Small Churches are Small Because They’re Doing Something Wrong

That’s what a college classmate of mine heard when he did a ministry internship in a very large church. No, he didn’t just hear the sentiment. He heard the actual words: “Small churches are small because they’re doing something wrong.”

In some cases, this is absolutely true. But does that mean larger churches are large because they’re doing something right? Sure, sometimes. In the case of the larger church mentioned above, the senior pastor left (with his lover) after a long term affair was exposed. So, maybe not always.

The issue isn’t this over-generalization that small church = dysfunction and big church = health. We can all point to shining (and not-so-shining) examples to refute that.

The issue is that we believe it.

It’s how we’re wired in this culture. We see numbers, we assign value to those numbers. Lower numbers, lower value. A packed house means a great show. A smattering of attendees and forget it--there must be something wrong here.

How do we break this mindset?

I think we each need to relearn that our church is THE CHURCH. Bill Hybels (a mega-church pastor) has said (and keeps saying) that “the local church is the hope of the world…” He doesn’t say Willow Creek or Saddleback or Hillsong. Or even Northpoint. And he doesn’t say when the small church finally grows to 500. He said the local church. And Jesus said something even better, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

This has everything to do with Small Church/Big Worship. We have to stop defining our worship by how many singers we have. Or how big our band is. Or by the songs we sing. Or the songs we don’t sing. Or our doctrinal bent. Or how people express themselves during worship.

Instead, what if we defined ourselves as THE CHURCH, whether 40 or 4000. We are the body of Christ, the indestructible battering ram on the doors of hell. The royal priesthood chosen by God to bear His name for His glory.

We start believing that and our worship starts getting bigger.