Small Church Connections: How To Truly Connect Not Gather

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A small church is a place where everyone knows your name. If you’re a part of small congregations, you know it’s nearly impossible to be anonymous. However, being known, accepted, and cherished is greater than being seen. While our small church connections aren’t immune from disappointment, misunderstanding, and even sinful intentions, God calls us beyond the hurt to restoration, connection, and love above all. Keep reading as we go over:

Experiencing God’s delight in us as individuals
Creating relational safety in the church
Getting closer to the small church connections that God created us for as His body

Small Church Connections

Deep down, everyone wants to be heard, to be known, and to be accepted in being known. I think that smaller churches are uniquely positioned to offer this true healing and human connection that people are desperately searching for.

Interpersonal neurobiology is a term that explains that we are so interconnected and don’t really exist apart from one another. There’s a deep process that happens, regardless of whether we’re aware of it or not, where we constantly rely on someone else, either someone who has walked before us or who is actively walking with us.

The church is uniquely positioned to offer these deep, interpersonal relationships. It is a place where people can come in, be seen, and surround themselves with family. In smaller congregations, you are able to truly connect on a deeper level, and create long-lasting relationships. Small church connections can bring a type of hope into people’s lives that is uplifting and healing. Yes, small churches make mistakes, and church hurt happens. However, it’s our job to own up to that hurt and try our best to limit it.

People Need To Feel Safe

People need to feel safe enough to open up to connect rather than simply gather together. Telling your story and speaking about the hard parts of one’s story can be healing and empowering. It can help bring people together through shared experiences and even empathy. For this to be possible though, the people coming to your church community need to feel seen, heard, and valued through it all. We need to create a culture where there is safety as human beings, to talk about how we fell short or where God stepped in and saved the day. This will allow us to delight with the God of the Universe!

The reality is, that many churches are filled with hurt, anger, and grudges. Many people have their walls up and aren’t being as authentic as they would desire to be. Hurt will come. That is the only thing that we are guaranteed in human relationships. However, our culture at church should be one of acceptance, forgiveness, and love. We should be quick to talk about the hurts that were caused, and just as quick to show love.

How Can We Do Better?

It all starts with us. We can’t offer a relationship based on seeing, hearing, and continuing to want to know more about the other person because we aren’t settled, confident, or fully aware of God’s delight in us first. We are so quick to hide behind the labels we hand out to people, the judgment calls we make, and even the persistent questions we ask ourselves. Rather than hiding behind all these things, we need to learn to connect with God’s lavish and limitless love.

When we grow confident in God’s love for us, we begin to heal in our wounded places. At that point, we naturally, and Holy Spirit-led can see those around us. We become curious. We hold space for them and drop the judgment we quickly placed over them. The fear of rejection or the things that question how we’ll be responded to starts to fade away. We cease striving in activities and relationships because we recognize that we don’t need to host everything!

A Shift In Perspective

Often when someone asks how a program or event at our local church went, we are quick to say that there were 20 people there of 50 people there so it went well. What about the relationships? How did you feel afterward? Who did you get to know? We are almost measuring our success by things that are nominal to our Christian faith. We, as believers, should be known for our love, patience, steadfastness, faithfulness, and even our joy. Understandably, it’s much easier to build a program, get people in the door, and get visitors to stay, but the deeper work, I believe, is where God works.

This shift in perspective from focusing on the numbers to what people got out of a program or event is paramount. The Fruits of the Spirit is the true success of a program.

Moving Toward Transformational Relationships

A lot of this comes back to willingness. Are we willing to spend the time to get to true transformation, or are we going to allow our cultural expectations to dictate what a successful ministry should look like? Rather than focusing on the number of people you’re bringing in, focus on what Jesus Christ did. He was unhurried. He took the time to be intentional about every relationship. He wasn’t worried about how many people he could bring with Him or how many people showed up to hear Him talk. He was focused on creating deep relationships with the people around Him.

Ministry is relational. We must shift from this program mentality to knowing that God put us on the planet, in small church ministry, for this sense of community. I want to point out that this doesn’t merely mean inward focus. We need to be outwardly focused as well. You have to have something to bring people into. This means that you have to have a healthy place of love, peace, and restoration. A place where people can come, hurting or whole. Everyone is welcome.

Building Up Our Small Church Connections

Small church connections are unique. Small churches can be the perfect place for people to truly feel safe and for people to let down their guard after carrying it for so long. However, it cannot be this place if we aren’t intentional about it. We need to see, hear, and love each person that walks into our doors. Cultivate a culture that is based on the Fruits of the Spirit rather than a culture that prioritizes numbers above everything else. To give people the opportunity to let their guard down and break down their walls, we need to be willing to do that for ourselves.

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