This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission from purchased products at no additional cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
In this special blog post, we’re taking a peek into stories of hope from our Small Church Conference last weekend, plus sharing about our next “best thing!” On the heels of this event, we’re excited to open the doors to the Small Church Network. Read how Small Church Ministry has been impacting churches with community, support, and resources, and learn how you can be a part of this global movement of small churches growing in impact. The Small Church Network offers:
- An ongoing community for support, led by small churches for small churches
- Monthly trainings, both live and recorded, to share within your local congregation
- Opportunities for breakout discussion, co-working, and mentorship
- Live gatherings in multiple timezones for regional and global access
- And lots more!
The Impact Of Conferences Designed For Small Churches
Years ago, I took a few of my Sunday school teachers to an in-person, mini-conference. It was a regional conference by one of the national children’s ministry publishers. I knew it would be fabulous because I attended them many years back while working at a big church. I remembered how excited my team was and how much we walked away with. However, we left feeling deflated and feeling like we wasted our time. We didn’t learn anything new, and nothing could be applied to our small church. It didn’t allow us time to bond as a team, or even have purposeful conversations about our unique challenges.
Small church ministry is different and unique. It’s a specialized type of ministry. This means that it calls for different strategies, applications, and even a different way of working with people. Do you know who can teach that? People who have lived it. People who do life in small churches and who work in small churches.
Because of this, attending a conference catered to small churches’ needs is so important. The only people who can truly teach others how to do ministry well in small churches are the ones who are successful in small church ministry.
We are about joining with God in what He’s already doing in small churches, right now. God may or may not grow the number in some small churches. He never promised that, but He will grow you and draw more people unto Him.
We Are Known By Our Fruit
When the Bible talks about being known by our fruit, it never says the number of our fruit. Matthew 7:17-18 says, “Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” Those verses don’t say that a good tree has a lot of fruit and a bad tree has less fruit! God could’ve said that, but He didn’t. A good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit.
In your small church, or even you as an individual, the better question to ask is, what’s the fruit you’re bearing? Are you experiencing peace or panic, freedom or frustration, hope or hopelessness? I believe that you can experience peace, freedom, and hope in any size church. We should shift our focus to this, rather than our numbers.
Spreading Hope And Peace Through The Communities
At our past conference, we had 32 speakers who were excited about what God is doing in their small church. They were excited about small church ministry. They shared different ways they’ve partnered with God in smaller churches, and that’s just the speakers. Another couple of hundred people were in attendance, sharing their wins and getting excited too. I try to maintain a mix of speakers in churches under 50, some in churches of 100-150, and even speakers in portable churches or church plants.
We all need hope. Although small church ministry is different, we need to see hope in churches like ours. This is why we are careful to maintain the diversity that’s a part of our core values, diversity in denominations, church size, setting, races, multiculturalism, and so much more.
Whether you were able to join us at the conference or not, I want to share a few comments from our post-conference survey.
3 Questions From Our Post-Conference Survey
1. What Will You Do Differently As A Result Of This Conference?
I love the idea of doing a communion service the way Pastor Sargent suggested, to engage the people more throughout the service rather than tacking it on at the end. I’ll encourage my pastor husband to try this!
Try to find tech volunteers so there is more than one tech person, which is me. One speaker stated that the day no one commented about sound was a good tech day and the sound was okay.
Pray more. I want to enter as a worship leader, not a song leader.
I want to be more intentional about appreciating the people who do show up. I have a lot of thank you cards to write!
There is so much more, too! This is the beginning of transformation!
2. What Was Your Favorite Part About The Conference?
The multiple conversations and presentations about volunteers, how to invite, train, and retrain. Letting our light shine as we volunteer. Letting others make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Not to expect perfection. Let them own it, and improve! Remember that this is a small group, treat it as such. Also, the importance of filling ourselves and letting the overflow feed others. I really enjoyed the conference.
I am blown away by the professionalism, expertise, and breadth of experience The Small Church Ministry has to offer and all you have accomplished in the short time you have existed. God certainly has His hand on you.
3. Is There Anything Else You’d Like To Add?
I’m not really sure how Small Church Ministry came to me. It had to be Jesus because He brought the things I needed at the time I felt most discouraged. I have cried with you, laughed with you, been admonished, been encouraged, been given abundant support through this conference, and been reminded that it is all about Him. I am humbled and thankful.
More Information About Our Conferences
If you haven’t been to one of our conferences, please reserve the 2023 dates. January is Women’s Ministry, Children and Youth are in April, and our Married To A Pastor Conference for pastor’s spouses is in July! If you are on our email list, you won’t miss these dates! It was so sad, in our Facebook community, people were saying the day before that they wished they had known about the conference. Sadly, with social media algorithms, it isn’t the best place for announcements. So please make sure to get on our email list if you want to be updated about events and all the new resources we have for small churches.
The Small Church Network
One of the things that often happens as a result of these conferences, is the desire to keep this learning community active and engaged, sharing hope, solutions, and support. Because of this, we wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t have to wait months or even a year for the next one. We are so excited to invite you to join the all-new Small Church Network! We have a group of 50 churches in 4 different countries, who have been meeting and sharing input to help create this incredible network!
The Small Church Network will feature monthly training and networking spaces. Our gatherings will be taking place in HOPIN. We love to use this platform for conferences because they have so much capacity for breakout rooms, coworking, recorded training, and so much more!
Although we can’t offer it for free, we are keeping the cost as low as we can! For your entire church, it’s less than $15 a month, which is $179 for the year! This includes monthly recorded training to share in your church with volunteers, team members, and even your pastor. If you’re a small church, it means that anyone from your small church can attend each month. This isn’t a per-person cost! If you don’t want to join the network, non-members can also jump into the monthly live training for $19 per person.
We are also planning to make this time zone friendly across the globe. We are ready to go public and start building the first and only global network for small churches with training components, breakout rooms, and more, led by small church people for small church people. We would love for you to join us!
Read More:
