Darren Moore highlights the frustration of ministering to Christian ‘experts’ and the blessing of the willing Christian fighters
For full disclosure, I was converted and did a curacy in larger churches. I was a student and worked in a church that ended up being a fair size. But, for the past 16 years, I have been the Minister of two small churches (one Anglican, one Presbyterian) – each with times of rapid growth and decline. And let’s be clear: although in once sense size isn’t the best indication of spiritual health, most of us in small churches came with the idea (perhaps in arrogance) that we might grow them into bigger churches.
Sometimes smaller churches can be bitter and cynical about bigger churches: ‘they’re only big because they’ve compromised’; ‘they use marketing methods; ‘they suck the life out of the rest of us’; sometimes just a despairing; ‘they’re good, we’re not’. Smaller churches experience transfer growth, mostly from larger churches. And I’ve noticed that these people mostly come in two sizes.
