If you are part of a small church you have a choice. You can choose to see the small size of the congregation as a reason to be discouraged and downhearted. Or you can choose to see the church’s smallness as a reason why you might be just the church God can use.
Where am I coming from with that last statement? Is it just foolish optimism? I don’t think it is. Here is my reasoning.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. He does not do things the way the world expects. One might say, with reverence, that our Father is often rather a ‘lateral’ thinker. Our God is a God who uses the lowly and despised to shame the big and glamorous and selects the weak things to shame the strong, that all the glory might go to him (1 Corinthians 1.27). Is your church small and weak? Then you might well be in just the right condition to bring most glory to God.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …