The Case of a Small Church in an Oversized Building
Lewis A. Parks, author of Small on Purpose, describes how smaller congregations can easily squander their last resources for ministry attempting to keep up with…
Author
Lewis A. Parks
Dr. Lew Parks has served churches of all sizes as a United Methodist pastor and superintendent. As he continues to direct the Doctor of Ministry program at Wesley Theological Seminary and teach, he is pastor of Calvary United Methodist Church in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania. He also assists denominational leaders around vitality in small membership churches and is author of Preaching in the Small Membership Church (Abingdon Press, 2009) and Small on Purpose: Life in a Significant Church (Abingdon Press, 2017) [Cokesbury | Amazon].
Small Church as Surrogate Family
Lewis A. Parks, author of Small on Purpose, says the small church offers a surrogate family for those whose basic family unit is dispersed or…
A New Way to View Vitality in Smaller Congregations
I spend my working days as a pastor trying to name reality for my congregation as we wind a precarious way between the heights of…
Asking Instead of Telling
You pick up some books because of the author and some because of the title. This one called to me for both reasons. Through Edgar…
Review of Imagining the Small Church: Celebrating a Simpler Path
A previous generation of students such as Carl Dudley, David Ray, and Anthony Pappas have catalogued the unique culture of the small church, here defined…
Surmounting Leadership Defeats
How do we rebound from setbacks to our best-laid attempts to exercise responsible leadership in ministry? I recently returned from a large denominational gathering where…
The One Room (Church) Schoolhouse
My mother attended a one room schoolhouse for all but the last two years of her public education. As a Baby Boomer, I grew up…
The Soul of a Small Church
These are anxious times for the lay and clergy leaders of small congregations. The repercussions of a disappointing economy, aging and shrinking membership, and a…
Renovate or Die
Bob Farr offers a generous collection of tools for congregational development in his book Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission…
A Better Script for Small Churches
I have served as pastor of small, mid-size, and large churches. And some of them grew, especially the larger ones. Large churches that grow larger…