STRETCHING YOUR SMALL-TWON CHURCH

I grew up attending a hundred-member church located in a town of about three hundred. One evening when I was a teenager, a visiting speaker showed a film about personal witnessing. When the film was over, he pressed the congregation to discuss the ideas presented.

Richard, one of the church’s lay elders, stood and said, “We appreciate your coming here, but everyone in this town already knows about our church. We’ve talked to them about what we believe. We’ve invited them to our services. Our church has helped them out when they’ve been in need. Nothing has worked. I don’t think we want to spend any more of our time on this topic.”

It was the first time I heard someone articulate the frustration we all had felt. In the mission fields, they told us, thousands were being baptized. In metropolitan centers, public and personal evangelism were reaping thousands more. The harvest was ripe, they said. Then why, when we’d tried so hard, was our little church the same size it had been fifty years before?

Those of us who have ministered in small-town churches know this frustration. In a city, the frequent transitions and comfortable anonymity allow freedom to make changes-changes like joining a new church. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else, and people tend to identify with a particular church-whether or not they ever attend. Richard’s statement was disturbingly on track. Most people in town did know about our church.

How can a small-town church grow and make an impact on its community? After pastoring churches in three different small towns, I’ve learned that growth in small communities doesn’t happen easily or quickly, and the results are rarely spectacular. But it is possible. A pastor’s first task is to create the right atmosphere for growth. Without that, no other growth strategies will work.

Let me suggest six ways to create that kind of atmosphere.

Disarm the Threat of Growth

In one small-town church I served, I was thrilled when, within six months, three young families joined our church of fifty members. The newcomers entered enthusiastically into the life of the church. Almost immediately they began volunteering to fill positions of leadership. At last, I thought, the church is going someplace.

Then one day I overheard one of the old-timers grumble, “All these new people have completely ruined our church!”

One reason some people may not wish the church to grow: if it grows, it will no longer be a small church. There are advantages to keeping the church small. You know everyone, and everyone knows you. If you are a church leader, no one threatens your position. The unexpected rarely happens: every individual’s customs and oddities have long ago been noted and adjusted for. It’s not intimidating to stand in front of a group of twenty; it is before a group of two hundred.

Then there are those new people. “Are they like us? Will they listen to us? Will they love us as much as we all love one another? My wife and I built this church with our own hands. We’ve seen it through dozens of crises. If new people join this church, will it change so much that we won’t feel at home here anymore?”

No one, of course, would ever say he doesn’t want the church to grow. On the contrary, our members often spoke approvingly of church growth-especially on the mission field. Sometimes they regretted aloud that our church wasn’t growing, too.

But the hard truth was that we preferred being small. I began to see our church’s attitude was the hard-learned result of many years of fighting to survive. Surviving is a defensive attitude. It means not rocking the boat. It means handcuffing new people and new ideas.

I first noticed resistance when planning evangelistic activities. Some openly said, “We’re wasting our time.” Others subtly sabotaged the program by withholding their participation or financial support.

More hurtful was their reluctance to accept new people who joined the church. Some of the old-timers claimed the new members had been dropped into their midst too quickly. “We don’t really know enough about them yet.” They dragged their feet about giving new members responsibilities. “They need time to settle in and prove themselves.” But proving themselves was nearly impossible. When the new members weren’t accepted into the social fabric of the church, their ties inevitably weakened.

I talked with our church leaders about these problems, and I tried to understand, even sympathize with, the feelings behind their reluctance to grow. In sermons and in frank discussions with key leaders, I talked about the necessity of fulfilling the Great Commission. We talked bluntly about whether the church could survive without growth, and I tried to help them see the attitudes and actions that made it difficult for new people to be accepted.

But the key to disarming the threat of church growth, I learned, wasn’t talk, but activity-activity that helped members recognize others’ need for Christ as more important than their need for an undisturbed community.

Ross, a young father and a leader in the church, was initially reluctant when I asked him to take as his special project an inmate at a minimum-security prison. He agreed to visit Jack with me, however, and on the first visit, Ross and Jack found that they liked one another. As they became better acquainted and began studying the Bible together, Ross’s fear of Jack’s unsavory past faded as he began to see Jack not as a criminal but as a person with needs and concerns not unlike his own.

Before long, Jack was spending his furlough weekends with Ross and his wife, and was happy to pass part of the weekend in church. Initially suspicious, church members cautiously befriended Jack and were surprised to discover that they were making room for him in their circle. When Jack was finally released, the church rallied to help him start a new life.

In seeing Jack’s response to Christ, the church began to understand the reason for being an evangelistic church. Jack reawakened our sense of mission.

Move the Focus Outward

Jim was three years into his small-church pastorate when he realized that despite a busy schedule, he was seeing no progress. “I became a pastor because I dreamed of spreading the gospel,” he said. “But it was becoming clear that all my time was spent in maintaining the gospel with the already saved. Meanwhile, those who’d never heard it weren’t hearing from me.”

The church claims on his time weren’t altogether illegitimate, but they weren’t making the church grow. “We were marching in place,” he said. “I realized I could continue in the same routine for the next ten years-always busy-and at the end of ten years the church would be exactly as it had been when I came.”

Small churches, many pastors find, have a way of absorbing all of their pastor’s time on internal affairs. The simple reason is that often they’ve been able to. One pastor with a handful or two of church members means members become accustomed to bringing all problems and tasks, even minor ones, to the pastor. Because we’re aware that these people pay our salary, often we feel guilty if we don’t respond to all of those demands. The result is lots of “inreach” but not much time or energy left for outreach.

“One of the hardest things was to begin saying no to church members so I could say yes to potential members,” said Jim. ” ‘No, I can’t drive Mrs. Smith to her doctor appointment. I’m calling on people who visited our church last week.’ ‘No, I can’t take the youth to the lake. I’ve started a new-members’ Bible class that I must lead.’ “

Both pastor and parishioners struggled with learning to minimize their investment in in-church problems so the church could begin to think about outreach. They learned that not every church problem ranks higher in importance than the church’s evangelistic mission.

Build on the Church’s Strengths

My church, like most, had some painfully obvious deficits. We were woefully short of people, money, and talent, making it difficult to run even the most basic evangelistic or community-service programs.

But our church also had strengths. While the close interpersonal ties made it difficult for new members to enter, those same relationships, when offered to those with needs, formed a strong, family-type support network. The experience of a friend of mine illustrates the importance of working with a church’s strengths.

Tom decided to hold a series of evangelistic meetings in his thirty-five-member church. From the first night, it was a catastrophe. “When I drove home,” said Tom, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.” The pianist was late. The special music was embarrassingly bad. The ushers, two partially deaf septuagenarians, didn’t hear their cues, so in the midst of the meeting they shouted instructions to one another across the room. When the lights were to be extinguished for a slide presentation, the ushers flipped the wrong switches, and it took several minutes of blinking lights and more shouted instruction to get things straightened out.

“I finally had to realize that, despite everyone’s good intentions, we didn’t have the capability to carry on a full-scale, professional evangelistic effort,” said Tom. “We were a small church playing big church. It wasn’t attractive.”

Tom improved his evangelistic program by scaling down his expectations to something his church could manage. Congregational singing and special music were dropped in favor of soft background music on tape. A table by the entrance set with study materials and offering envelopes eliminated the need for ushers. By adopting a seminar format, Tom’s formal meeting became a Bible class, a style that demanded fewer expert helpers and tolerated the church’s natural informality.

The Bible-class format also gave the church a chance to express its natural warmth. Friendships between members and newcomers grew, and potential members began to appreciate the church’s close, family-like relationships. By the time new members joined the church, the old members were already acquainted with them. The shock of accepting new people into the church was absorbed by exploiting the church’s natural tendency to establish warm relationships when given enough time.

Shape a Good Reputation

Early in my ministry, I served in a town of about three thousand in a church with twenty active members, almost all over the age of 65. Despite the small membership, I never met a person in the community who didn’t know my church and most of my members, and only a few didn’t know the basic outline of my church’s teachings.

In a small community, a church’s evangelistic effectiveness will depend less on publicity than on its long-term reputation. We’re able to keep few secrets from townspeople. The community’s relationship to the church is determined by the same stability and changelessness that characterize all of small-town life: they accept you and know all they want about you, but they’re not particularly inclined to upset the social balance to become any better acquainted with you. “That’s your church, not mine. That’s fine with me. That’s how it’s always been, and there’s no reason for it to change.”

The key to breaking out of that stubborn old pattern, I’m convinced, lies in the church’s shaping an unmistakable reputation for cooperation and good will. In that effort, some things pay, and some don’t.

What doesn’t pay is an attitude of separateness and exclusiveness. That merely widens a gulf that people are not inclined to cross anyway.

It does pay to get involved with community programs and activities. Becoming involved in community celebrations, being a fan of local sports teams, attending town meetings-all communicate a spirit of good will toward the community. While small-town people understandably balk at a theological discussion, they are impressed by a genuine willingness to be of service. Community-help programs such as stop-smoking clinics, stress seminars, caroling at Christmas time, cooperation with the local food closet or telephone helpline, and volunteer service in the nursing homes and hospitals have all helped to give my small churches a high community profile.

A small church’s most effective tool for creating a good church reputation may be its willingness to help those in need. Those too-tight relationships don’t imply a lack of kindness. My small churches have always responded quickly to perceived needs, the news of a misfortune in the community often prompts a collection on the spot. By the same token, it’s no accident that our women’s group-not just a kaffee klatsch, but a group of women who have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to come to the aid of those in need-is the arm of our small church that the community knows best and appreciates most.

Nothing paves the way for church growth in the small community like a reputation for kindness, honesty, and helpfulness.

Personally Serve the Wider Community

Shortly after moving to town, Keith learned that the businessman who had chaired the community’s United Fund drive for twenty years was retiring and moving away. Years of church fund-raising experience made the job a natural for Keith. He volunteered. Although his church had only forty members and had been almost invisible before, people began to realize that Keith’s church was interested in the welfare of their town. Keith’s United Fund leadership opened the way for a positive community response when later he announced an evangelistic program.

Larry moved into a community of two thousand to pastor a church of thirty elderly members. Although he had no children of his own, Larry became aware that the local PTA was seeking educational materials about drug and alcohol abuse, which he was able to find for them. He eventually became PTA president. Because he organized good programs, soon each meeting was filled to capacity. His leadership led to other opportunities, including Bible studies with people he’d previously considered unapproachable.

Harold and Cindy kicked off their small-town pastorate with a series of evangelistic meetings. Not one person from outside the church attended. Cindy’s hobby was singing, so she volunteered to sing at the local nursing home services. People appreciated her singing, and soon she had invitations to sing at community functions and other church services. Later, Harold and Cindy rented a small hall for a concert. They filled the hall, and Harold gave a short gospel sermon.

Within a year, Harold was secretary of the local ministerial alliance. He was asked to speak at the community Memorial Day service. The police department and community welfare agencies called on Harold and Cindy when they had people who needed help. Their second series of evangelistic meetings, held in the church, featured Cindy’s special music. There wasn’t enough room in the church to fit all who came.

Despite self-sufficient attitudes, many small communities are desperate for capable leadership and talent. They’ll entrust us with important jobs for no other reason than that we’re willing to do them and have some leadership skills.

I’ve found that when I can do a job well, or provide a helpful service, I earn the right to talk about spiritual things.

Usually it doesn’t take exceptional talents and abilities to stand out. Cindy wasn’t a world-class singer. Larry didn’t even have children when he became president of the PTA. Keith’s only qualification to lead the United Way campaign was his church fund-raising experience. Each took average ability and made their service a major church asset by seizing the opportunities in a small community.

Focus on the Real Task

For me, part of maintaining an atmosphere for church growth in a potentially discouraging situation is constantly keeping in focus my broader ministry goal: not just to grow, but faithfully to do the tasks of ministry.

Amid a flood of praise for the tremendous growth of his prison ministry, Charles Colson reflected, “This ‘bigger is better’ mindset is deadly. Vernon Grounds has wisely warned, ‘We are sinfully concerned with bigness-with budgets, buses, buildings, and baptisms.’ “

In a world that worships measurable success, it’s easy for ambitious pastors to forget the church has a number of important but entirely unmeasurable ministry tasks. Author and Christianity Today senior editor V. Gilbert Beers says of his own small-church upbringing, “I owe that small, culturally and economically deprived church a debt of gratitude for giving me a basic foundation in Bible and Christian living, and ultimately directing me into the ministry. Despite its size (or lack thereof) and low visibility, it did its job.”

Small churches are part of the ministry of the greater church, even if they never grow by a single member. Beers’s home church didn’t grow. But it managed to produce V. Gilbert Beers, whose ministry today reaches millions. I’ve come to realize that if I diligently and prayerfully have done the tasks of ministry, then I may assume my ministry is leaving footprints, whatever the immediate results.

One autumn, our fifty-five-member church decided to invite the community to a series of evangelistic Bible classes. Even such a small enterprise proved a big undertaking for us and stretched our facilities and budget to the limit. After eight weeks of classes, four times a week, two people asked to join our church. Unfortunately, Darlene and Alan were lifetime drifters-dirty, illiterate, and unemployed-and as much as they desired to join our fellowship, we frankly wondered whether they understood much of what it meant. But the Lord had brought them to us, and we took it as our task to give them every opportunity to forge a new life.

With good will, the church befriended them, tried to put them on a better financial footing, and encouraged them spiritually. Sadly, it didn’t work. Two months after they’d been baptized, Darlene and Alan disappeared-on the road again. I was disappointed. Our investment of so much had, it appeared, netted nothing.

A couple of weeks after Darlene and Alan left, I mentioned my disappointment to Lila, a church member who’d faithfully assisted in the classes. As we talked, I saw Lila’s face brighten. “Pastor,” she said, “I’m disappointed about Darlene and Alan, too. But helping with this Bible class was a wonderful experience for me because I got to be part of telling someone about Jesus. Even if they didn’t listen carefully, and even if they didn’t choose to stay with us, I got to tell them about Jesus. And I’ll never forget it.”

Lila had kept her focus on a greater purpose: she witnessed not for better membership statistics but out of her love for Jesus. It’s a vision I’ve tried to maintain. Often true success is more accurately measured by our faithfulness to the process than the quantity of the product.

Loren Seibold is pastor of Palo Alto (California) Seventh-Day Adventist Church.