WE ARE ALL SMALL: VALUING THE SIZE OF YOUR CHURCH

Glen Gerhauser

Let’s face the facts: most pastors lead small congregations and most people attend small churches. Most of the churches in the world are small boats rather than large cruise liners. Like Jesus, pastors are crammed into small ships with their disciples, navigating through the storms of life. And Jesus likes it this way. He chose the way of the twelve to reach the world. And he is doing the same thing around the world. The master architect is building small churches that make a big impact. Just like small businesses are the bedrock of the world’s economy, small churches are the foundation of the Kingdom.

But the truth is most small churches don’t feel like they are significant. They live in the shadow of giants and they are expected to wear their armor. Small churches often feel pressure to be ‘mega’ and to put on the same programs and ministries that larger churches do. The pressure to grow numerically is strong––and denominations generally push for and promote the churches that grow in church members. So if your church membership is not growing, or even shrinking, you are subtly viewed as a problem.

The bottom line is we all want to feel superior and successful. If we are small we feel inferior, like we are not a real church. If we don’t own a building or have over a hundred worshippers, we feel like we have not arrived. I guess we forget where we have come from. The Biblical church never owned a building and they met in homes, so their congregations couldn’t have been that big. But we lose sight of that. Some big churches, instead of helping smaller ones, intimidate them with words like: “You must be doing something wrong”, “Maybe your a cult”, “It’s not healthy to be small.”

Yet, most of God’s creatures are small––they’re not elephants, they’re ants––ants who carry ten times their weight, that work efficiently and effectively, and even keep rebuilding when the giants squash their hills. Yes, there is a place for bigness. Big churches are able to host famous preachers that charge $15,000 for an appearance. Aren’t we happy about that? Putting the humor aside, God appreciates the size of every congregation he is building. But we need to give more honor to the smaller parts of the body more than the mega ministries. Why? Because at the moment we are very out of balance. The church needs to honor what the world does not honor––the small and seemingly insignificant. Isn’t this what Paul taught?

“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.” (1 Corinthians 12:22-25, NIV)

For the past eleven years my wife and I have planted and pastored a small church. When I was young and immature I thought we would grow by leaps and bounds. We surely have grown, but in a much different way than expected. We grew in faith, maturity and in training and sending. We now have people that serve as leaders in different churches in throughout our city and country. We have been able to disciple and sow disciples in many different places. But many times I have felt like a failure, I did not feel like a success as a church planter. I realize now it is because the church’s culture is infected with the world’s way of measurement. We must be honest, it’s deeply rooted in us and its tentacles reach down into our subconscious. When have you seen a small church pastor elevated to speak at an international conference. Usually the advertisement goes something like this: “Pastor so and so grew his church from 20 to 5000. Now he ministers internationally to crowds of 1000 or more.” Why are we not ministering to small church pastors since these are the majority of pastors out there? This type of hype does not help them. It makes them feel insignificant or gives them a false sense of hope, making them think that this also is God’s will for their life. Is it?

Why don’t we advertise: “Pastor so and so has faithfully pastored a small but fruitful church for the last 20 years.”? Shouldn’t these be the pastors we are elevating? Surely it’s harder to pastor a small church. It requires more skill, strength and stability. If we honored these men and women it would be an encouragement to all the smaller churches in the world. Yet small does not sell in the church world. We think small is strange and we think youth should be despised.

I surely don’t want to quench a vision for genuine growth. But we do need to go back to the drawing board and define what true growth is. And we need to remember the lesson that God taught us through David, a lesson that David even seemed to forget at the end of his life.

David wasn’t even invited by his family to Samuel’s anointing ceremony. Samuel was going to anoint the next king from Jesse’s family and they didn’t even think to include him. David was still in the fields shepherding his small flock. When Samuel saw his brother, Eliab, he thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” But God corrected him saying, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:6-7). Here we see the Lord does not look at size or aesthetics, he looks at the heart. You can be big or you can be small, but if your heart is right, God will embrace you.

The story ends with the absent David being called in from tending the sheep. The neglected one is then anointed king. Later we see the power of that anointing in the story of David and Goliath. David is the small warrior without the latest technology––all he has is a sling shot. Goliath is a giant with an armor bearer to carry all his weapons. His sword and javelin was not like anything ever seen. But David came against him in the name of the Lord. He wasn’t intimidated by his size; he quickly ran toward the battle line to meet him. And with one stone he conquered the giant and cut off his head (1 Sam. 17). The lesson: it’s not the size of our congregation, but the size of our God that will bring victory against all the giants of this world.

At the end of David’s life he seems to forget this lesson because he takes a census of his fighting men (2 Sam. 24:1-2). God was angry at this; David forgot that God can save by many or by few (1 Sam. 14:6). In God’s eyes we are all small. The oldest man is young and the biggest congregation is pitifully small compared to the heavenly congregation that will one day be beyond number, like the grains of sand on the seashore (Rev. 7:9). We are all small, so each one of us should value the unique size of our congregations. Instead of seeing our size as a handicap, we should see it as our greatest asset.

Author Profile

Glen Gerhauser

Pastor Glen and Anna met at the Pensacola Revival in Florida, USA. Later they got married and planted Holy Fire Fellowship in August 1999 and have been pastoring the church since that time. In 2003 Pastor Glen founded Holy Fire Ministry Training School for the purpose of training on-fire spiritual warriors for the Kingdom. Before coming to Australia Glen studied at the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry (BRSM) during the peak of the revival when over 100,000 thousand souls were saved in a few years. Glen also graduated with a B.B.A with High Honors in Management from Hofstra University, NY and with an A.A. in Practical Ministry from BRSM. Glen is the author of over twenty works including Desperate for Jesus: A Call to Revival and the Holy Fire Curriculum Series.

Website: www.brisbanefire.com