Eleven Characteristics of Effective Smaller Churches
Some years ago, I traveled across the United States, west to east and north to south, and back north, visiting twenty-one smaller faith communities that…
Browsing: Small Membership Churches
Articles
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…
Intergenerational Ministry and the Small Church
Church leaders typically consider it a liability when they are unable to provide focused age-specific ministry to every demographic in the congregation. But in large…
Doing Community Ministry in the Small Church
Sometimes I interact with small congregations that assume that any significant community ministry effort is beyond their reach. They often keenly feel their limitations as…
Small Churches, Belonging, and the Harley-Davidson Funeral
There is much confusion among churches today resulting from the painful reality that much of our sense of belonging was dependent upon the status and…
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…
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…
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…
Preaching in the Small Membership Church
Lew Parks’s newest book is ostensibly a preaching primer with good, solid advice on some of the basics, such as selecting a good biblical translation…