The Underestimated Value of Small Churches
There isn’t much difference between small churches and large churches and their mission potential. Redeemer’s Ambassadors have visited nearly 50 neighboring churches. We’ve seen small churches with impressive worship. We’ve seen large churches with ordinary worship. We’ve seen volunteer choirs in small congregations perform as well as larger church choirs with paid section leaders. We’ve seen small churches with amazing track records for supporting neighborhood mission. We’ve seen large churches doing similar things. We’ve seen innovative, scalable mission projects in several very small congregations.
Yet large churches have preferential ranking in the minds of denominational hierarchy. That’s because there is one thing larger churches can do better than small churches. They can better support hierarchy.
Hierarchies are expensive and self-perpetuating.
There is rarely talk about reducing hierarchy. This may be precisely what is needed.
Hierarchies are responsible for keeping church professionals employed. They are also supposed to provide services to congregations. Most congregations have little contact with their regional office unless they are calling a pastor.
Clergy rely on the denomination for access to and approval of a call. The regional body becomes their employment agency.
In the corporate world, employment agencies work for either the employer or the job-seeker. In the church, a regional body, acting as employment agency, holds some power over both the job-seekers and the limited pool of employer congregations within their region. They serve two earthly masters and tend to favor the clergy.
When pastors are vying for the most lucrative or beneficial assignments, the regional body as employment agency begins to judge congregations by their ability to meet clergy needs. If a congregation insists on finding a candidate that fits ministry needs, they can be judged as uncooperative—a judgement that could follow them for decades.
Mandated initiatives that make no sense to congregations can result. The regional body might recommend merger or acceptance of an interim pastor for an undesignated time—or they may recommend closure.
Denominational leaders are acting as managers. Looking at the map, it may make perfect management sense to merge two or three congregations within a two-mile radius. The thinking is that if you merge two 150-member churches, you will have one church with 300-members and that’s a magic number for supporting clergy.
It doesn’t work that way. In the church . . .
1 + 1 = One half
Churches are little communities, something like families. They come with their own traditions and social structure. Merging them to save management costs makes about as much sense as merging three or four unrelated families to make utility and grocery bills more reasonable.
You cannot mandate community. Attempts to merge congregations often end up with one even smaller congregation.
There is another side effect. In the corporate world, mergers and management decisions often result in similar products and services replicated in similar ways. The beauty of small congregations is their individuality. Without small churches we will end up with cookie cutter large churches, worshiping in similar ways and providing similar services and mission opportunities.
The loss of neighborhood ministries will be felt far more deeply than any temporary gains of church closures and mergers.
We must make small congregations a priority. We must find ways to help them get over decades of neglect.