Why join a small church?

Small churches can become great churches. It can be done.

A close friend of mine was the prayer secretary in the Christian Union during university days. He was (and is) an excellent, zealous Christian and, simply for reasons of being aware that he would not want attention drawn to himself, I will not give you his name.

In the mid-1970s he was called as a very young man to pastor a small church in a Midlands town. The situation was a classic of discouragement. The church building was a great barn of a place in a state of some dilapidation and the congregation had dwindled to perhaps 20 or so mainly elderly folk. But, nevertheless my friend felt the call of God to take it on.

Nothing seemed to happen

I remember speaking there myself to help out on occasion. With the congregation so small, they no longer met in the main worship area but in a little hall above the entrance to the building. This was kept warm by a couple of Calor gas heaters, the fumes of which tended to have a soporific effect. It was quite a feat even to keep the ancient saints awake throughout an evening service.

What a situation! For many years nothing much seemed to happen, except a few minor encouragements from time to time. But my friend stuck to the task, praying, preaching and doing whatever he could. And after about 15 years of his ministry there, suddenly the church took off. Christians moving into the area began to join, people began to get saved. The church now numbers something like 200 to 250 people on Sundays, the building has been renovated and they have planted another church in a nearby town. Numbers are not everything. I believe this church had already become a great church even before the attendance began to increase. But the point is the church had been turned around. Instead of just surviving, it is thriving. Under God such transformations do happen.

Therefore, despite the shower of cold water which I threw over you last month let me once again encourage you to join a small church. If you did, how can you help to make such a church the best it can be for Christ? How can we make a small church a great church?

Here are seven suggestions.

1. Be local

In our sceptical society non-Christians need not just to hear the message of God’s love, but to see it lived out before their eyes. ‘There are so many faiths and ideas around today’, unbelievers say, ‘why should I believe you have the truth?’ Sadly it is true that there are plenty of cults and religions which seek to turn people into mindless zombies and suicide bombers. Therefore we can sympathise somewhat with the non-Christian’s sentiment.

If they don’t know us very well why should they trust us? That is why just putting a tract through someone’s door, or cold-calling and giving people who don’t know you from Adam an invitation to church, is very unlikely to get anywhere in times like ours. But if we live in the area of the church people not only have the opportunity to know the church but also to know us personally. We have the opportunity to earn their trust. So to make a small church a great church, not only attend it, but go and live near it.

2. Be involved

Be involved in the church, but also be involved in the community. This follows on from the last point. It is no good living in the area if we are going to shut ourselves away like some kind of religious recluse. Jesus loved people and so should we.

He showed his love for people in practical ways and so should we. He encourages us to ‘let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5.16). There is so much that can be done to help others in need, from young one-parent families who struggle with poverty to elderly people who can no longer do their own shopping and everything in between.

3. Be immoveable

A church needs stability. That only comes as key people stay. Thinking outside the church to the lost we are seeking to save, winning people’s trust takes time. Therefore, not only move into the area and get involved in the church, but stick with it. The ethos of the consumer culture in which we live militates against this. It always encourages us to be on the move, shopping around. To keep chopping and changing is the spirit of the age. Meanwhile perseverance and stickability is the way of the Spirit of God (Philippians 1.6).

4. Be faithful

There are many things which we can afford to change in a church. But the one thing which we cannot afford to change is the gospel we preach. We must preach the apostolic gospel as we find it in the New Testament. Many Christians think that if we are going to make any impact for Christ then we need to gain public approval. So we are tempted to reshape and repackage the gospel in a way which is more immediately attractive to postmodern non-Christians. But that is the way to lose the gospel. The apostle Paul tells us that the minds and hearts of unbelievers are darkened. Their thinking, in spiritual terms, is futile (2 Corinthians 4.4; Romans 1.21,22). Great churches identify the real problem with people as sin and lovingly hold out the great news of the gospel.

5. Be witnessing

We must not only know the truth, but, of course, we must share it with others. This can be done in all kinds of ways and we need to be creative.

But God will give those opportunities, especially through our kindness and friendship towards others. One young woman was a single parent with four children by two fathers. Her first marriage had ended in divorce and the second relationship had turned nasty. Battered and in need she shared her problems with other parents in the school playground. Some didn’t want to know, but others rallied around to help. It later dawned on her that, in fact, all the people who really showed care and tried to help her were Christians! Now she wanted to know what this Christianity was all about. Now she was wide open to listen to the gospel and came through to trust in Christ. Kindness leads on to witness.

6. Be prayerful

Prayer works (Luke 11.13). It is no good simply complaining about the hardness of people’s hearts and lamenting that so few are interested in the gospel. The little church which would see things change must give itself to prayer. Our society is very hard and only the power of God can break through. Richard Bewes (who had a great ministry at All Souls, Langham Place in London) writes: ‘The work of God cannot be undertaken without prevailing intercessory prayer. Indeed we must go further and insist that prayer actually is the work’. In other words, if we are not praying we are not working, so is it any surprise if nothing happens. So to make a small church a great church start praying, individually and in a prayer meeting.

7. Believe God

Some small churches panic. They feel as if they are locked into a situation and there is no way out. At this point the few members can begin to turn on one another, blaming each other. Such situations require a cool head. It demands the wisdom of peacemaking. It calls for encouragement. It requires sound judgement. But, in particular, it requires faith. We must believe God. It is his church not ours. He cares about it even more than we do. We must believe that the expansion of his kingdom is always his will. We must believe that he wants us, as he wants all disciples, to be useful to his purpose. We must put ourselves totally at God’s disposal and take Jesus at his word that ‘everything is possible for him who believes’ (Mark 9.23). God will have a way.

God’s business

Notice the orientation of all these suggestions. They are directed outward from the church. Churches never become great by being self-pitying and ingrown. They become great as they nurture a genuine love for the glory of God and for the souls of lost men and women.

I recently watched a debate between a Christian apologist and an atheist professor. Having dismissed the resurrection of Jesus the atheist sneeringly remarked, ‘Well, anyway, what’s this supposed God of yours been doing for the last 2,000 years?’ The answer, of course, is that he has been doing precisely what he said he would do, saving people from every tribe, tongue and nation. And, as yet another proof of God’s reality, we see this happening all over the world today before our very eyes. Saving souls is what God is doing these days. Rescue is his end-time business before the Second Coming of Christ. So if we want God to use and bless our church, large or small, we had better be involved in that business.

Part 3: How to make a small church a great church