034: Leading in Small Churches: What Makes it Different and How to Do it Best

Episode 034: Leading in Small Churches – What Makes it Different and How to Do it Best

Intro 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Acker. Welcome to The Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Acker 0:15
Hey, welcome to Episode 34, where we’re going to talk about why leading in small churches is different, and also how to do it best. So, leading well in small churches requires a unique set of skills. In fact, excellent small church strategies, they look very different from those in large church settings. One of the troubles arising these days, in many church leadership programs and organizations, is that the majority of them are led by leaders of large churches, who are trying to teach those in small churches how to do ministry better. And while the motivation is beautiful, the impact is limited, and sometimes it’s even detrimental because small church ministry isn’t simply less or smaller ministry. It’s a totally different kind of ministry that requires specialized skills and considerations. So, if you want to level up your leadership in small churches, the best place to learn is from successful small church leaders! So today, we’re gonna talk about what really does make small church ministry different, and that small church ministry is big ministry. And we’re also going to talk about what different leadership skills or characteristics are the best thing ever for small churches, and how to even practice them more, maybe a few that you might be missing or have some areas to grow in. But let’s just start with why small church ministry is actually really big ministry or why it can be. 

So the impact that small churches have all around the globe is only limited, in my opinion, by the modern church culture that’s been falsely screaming, “If you do it right, you will get bigger” or that “God will grow your number if you’re doing it right,” or that “He will bless your church with more numbers if you are obedient.” All three of these statements are completely not biblical, and it’s actually quite maddening and ridiculous once you’ve experienced God working in small spaces. When you’ve seen God moved by somebody’s bedside in hospice, or on the street, when you’re ministering to a homeless person, one individual. Our acknowledgement that God is at work with one really needs to be magnified. 

I heard someone say recently, that the problem in our country, speaking from the US, is that over 95% of churches are under 500 people, or other statistics will say that 80% of churches are under 100 people. I just had a great conversation with Zarc Porte over in the UK, who mentioned “Yeah, we’re not really like the US. Most of our churches are very small.” Well, these days, it feels the same here. Globally, many countries and continents are dotted with small churches. But my question is, why does anyone see this as a problem? How about we celebrate that the hundreds of thousands of small churches out there dotting the globe are shining the light of Jesus! When I look at the stars at night, and by the way, in Tucson, they are just beautiful and fill the sky because we have all these different rules about light, all the extra light that’s in the city. But when I look up at the stars at night, and I see the vast spread over the expanse of the sky, I have never once thought what a bummer. I wish there were just a few really big ones. I don’t think it’s a problem at all that 95% of churches are small. I think it’s a problem that 95% of churches of any size, aren’t passionately in love with and experiencing Jesus. I don’t see one problem at all with a church that has 50 people. It’s amazing. 

We are in a world that is filled with hate and arguing and selfishness and pride. What I see as a huge problem is that people in all sized churches aren’t experiencing Jesus and showing that experience with the fruits of love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and gentleness and self-control. Because that’s what draws people to Jesus, but instead of showing love and joy and peace and goodness, because of this false belief that we must be failing, if we’re not growing. What small churches sometimes end up showing is gloom and doom and apathy and resignment and bitterness instead of hope, and burnout instead of joy. And this is why I mentioned that I really believe that small church impact is most affected by this false belief, because if people in small churches feel forgotten or cursed or like failures, please tell me, how can we possibly join with the God of the universe who is already at work? This is why it limits us. Because if we keep listening to big churches or leadership training programs that say if you did it this way, or if you follow this, or if you had enough vision, or if you trained up leaders like I do, then you’ll see God at work. If we don’t quit listening to that, we’re not going to see Him at work. 

Now, why is this? Why would this even be true? That God wouldn’t be at work until we did all these things well? Like, how short sighted. We’re listening to people say, in order to experience God at work, we need to do these things. Now, please also hear me, vision is a good thing. Training of leaders is a good thing. Skills are important, but, and here’s the big but, God is already at work. He doesn’t need us to grow first. In fact, if we see Him at work and join Him, we will open up our minds and hearts, and grow in skill in a totally different way than if we think it’s our skill that causes Him to work. It’s pretty backwards. We have to have hope before we can get help. And this is the hope, not hope, like it’s going to happen in the future, but hope that God is our hope, and He’s already here. Now, please also hear me I am not saying that people in small churches can’t learn from people in large churches. We totally can, and you know what? People in large churches can also learn from us too, because the size of the church does not make a pastor more successful, or a youth director better, or worship director more valuable. Please hear that! The size of the church does not make a pastor more successful or a youth director or a worship director. It doesn’t. You cannot show me one biblical truth to hold that up, not one. 

So why don’t more church leadership organizations hire successful small church leaders to lead the charge for small church leadership? Well, hopefully more changes coming on that end, and at least at this point, we’re one of the people leading the charge. We have now led eight successful online conferences for small church leaders, and you know who our speakers are? They’re not people from large churches. Our speakers are successful leaders in small churches, who are sharing hope and what actually works in small churches because it is a unique ministry setting! Our next conference is coming up in October. It is specific for worship and tech ministry in small churches, for small churches, by small churches. You can get on the invite list for updates and be the first to know when registration opens if you visit smallchurchministry.com. The link is also in the show notes. But let’s get back to it. Okay. 

Now, I’ve said that small church leadership is different, that ministry in small churches is different. So let’s talk about what is so different, and what makes it so unique, that someone would need a different set of skills, or different characteristics to be truly successful. So, let’s talk about that a little bit, and then we’ll unpack some of the characteristics of amazing leaders in small churches, and how you can grow in these characteristics too. So what’s really different about small churches, there’s just a few things I have to go through, and it’s not all of them, it’s just the ones that are standing out to me today. One thing that’s really different is that every one really does matter. Every single person. Now I’ve worked in big churches, I’ve worshiped in big churches, and I’m not saying that big churches don’t think that everybody matters, but it’s different. In a small church, consensus is actually more important than decision. You notice if someone is missing, feelings get more hurt, and it shows. The question starts to become how can you honor people, if they disagree with the decision? Hurt feelings matter more. Opinions matter.

Now, I’m not saying that it means you’re supposed to keep everyone happy, because it doesn’t mean that, not at all, but in a big church, you can say I’m going to do it anyway and a bunch of people don’t leave the church. They don’t expect you to do what they’re thinking. Now somebody might leave the church and you might or might not notice, but in a small church, it’s very different. Every relationship has more importance. Every person every individual makes up a higher percentage of the church body and that does affect leadership. Leadership is needed in a different way. 

Another way that small churches are different, which leads to different needs and leadership, is that there are a lot more gaps and the gaps are bigger. These gaps lead to different types of choices, and sometimes harder choices that need to be made. So what kind of gaps am I talking about? In small churches, there are bigger gaps in leadership. You can’t always hire the next person right away. In fact, you don’t always have the finances to hire someone to lead in a certain area or even in your church. In addition to that, sometimes your church is in a season where there isn’t even someone to train. So there are big gaps in leadership. In big churches, if there is a leadership need, it is often filled very, very quickly, and often with a whole lot of applicants lining up to get a paid position. It’s different in small churches, which leads to different leadership needs. There’s also bigger, different gaps in finances. I’m not saying that large churches don’t have financial gaps, they definitely do, but small churches have different gaps in finances. Sometimes it’s not about the building fund or the new playground, it’s about the fact that we can’t pay our pastor this month, or we can’t afford the children’s curriculum, or to do VBS this year. These financial gaps mean there’s different needs for leaders. There’s also gaps in demographics. Now, if you are in a small church, I know you get this, depending on the year or the season, you may not have any junior highers, or you may not have any young adults or any young marrieds, but as soon as a new family comes in, bam, you’ve just doubled the size your youth group. So this is different in small church ministry. It requires a lot of pivots and a totally different kind of leadership. In large churches, you can count on having a young adult class, or an elementary ed class, or a separate preschool nursery, whatever that would be, those gaps in demographics do not come in the same way.

So, besides small church ministry being about everybody does matter, and having a lot more gaps. The other thing that’s so interesting in small churches, it’s, it’s that there’s less noise. There’s less places to hide. There’s less distractio. Everyone is seen and everything is seen. If a leader has a gap in their character, or a lack of depth, there’s really no cover up. There’s less things distracting us from even seeing it. I have seen some large churches who’ve had pastors who are kind of jerks, like, they’re not very nice to the common people. I’ve seen this. And I’ve seen that in very large churches. This pastor, who has very little love for people, is leading a very large church. Now, how is this possible, because in a small church, they would run him or her out of town, okay. Leading in small churches requires a really different kind of humility, and not because the ministry is less, but because everything is seen. Now, of course, leaders and big churches should also be growing in humility, but here’s the thing, not only can people hide in big churches, but spiritual maturity, character issues, a lot of things can be masked by success in numbers. Masked by sheer number. 

Now, the last thing I’ll mention that’s very different in small churches, and again, these are not the only things that are different, these are just the ones that I’m talking about today. But another big difference in small churches is there are less trained staff, or leadership. So even when you do have leaders in place, they are less trained or less educated oftentimes, because instead of hiring a youth director, taking applications to pay a children’s director, instead of hiring a teaching pastor who specializes in this or an executive pastor who specializes in that, we are finding people who are willing to step up. Now, I’m also not saying that training or education makes that leader better or more qualified, but it absolutely is a factor. Because in big churches, there’s more specialists. There’s less generalists, and this is a difference in leadership. Okay, again, that’s not all the differences, but it’s enough to start with. 

So let’s talk about a few of these types of things that are that are going on in small churches, and the six skills that I’ve seen the best small church leaders possess between the conference speakers We’ve had my own experience in small churches, these six things stand out, as making them truly some of the best small church leaders I have ever seen on the planet. Now, these six skills are also characteristics, but I’m kind of also calling them skills because they’re all things we can grow in. They’re not just things we’re born with or not. These are things we can practice and grow in and get better in. And as we do that, our leadership skills, specific to small churches, is going to shoot through the roof. 

So, the first skill I want to talk about is being relational, having skills in relational ministry. Now, I don’t mean relational, like you need to be extroverted. I don’t mean charismatic or charming. I mean, deep down being a lover of people and all people. The kind of person that will sit on the porch with you, that’s not rushing to go to the next big thing. Having this relational skill, the skill in relational ministry, it shows up a lot in moving slower, in not being so quick to change things or run past people. It’s very thoughtful. It’s full of humility. Leading well in a small church requires an incredible amount of clear structure and accountability, because of this edge of being skilled in relationships. Now, sometimes people will say, “What do you mean that having structure and accountability is such a different thing than relational ministry?” No, it’s really not, because in order to keep these relationships good, and functional, and productive, we need structure, just like in a family structure. And if you’re saying, “Oh, my goodness, there’s more dysfunction in my family.” That’s exactly what I’m talking about. If there isn’t structure and accountability in any kind of system, it’s so much easier to get into kind of this bitterness, or I have to bite my tongue because that person is gonna get mad or somebody is kind of being a little bit of a bully. So this relational ministry, a part of it really is having an incredible amount of clear structure and accountability too. But large churches, yes, leaders in large churches should be relational, they should also be lovers of people, but there’s different skills needed in large churches. And as I mentioned before, you can grow a pretty large church without being a big lover of people. 

All right, the second characteristic I want to mention is being flexible. Now, being flexible is not just being able to pivot, but being willing to and even watching for an opportunity. Big churches are very different. In large churches, you can set a plan and put it in place and make it run. Remember, these gaps that I mentioned earlier, that’s what actually makes us need to be flexible, is when we have a gap and leadership, a gap and finances. That plan we had, we can’t always push through. If a big church has a discipleship plan, it works like this, and the church goes through this course and then this course, and we use it over and over again. Well, in a small church, sometimes we need to be flexible, because when there is a diagnosis that rocks your community, you don’t always want to push through. In a large church, this plan would move around you and you’d catch up later, but hear me this isn’t bad. But in a small church, it is different. Sometimes choosing not to push through a plan is better on purpose for something deeper, relational, that meets a different need. Have you ever thought about flexibility as being a skill that you can practice? Because it really is. 

The third thing I want to mention, as far as a characteristic that will make you a rock star in small church ministry is developing creativity, working on coming up with new ideas. Charmaine Stoll, who spoke at one of our conferences had actually talked about one of the beautiful things that she loves about small churches, is small budgets. She said, “I think it’s a gift.” She said, “I think it’s a gift to have limited finances, because it causes us to be creative, to creatively meet needs,” and there’s so much beauty in that. Because we can’t always buy the app, or the resources, or the new platform for worship. We have to create things that have sometimes never even been done before. We’re creating outreach programs because they fit with our community, and our church, and our skill set. Now, if you feel like you’re not creative, it’s not true. God created each and every human to be creative. It’s part of who He is, and He has put that in us. Creativity is like a muscle. You practice it and you grow in it. Large churches, it’s not that they don’t use creativity, but I’m going to tell you, when you have the funds to buy what’s already being created, you do not need it as much, it is not vital. It is not always required. Small churches, required, absolutely required. If you want to be successful in small church ministry, you’re gonna develop creativity. 

Now, the fourth characteristic I want to mention is a little bit different, and it’s the practice of constraint, of not doing everything, of choosing less, and embracing the fact that less is more. Keeping programs simple. Stopping this process of overcomplicating everything, not grabbing onto every shiny new toy or tool or piece of technology, because honestly, when we do that, it is taxing on our congregation and on our volunteers. We don’t need to do all the things, and this is a skill to choose priorities, to choose constraint, to practice this skill, to prioritize the people over the programs, often. I think about Coco Chanel. Idon’t know if you know fashion at all, and I know very little, but I learned about Coco Chanel, and she was known for the little black dress way back in the 20s, of less is more and not because it means less, or it’s less important, but because it’s classy, and it’s simple. It’s a different style, it’s not less, and having less, that little black dress actually shows off your characteristics more than all the fluff and all of feathers. And so when you think of practicing constraint, like remember that phrase, less is more. Not meeting every need, but meeting one need very, very well. And again, large churches, yeah, they need to choose priorities do they have to practice constraint? No. Many large churches do not because they have budgets, they have people, they have got the volunteers, and the resources they need so they can do all these things, but I just want you to hear this. Practicing constraint does not mean ministry is less. In fact, less is often more. 

Alright, the fifth characteristic I want to mention that is absolutely vital, if you want to be amazing in small church leadership, is being a developer of people more than recruiting people. So, in small churches, we don’t need to look for a qualified person, because often there is not a qualified person in our midst. There is a totally different skill set to be able to develop people. It’s much easier to find qualified people if you’ve got a mass of people than to develop them, like who would choose that it takes longer to develop people than just to find somebody who’s all developed. This is a totally different skill set. Now in large churches, yes, many large churches do a lot of development of skills or volunteers, but in large churches, there is a steady group of people who are already recruited and qualified. In small churches, we need to develop people as the core. Many, many leaders in small churches are the volunteers, but do you see that it’s a different skill set, it’s not less, it’s different! To be a developer of people, honestly, I think this is one of the best skills that we could possess, is to be a developer of people, because it’s what Jesus did. 

The last thing I want to mention is a characteristic that’s absolutely needed in small church leadership, is being attuned to God at work, being able to hear and feel and experience the God of the universe in small places. And I just want to take two different edges of this. One is being able to appreciate the beauty of small churches, because if you feel like like the church is failing, because there’s no numbers, you will feel crabby, and you will feel terrible, because you’re failing. But if you can learn to be quiet and hear and see God at work, a lot of things change. In large churches, it’s very noisy. There’s lots of crowds. This is not needed in the same way. Now it is needed if you want to be a disciple, and you want to be close to God, but what I’m saying is to grow a large church, this is not needed as much. But to minister in a small space we need, need, literally need to be able to feel and see and just experience the God of the universe at work in a small place. Because if we don’t, that feeling of failure creeps in and it limits us. The other way that we need to be very attuned to God in our lives, is in boundaries. In setting boundaries, in practicing constraint with less trained people as I mentioned, and more gaps, these boundaries get much more fuzzy. We push a lot. We push people, we push ourselves. As I mentioned, people become generalists and less specialists, and we need to be very attuned to where God wants us working, to where He is working and where we can join Him. Because otherwise, we start working everywhere. This leads to burnout, it leads to frustrated people, it leads to us being bitter that other people aren’t helping. It’s just bad all around. This is a very different leadership skill, of being able to hear and be so attuned to God that we are very, very clear where He is working, and where we need to join Him. 

So these six leadership skills, how do they sit with you? Like, which ones are you like, wow, I would love to grow in that, or which ones are you already doing well? Because again, you can grow in these skills. These are not characteristics that God’s either granted you or not. Being creative, being flexible, practicing constraint, being relational, being a developer of people, being attuned to God, these are all things that we can grow in, as we spend time with Jesus and learn some new skills. Because again, small church ministry is a different ministry. It is also highly important, as hundreds of thousands of small churches dot the globe, we need to do our best. We do need to learn skill. We do need to do it better, and your time and your effort matter. You can spend your time spinning your wheels, being frustrated, repeating things over and over again, that aren’t working, driving yourself and others to burnout instead of to impact or you can grow in a few really key leadership skill areas. You can develop these skills to serve your best to be wise. So how do you do it? Here’s a few things. 

Number one, if you want to grow in these skills, fall in love with small church ministry. Quit wishing for more or better or different. Can you imagine Jesus walking by the lake saying, oh, Andrew, really? God, could you please send me somebody who’s not a fisherman? Somebody who’s got more skills. Can you imagine? Falling in love with small church ministry requires loving people fiercely, all people, the ones who aren’t equipped, the ones who drive you crazy, or you literally won’t make it in small church ministry, at least not successfully. You may need to pray through it. You may need to study great things out there. Gosh, I want to tell you to study all the great things written out there on how awesome small church ministry is, but there’s not that much out there, except with us. So hang with us, and keep hanging on to all these great things that are out there in small church ministry!

So the other thing you can do to grow in these skill sets, is start learning from leaders in small churches. Now, again, I’m not saying you can’t learn from leaders in large churches, you can and they can learn from us, but we need to stop importing things from large churches as though they’re going to work in our unique spaces. When you see ideas and resources, and even books that are written for small churches, here’s a question to ask in sometimes you have to do a little research, check out who wrote them and just note in your mind, if they have any experience in smaller churches. Some do, and some love them. Some did and moved out of them and don’t love them and just want to help you get out of a small church. Now, I’m not saying you can’t learn from them, but keep in mind that I guess those glasses that kind of cover up that frame of reference or their perspective coming in, because if you can learn from leaders in small churches, who love small church ministry, who have figured out the keys and strategies of loving people in small churches, and being a light in small churches, it’s a little bit different. So fall in love with small church ministry, learn from leaders who are in small churches. 

And thirdly, just get rid of all the glitter and pare it back. Stop doing all the things that aren’t not working and have not been working. And kind of think about Coco Chanel a little bit, doing less better. Get to know your people. Ask God to enlarge your love for the people He gave you, and please quit saying, if you’ve ever said this or if you’ve ever heard this said, please quit quoting that sheep poop and sheep bite. So many people and pastors and leaders in churches of every size will say, Well, you can’t really expect better from the people because they’re sheep, and sheep poop and sheep bite and what this turns into is we’re blaming the sheep. Okay, now I realize there’s a few passages in the Bible that call leaders to be shepherds of sheep, but I want to tell you, that is not the context to which those verses were written. I have looked up those passages, and I want to encourage you, if you’ve ever said that or you’re curious about it, do a little study on what God says about sheep and shepherds. Because the vast majority of those passages are talking about the fact that the shepherd loves those sheep, and the shepherd lays down their life for the sheep. It is not about blaming the sheep for not being more evolved, or more spiritually mature, or more committed. It is about the fact that the shepherd lays down their life for the sheep. 

So get rid of all the glitter and all the programs, pare it back, and fall in love with those people. Do less more. And instead of looking for the next best strategy, book, or system to grow your church, please grow in your relational ability. Quit trying to force things that aren’t working, and figure out what the better way is. Pivot, be flexible. I promise you, there’s a better way than what’s not working. Grow in creativity. Teach your mind to think of new things. If the car isn’t gonna get you where you want to go, build the airplane! That’s how the airplane got built, by the way. Develop the lightbulb. All good things are not created yet, and God has made you creative. Instead of reading the next church growth strategy book, why not take a workshop on creative thinking? Do less, but do it better. Practice constraint. Quit trying to meet every need, and instead meet one need really, really well. And best yet, in my opinion, start hanging out with people who love small church ministry, because you will start thinking differently. Now, God is at work in small churches, I promise you, if you’ve listened to all this, and you’re still bummed out that your church is small, can I ask why? If you grew up in a family, or maybe you’re in a family now, how many kids were in your family? Did you ever consider that having one or two children meant that the job of parenting was less of a job, less of a meaningful job? Like, can you imagine? I personally never look at a family of 12 and think, wow, those parents must be so much more amazing than those parents of one. However, I do know that parenting one child is completely different than parenting three, or parenting 10, but it is not less. It is very, very different. Do you know how much impact one person that you influence could have on the planet? And let’s even take influence out of the picture, because in God’s economy, do you know how much one person means to Jesus, even if he or she never accomplishes anything? One person is worth so much. Let’s not discard what God has given the sheep that He has called us to care for and lay down our lives for. 

So, is being in a small church a problem that needs to be solved. Honestly, I don’t believe it is. I really believe it is something to celebrate. God did not call us to grow big churches. God calls us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. He calls us to bear fruit. Now that fruit doesn’t mean large numbers in our church. That is not what the Bible says. That is not the fruit that God calls us to bear. He calls us to humility, and surrender. If you do it right, you will grow in spiritual fruit, in love, in joy, in peace, in patience. So, do you see how a big church is not the sign of obedience, or your accomplishment, or God’s blessing? Sometimes growing a church big is actually a curse. Sometimes it is. Sometimes growing the church might be based on manipulation, or narcissistic leadership and really bad treatment of people. Not always, but sometimes. So stop it. Stop judging the size of your church and start leading with excellence, and if you don’t grow in number, you know what you should do? You should keep leading with excellence, because that is exactly what Jesus did. 

I truly believe that if every single Christian and every single church made it their mission to love Jesus and experience Him and show His love to other people, I think it would be a beautiful thing. I am not saying if every single Christian hosted better outreach programs on Friday night, or had a better show on Sunday. I’m actually saying, just walking around the planet, experiencing Jesus and sharing the love of Jesus, I think it would change so much! So, if you think about the six characteristics of being an excellent leader in a small church, where do you have room to grow? Relational ministry, relational skills, loving fiercely? What about being flexible, being able to pivot or willing to pivot when things aren’t working? How about creativity, creating new solutions instead of finding solutions that don’t work? What about that one of practicing constraint, of paring it back and doing less but doing it better? How about the skill of developing people over recruiting people, that slower route? Or what about being more attuned to God, experiencing Him seeing where He’s at work and where He’s not, so you can make better wise choices on where to join Him? 

I want to encourage you to pick one of those six, and don’t pick the one you’re already in love with, or that already is, you’re already having so much fun with. Pick the one that stretches you a little. Ask God about it! Loop in someone that you trust, start a conversation, and take a step back and see where is God already working in your small church, because He is. And before I go, we have just a fun little announcement to share with you. Right now, like this week, we are in the process of rebranding our organization. It was a big decision to make, but we are saying thank you to The Creative Little Church, and hello to Small Church Ministry. Now, if you know our story, The Creative Little Church, which is our website name, it began as a personal blog with an aim to share about the Creative Arts team at my church. Over the past two years, as this personal blog has literally become the world’s number one resource for small churches, with our growing website, this podcast, quarterly conferences, several different communities, and a network coming soon, we are practicing what we preach in joining God where He’s moving, and we’re letting go of what’s not. And as much as we have loved the name, The Creative Little Church and that brand, we have not only outgrown it, but people have a really hard time saying it and even finding it online. So we are making a little pivot with God and all of you along the way. So you can begin finding us starting now at smallchurchministry.com. And if you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, that is our name there too, Small Church Ministry. 

So yes, we are still creative, and yes, we are still engaging and fun, and stinking relational too. Our focus is still on equipping volunteers and those who lead them. We are simply answering the call of many, who, after two years are still struggling with our name. We’ve been called that little church thing, your creative little thing, the small church thing you do and so many more things. So we’re going to make it easier to find us and also easier for you to share about us. So please take a minute to leave some stars and a rating on this podcast. You are taking a few minutes to leave a review not only means the world to me, but it really does help other people find us. And if we’re going to reach the millions of people in small churches out there who are still feeling like they’re failing, we’re gonna need your help! After you leave a review, would you please share this episode with somebody you know in a small church? It’s a great way to be an encouragement and just practice being a light. Talk to you next week.