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BIG HOPES FOR SMALL CHURCHES: WAYS IN WHICH THE LORD EXPANDS HIS KINGDOM THROUGH SMALL COMMUNITIES
Brett Jenkins
In my time as Dean of the Atlantic Mission District of the North American Lutheran Church, I had the chance to meet many wonderful people serving our Lord in contexts and conditions that would never make the front page of Christianity Today or the websites of the church consultants who have of late become so prominent on the American religious landscape. These are fantastic disciples of Christ, deeply invested in their local churches, solid in their Biblical and creedal commitments, and eloquent about their desire to see their churches grow by reaching their neighbors for Christ. They are also—often— disheartened by their apparent lack of progress on that front, feeling under-resourced, and to put it plainly, exhausted by the often-Herculean efforts they were putting in as part of the 20% of “doers” infamously so-described by “the Peter principle.”
America is, depending upon your point of view, famously or infamously capitalist, and the logic of the free market creates unfortunate ways of thinking that are completely inappropriate when applied to religion, whose objective is connection with a higher order of being than that on offer in the marketplace, whether the controlling principle of that market be Adam Smith’s invisible hand or the central planning committee of a never-quite-achieved socialist utopia.
This is even more so when the religion in question is Christianity, whose founder and object of faith declared Himself to be “the way, the truth, and the life,” who not only excoriated people, but drove them from the Jerusalem temple for the sin of turning His father’s house into a den of thieves. Still, this has not kept sometimes self-described religious entrepreneurs from Charles Finney to the Reverend Billy Sunday to Joel Osteen from employing everything from carnival barker’s tricks to sophisticated modern multi-million dollar marketing programs to figure out what sells religiously and use that knowledge to fill up revival tents, stadiums, and churches patterned more after Broadway and movie theaters than ancient temples, cathedrals, basilicas, or even synagogues and Anabaptist meeting houses.
Being surrounded by recently-planted churches modeled along such lines, or even looking at more traditional churches with larger congregations, more children, and the luxury of staff dedicated to differing ministry specialties, many of the wonderful people I met throughout my mission region feel frustrated if not downright depressed by the prospects of the little churches they love so much. They feel like the owners of the family-run hardware store that has just heard that a Lowe’s was moving in at the edge of town. While they love the Lord, they can’t imagine how or what God could do that would allow them to “compete” in the American religious marketplace.
A Failure of Imagination
Having seen the famous scene in A Miracle on 34th Street when an avuncular Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle coaches a youthful Natalie Wood in the art of “imagination,” many Americans associate the term with fantasy and escapism. This is unfortunate, because imagination is the mind’s tool for considering possibilities before committing oneself to them. Imagination is the key reason some cultures are famous for industries that engage in R&D—research and development—while others are known for a very different kind of R&D— reverse engineering and development. Imagination is a way of exploring a foreign land without committing oneself prematurely to its actual geography, thinking through the possible challenges and promises that the land might hold. This is nowhere more true than in that most foreign of all lands, the one called “the future.”
I would argue that most attempts to revitalize the ministries of small and rural congregations, while engaged in with great intentions and effort, steer more often into fantasy than they do into an imagining of the future ahead informed by both experience and knowledge of God’s Word. Either well-meaning churchmen and women simply try to do better what they have always done, or in frustration that the tried-and-true does not seem to be working any more, they seek to reverse-engineer and imitate the ministry strategies of the seemingly-successful big box evangelical church down the road. They are either trying to reverse-engineer their own past or their neighbors’ present. What both approaches have in common is a lack of imagination.
But, if church leaders start exercising their imaginations in the context of small church ministry, they will soon discover a small but dedicated coterie of researchers who have specialized in helping such churches—which, by the way, form the majority of American Christian communities.1 While scholarly studies of such congregations tend be descriptive in character, the professional literature, with its focus on application in ministry, tends toward the prescriptive, rooted in what my anthropologist wife would recognize as ethnographic analysis. I hope in this article to introduce a more academic seminary audience to the work of some of these authors as well as my own reflections.
Belief in God’s Providence
If capitalistic Darwinism is assumed to be the ubiquitous mechanism of modern American culture, the self-help literature of the aspiring CEO is its training manual and survival guide. It is regularly assumed that organizational management techniques (not to mention fiscal practices) of the business world are easily transposable into the life of the church.
As a consequence, trust in God’s providence as an existential component of faith gets short shrift in most congregations of any size. The focus is rather on resources for ministry and techniques for acquiring and maximizing such resources. Even that language of “resources” betrays the fundamental problem; while it is certainly true that Christians should (in the words of the offertory prayer from the Lutheran Book of Worship) “offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us, ourselves, our time, and our possessions,” such things are not raw material for the Church’s mission but rather the object of it. As Luther so unswervingly points out in his Small Catechism, God the Holy Spirit is the agent in the Church’s mission because He is the anima of the whole Christian experience, no matter what size the congregation. As an explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, the parent is instructed to remind their children:
I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.2
Note that while business literature focuses on the acquisition, allocation and management of resources, a properly Christian approach to church life begins and ends in doxology. Doxology is impotent when exercised as a pious fantasy or theological abstraction. We cannot “offer with joy and thanksgiving” anything to God for the transformative purposes of His kingdom if we do not believe—sometimes in the face of what expert consultants will tell us. We believe not merely in the universal sense, but here in this place as a concrete expression of what is universally true, that God has called those whom He would have be part of this congregation. He has gathered this group of believers for rejoicing and labor in this particular corner of the universal Christian mission field, enlightened them with the gifts that they need for this season of this congregation’s ministry, and sanctified them for the holy work of celebrating the Sacraments. Here they receive God’s effective Word, reaching people outside the community through Christian witness in order to invite them into these joyful divine realities.
While it is certainly true that there are best practices to be shared and lessons to be learned, without a robust and persistent focus on God’s providence in the preaching, prayer, and catechetical life of the congregation both corporately and individually, church leadership and management literature will simply be what Reneé Girard defined as techné, instrumental techniques ordered to sociological ends, deprived of the animating inner life of the Spirit. The church’s ministry is fundamentally different than what is on offer at the local social, book, or political club.
Gratitude for Smallness
It may help the small congregation to begin and end its mission by focusing on some of the distinct spiritual advantages they possess precisely because of their smaller size. While the inability to offer the programs, pomp, and charismatic personalities at the center of so many larger churches may seem to be an evangelistic disadvantage when trying to reach a population shaped by the expectations of the marketplace, it must be remembered that not all spiritual seekers are the same. While Baby Boomers lionized worship with high entertainment value and built mega-churches around the personalities of charismatic communicators, a far smaller percentage of Generation Z and Millennials attend church at all, and those who do so actually tend to distrust the smoothly presented façade of such organizations.
Because the decision makers in small churches tend to be Baby Boomers (and increasingly, Gen-X’ers), with the attendant tastes and prejudices typical of those generations, the advantage possessed by the smaller church is all but invisible. That advantage, palpable to younger generations, is authenticity over polished presentation. While no one actually enjoys a poorly presented sermon or out-of-tune choir anthem, if its content is theologically solid and a steady weekly diet of the same is observably forming a congregation for genuine Christian discipleship, those seeking authentic spirituality and spiritually nurturing friendships will be attracted and retained.
That advantage, palpable to younger generations, is authenticity over polished presentation.
Missiologists with a Homefield Advantage
Because authenticity is the watchword for those a smaller church is likely to attract, knowledge of and connection to the local community is another prime advantage for the small church. Whereas the big box churches tend to operate from models of ministry intentionally shaped by the most successful churches (read “large” or “growing quickly”), small churches have grown out of the life of local people and consequently, more closely reflect the culture in which they are embedded. In an introductory text on the field, missiologist Gerald D. Wright notes that there are a number of ways to understand the mission of the Church.
“…the late David Bosch in Transforming Mission (1991) demonstrated that the missionary efforts of the church through the centuries have reflected considerable variety with regard to purpose. This variety has ranged from the embodiment of agape to the “Christianizing” of culture to the expansion of Christendom, both in terms of government and orthodoxy. Bosch concluded his impressive survey with a summary of what he called “emerging paradigms,” which further enlarged the potential scope of missions’ purpose, encompassing missions as missio Dei, enculturation, liberation, and ministry by the whole people of God, to name a few. A cursory examination of current texts in missiology reinforces this perception of diversity.”3
This diversity is worth noting because while the style of church that has seen explosive growth in the North American context over the last five decades is focused on numerical growth (as it turns out, mostly by membership transfer rather than evangelization of non-Christians), most small churches have a more balanced focus to their common life, with explicit outreach efforts balanced against ongoing service in the surrounding community (including justice advocacy), internal spiritual growth through ongoing catechesis, and diligent glorification of God in worship.
While it may seem a bit strange to think of the local congregation’s work as missiological in an American context, in a West that is increasingly acknowledged as being post-Christian in character, it may be wise to do so. Missionaries have always had to invest significant time getting to know their mission field in order for their work to be fruitful. In the post-Christian West, the smaller congregation, with its intimate knowledge of and connection to its local context, has a missiological advantage over its larger neighbors.
Emerging from the COVID-19 epidemic, in 2023 the Surgeon General declared a loneliness epidemic.
Intimacy
“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name,” went the refrain to the 1980’s sitcom Cheers, and four decades later, the hunger that song articulated is even greater in modern America. Emerging from the COVID-19 epidemic, in 2023 the Surgeon General declared a loneliness epidemic. In the U.S., Gallup has been tracking this data since spring of 2021, when the roll-out of the first COVID-19 vaccines began.4
The most recent results from the end of summer 2024 were obtained from 6,289 U.S. adults surveyed as part of a probability-based panel of about 100,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. As summarized by Gallup, “Although progress has been made in reducing loneliness in the U.S. since the pandemic [from 24% down to 20%], a significant number of U.S. adults -- an estimated 52 million, based on Gallup’s current estimate -- still struggle with it.” (emphasis added)
Another poll by Gallup, this one international in scope, further illumines the picture of loneliness by age cohort, with respondents under the age of 30 being the most lonely, with 25% of teens and 27% of twenty-somethings saying they are very/fairly lonely.5
The application of this information for the small church seeking ways forward is obvious; loneliness seems to be endemic to the modern, technophilic condition, but is greatest among the age cohorts that are least likely to regularly attend church. According to the work of Dr. Jean Twenge in her seminal study iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us, these younger age cohorts are also most open to interconnectedness with other age groups, which means that the evangelistic efforts of the local church are best tied to incorporating new people into the overall community as opposed to offering programs tailored to the needs of particular age cohorts. Small church revitalization consultant Kevin Harney refers to this as the gift of being “a belonging before believing culture.” He writes:
One of the greatest things people need is a sense of home, family, belonging. Those who are still far from Jesus and searching for something more often need to be welcomed into the church and embraced before they take that final step of faith. They need to be accepted, loved, valued and embraced as part of the church community, even if they do not yet understand what we believe. They need to be loved by God’s people on their way to loving the Savior. … Small churches are uniquely prepared to create this kind of atmosphere. Christian congregations dot our communities that are loving, gracious, caring families. There are also people all around our communities who are lonely, yearning for belonging and seeking a place where they will be embraced.6
If a small church can attend to its intra-congregational dynamics, ensuring that they are intimate but not exclusive, this can be a great source for renewed energy and commitment within the congregation as well as an attractive element for those coming into contact with the church.
Revitalization or Renewal?
They need to be loved by God’s people on their way to loving the Savior. … Small churches are uniquely prepared to create this kind of atmosphere.
The most common language you come across in the professional literature regarding small church life is that of “revitalization.” This is understandable in light of the statistics.
According to Thom Rainer, one-half of all American congregations have fewer than 70 in worship attendance and around 8,000 churches close annually.7 I do not, however, like this word, as it literally means “to bring back to life,” implying that life is largely absent from the small church in its current incarnation. I do not agree with this, though I am not blinkered to the challenges small congregations face.
I prefer instead the biblical language of “renewal.” At a key rhetorical moment in his letter to the Roman church—itself facing profound challenges generated by the dictum of the emperor that temporarily drove half the congregation out of the capital city—Paul writes:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2)8
Though Paul has in view here the individual Christian presenting his or her body to the Lord as an act of sacrificial worship, he has in mind (as he does throughout the letter) the good this will engender for the whole congregation. All Christians and the churches to which they belong are in perpetual need of renewal, for never has the old Adam been wholly drowned in the waters of Baptism, never do sin, death, or the devil take a day off short of the eschaton.
As Paul makes clear, the renewal of the mind comes through the Word of God, but that effective Word is to be used to test one’s circumstances to discover what is the will of God, both for the individual and the community. The small church has the advantage of less institutional momentum and fewer people in making decisions.
This is not to say that in the smaller church there is no momentum to be overcome or intra-personal challenges to be met with both courage and compassion, but if a small church is healthy, such obstacles are not only not insuperable, but they are also easier to tackle than in the more complex systems of large congregations. Of course, if a congregation is not healthy, the work of renewal is even more vital - so renewal is needed, no matter the perceived state of a congregation’s current ministry.
As I conclude this article, I would encourage those still reading to begin their internet searches with the term “revitalization” because it is ubiquitous in the professional literature, but do not believe the lie that term communicates; so long as “the Word is being preached in its purity and the Sacraments administered in accordance with the gospel,” the Holy Spirit of God is already present, animating your smaller congregation. You do not need to be brought back to life; you need renewal, and the Lord in His providence has already given you all the gifts you need for that renewal in His eternal Word, His sustaining Sacraments, and in the imagination to apply that word to changing ministry contexts. His love is incarnate in the love your congregation members have for one another, and the thoughts and analyses of other Christians in “the one holy catholic and apostolic church” whose goal it is to help your congregation experience “life, and life more abundant.”
The small church has the advantage of less institutional momentum and fewer people in making decisions.
Rev. Brett Jenkins is a pastor of the NALC with degrees from The Pennsylvania State University and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and is completing his D.Min. at the Institute of Lutheran Theology. He is the husband of Dr. Lisa D. Jenkins, the father of Iain and Elizabeth, and the pastor of Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church in Nazareth, PA. When not pastoring, he enjoys building guitars, making music, and writing poetry.
Endnotes:
1According to The Hartford Institute for Religion Research, quoting the 2023 Faith Communities Today Overview, median Sunday congregational attendance in the United States is 60, but this does not tell the whole story. The report estimates that 70% of smaller churches (100 participants or less) draw 14% of all those who attend worship, while 70% of churchgoers attend the largest 10% of all congregations, which average over 250 in regular attendance. See “Fast Facts on American Religion,” Hartford Institute for Religious Research, https://hirr.hartfordinternational.edu/fast-facts-on-american-religion/, https://faithcommunitiestoday.org/, accessed 2/16/2025.
2Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert, The Book of Concord: the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2000), 355–356.
3Missiology: An Introduction to the Foundations, History, and Strategies of World Missions, ed. John Mark Terry (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2015), 19.
4Mary Page James and Dan Witters, “Daily Loneliness Afflicts One in Five in U.S.: Loneliness Rate Edges Up to 20%, Highest Level in Two Years,” Wellbeing, Gallup, October 15, 2024, https://news.gallup.com/poll/651881/daily-loneliness-afflicts-one-five.aspx
5Ellyn Maese, “Almost a Quarter of the World Feels Lonely,” Gallup Blog, October 24, 2023, https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/512618/almost-quarterworld-feels-lonely.aspx
6Kevin Harney, “The Power of Small Church Outreach,” Outreach Magazine, March 14, 2024, https://outreachmagazine.com/features/small-church/45720-the-power-of-small-churchoutreach.html
7Thom Rainer, “5 Signs Small Churches Are Making a Comeback,” Outreach Magazine, July 29, 2019, https://outreachmagazine.com/features/small-church/44909-5-signs-small-churches-aremaking-a-comeback.html
8The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2001).
