Resources for “Small Is Beautiful”
The November 23 issue of Alban Weekly (“Small Is Beautiful“) notes that while small congregations sometimes feel isolated, they nevertheless have many advantages and strengths: they serve as an “anchoring” presence in their communities, they see larger percentages of members active in worship, and they make substantial contributions to mission.
Author Wendy McCormick offers some sound advice for small congregations. She emphasizes the importance of clearly discerning identity and mission, and remembering to build on strengths and gifts that are already present. She suggests appreciative inquiry and asset mapping as tools for following this advice. The article concludes with compelling stories that illustrate her points.
What resources might be especially helpful for small congregations? In addition to those listed at the end of the article, resources listed in the “Small Congregations” and “Appreciative Inquiry” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide might be valuable. Let me particularly call your attention to Mark Branson’s book, Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change. Take a look as well at our free online resource, “Claiming the Light: Appreciative Inquiry.”
What stories and suggestions do you have regarding small congregations? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
In the United Church of Christ conference in New Hampshire, several of us put together a Small Church Vitality Project and small nine churches have been involved in attending workshops four times a year for two years. They have been willing to gather and form a community learning about one another’s churches, and seeking information about asset mapping, demographic finding, family systems, temperament surveys, visioning, entrepreneur ministry, funding and stewardship. Ongoing feedback for the steering committee has, hopefully, helped us stay connected to the needs of these particular faith communities. It has been interesting to learn about the varied topics and those participating say that it has helped them to keep the vision for their church in the front of their minds.
membermission.org offers resources that work in small churches just as well as in big ones. It is based on research funded by Trinity Church Grants in 2000 that worked with 25 small churches from NJ to AK. It is adaptable in any culture. A recent session was well received by African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Caucasians — and seminarians, a lay leader from Cameroon and a pastor from Tanzania. Further, our resorces are in use in Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran churches as well as in Episcopal churches.
I appreciate Wendy McCormick’s article. The only thing I would add is that it is overly focused on small congregations in rurual or small town settings. I serve a very vital small congregation in a large university city. It would be helpful to have examples of urban small congregations as well.
As the board President of a small Unitarian Universalist congregation in the Skagit Valley of Washington State, this article really hit home. We have about 55 members with Sunday services attracting between 25 and 55 people. The Fellowship celebrated its 30th anniversary a year ago. For some years we had a lot of young families with children but the kids have grown and gone on to college and adult life, and our children’s program now attracts anywhere from 2 to 8 or 9 children. We have a lot of gray hair as you look out over the congregation! We have a great half-time minister, and other services are done by visiting ministers or are lay led.
At one point we struggled with the need to grow, trying to sign up every warm body that came more than once. But under the guidance of our current minister, we are morphing into a great small congregation that offers things a larger congregation may find harder to do. We try to reach out to every new face that visits, not intending to sign them up as members but to let them know we value their presence with no further commitment. We are moving from large fundraising events that require a lot of people power and heavy contributions of time and material from members to smaller, more fellowship-oriented events. Loneliness is a big problem in our culture today, and we are finding that one thing we can do as well as a larger church is to alleviate that sense of isolation. Sure, we worry about finances but we also have a much smaller staff and lots of volunteers to do small things so that balances out. We wish we could do more in social action but we have come to realize that what is important is to find out what our community needs are and support those needs at the level where we can do the most good. Living small can be a great thing if it’s done well. Instead of struggling with a desire to grow in numbers, we are coming to realize that if we do the best with what we have, we will grow in influence, and that often results in larger numbers.
I might also add that with a small group of people making decisions, you can often get things done faster! Do I wish we had a larger budget, a bigger, fancier building, and more money for outreach? Absolutely. But concentrating on our shortcomings won’t change them. A positive attitude about working within the limitations that come with being small just might.
One of the problems of the Church Growth movement is that it is so externally focused that it tends to almost completely ignore the called and giftedness in the congregation as a defining quality of its vitality. Vital congregations do not come in one size and neither to dying ones. What all vital congregations have in common is that they know who they are (internal) and they know who they are called to serve (external) and they are strategic and passionate about the connection between those two realities.
What troubles too many small congregations is that they continually seem to focus on what they are not (we don’t have children, our worship isn’t excellent, or whatever) and then spend much of their energy trying to decide whose fault that is. Being small is no impediment to vitality if you live out of your strengths and love your neighbors.
In our Presbyterian church in NJ, though larger than what you categorize as “small,” the most effective activities and projects are those that operate as small group ministries. The camaraderie and focus factors serve to boost interest and commitment to the task, whatever it is, and each other.
It’s tempting to suggest that big churches could think of themselves as associations of smaller groups, but that leads to feelings of territoriality and isolation between groups–certainly not a communal Christian atmosphere. Key to applying Wendy McCormick’s principles to larger congregations is establishing up-front church-wide priorites and then being clear about how each activity relates to those missions. Then the smaller groups are motivated to complement, communicate, and coordinate with each other.