THE BEAUTY OF SMALLER CHURCHES
Cross-posted from Cranmer’s Curate:-
This by Cranmer’s Curate appeared in Friday’s Church of England Newspaper:
An excuse some Anglicans make for commuting away from the small parish churches where they live is that we are ‘boring’. This prompts this parish plodder to offer some reflections for his own ministry and hopefully for that of others in a similar situation:
• We must resist the temptation to compete. That can manifest itself in a tendency incessantly to think numbers at our services and on nurture courses such as Christianity Explored or Alpha and to exaggerate the numerical growth since we arrived. That is likely to lead to discouragement and ineffectiveness in serving Christ in the face of evangelistic reality in most small church parishes.
• We mustn’t be starry-eyed about the large churches either. Realism (hopefully not cynicism) will help us to think straight. The reason the large churches and their church plants can attract commuters is not necessarily because the preaching is superior quality. What these churches can offer that we often can’t is music in a contemporary form and that is undoubtedly a draw in the pop culture. They can also offer peer group on a scale that we can’t. These are facts of life – we just have to live with them, not get discouraged by them and get on with evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• We in the smaller churches need to operate on the ‘little and often’ principle in feeding our congregations with God’s wonderful Word. That means sermons of no more than 20 minutes that are geared towards ministering God’s Word in digestible form to people who have probably not had much biblical teaching. Their edification in Christ needs to be at the front of our minds, not what may impress our absent peers from the preaching conference.
• We should try to be creative with the limited resources that we have. Manageable variations to our services include interviews with members of the congregation, children involvement in prayers and Bible readings, and leading the congregation in memorising Bible verses (which done with gusto can be great fun). These things may sound about as innovative as shepherd’s pie at a harvest supper but they are often brand new on the menu of a small church.
• We should hold our nerve in maintaining a mix of traditional hymns and the more modern choruses (provided in our settings they can be played on the organ and/or with the limited range of musical instruments at our disposal). Good traditional hymns really can reinforce the biblical message we are trying to introduce to a small congregation in a way that some of the repetitious modern choruses can’t.
Small parish churches that have an agreed agenda to grow are actually very exciting places to be. The living Christ is at work as his Word is proclaimed. We mustn’t allow ourselves to be bounced off the ball by the arrogance of the ‘you’re boring’ accusation. At the same time, we need to work hard to ensure that there is no justification for such a fundamentally consumerist rationalisation for driving past the door of a small church where God is at work.
I do believe that you live in the place where God wants you to worship and serve. How can you impact your local community if you are worshipping elsewhere?
I have always felt that in the ‘mega’ churches, many folks become lost in a sea of faces and it can all feel very impersonal. These churches also have a tendency to become very ‘polished’ and ‘businesslike’ and the feeling is more akin to watching a performance.
It is a catch 22 when folks scuttle off to the large ‘happening’ church, especially in relation to families with younger children, as smaller churches need families to attract other families.
Tags: Christian Life, Church Life