean that at least 86.4% of everyone in Jerusalem, including Pentecost pilgrims, was saved. On day 3, 2.7 million. That’s more than the entire population of Israel in Jesus’ day. On day 4, 67.5 million. That’s almost 1/4 of everyone in the world. On day 5, 1.69 billion. In other words, just after 9:00 am on day 5, the entire world would have been saved. Just in Jerusalem.

Similarly, even if the church at Jerusalem failed to see Pentecost-like growth, but still saw even a hundred or so believers added daily, Luke the physician would have used the word “multiplied.” This would have resulted in rapid but steady growth. On day 2, that would mean 3,240 disciples. On day 9, 4,080. On day 30, 6,600. I don’t know too many megachurches that even see that kind of growth!

Instead, we read, “added.” And the reason that this is significant is that addition is slow but steady work. The growth wasn’t even close to dramatic, and that makes sense because, as we see starting in Acts 3, the Gospel was – and is – best communicated one person at a time. In fact, once we get past Acts 4, where we learn that the Church had grown to 5,000 men, plus women and children, we don’t see any more hard attendance figures. But we do see Acts 5:14 (HCSB): “Believers were added to the Lord in increasing numbers – crowds of both men and women.” And Acts 11:24 (HCSB): “And large numbers of people were added to the Lord.”

Pentecost and other dramatic, mass conversions were the exception to the rule in Acts. In fact, they always have been. And I would suggest that Luke’s addition accounted for days, weeks, even months and years when individual churches may not have seen any conversions, but the Church as a whole did. The key was that, even when they had a dry spell in conversions, even the smallest church was still ministering and witnessing, witnessing and ministering. Intentionally, deliberately, effectively drawing people to the Lord.

History bears this out. The large and megachurches with which we are so enamored today are entirely modern inventions. A study by The Hartford Institute for Religion Research found that “nearly all current megachurches were founded after 1955″ (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/bookshelf/thumma_article2.html). In other words, the Church survived the better part of two millennia without them.

Now, please understand that I am not anti-megachurch. Or anti-large church. None of this is intended to criticize these churches or their leaders in any way. They do tremendous work for the Kingdom, and I praise the Lord for that! But it would be utterly wrong to discount the Biblical, historical, contemporary, and future health, viability, and effectiveness of small churches.

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