Sometimes small can be refreshing in a world where bigger is often touted as better. However, several Seventh-day Adventist experts on church growth say there is ample evidence that small churches--of 100 members or less--often refuse to grow and end up s
Sometimes small can be refreshing in a world where bigger is often touted as better. However, several Seventh-day Adventist experts on church growth say there is ample evidence that small churches—of 100 members or less—often refuse to grow and end up stagnant.
They’re not saying that the measure of a good church is thousands of members flocking to it each week. They are just saying that the personal dynamics of small churches can make growth challenging.
“Small churches pretty much develop closed relationships,” explains Monte Sahlin, a church researcher and vice president for Creative Ministries in the Columbia Union Conference.
“After five or six years everyone gets to know each other quite well. They become comfortable in the way they like to do things, and it’s very difficult for new people to fit in. Also in small churches two or three lay people become patriarchs and matriarchs. They have been there from the very beginning and they exercise a lot of power. They can make it very difficult for any new person or pastor just joining the church.”
These tendencies concern Larry Evans, undersecretary for the Adventist world church and a former church consultant, because of the prevalency of small churches. “In some areas the largest percentage of organized [Adventist] churches are small but the greatest percentage of members are in larger churches,” he says.
Sahlin agrees that this statement is particularly true in North America.
“Because the Adventist church in North America has had such a long history of favoring small congregations there is a higher than average percentage who like the culture of small churches,” Sahlin says. “Small churches feel good to people who either have history with them or who happen to fit with the culture of a small congregation.”
Embracing small churches is not just a North American tradition. “In the Baltics the average church membership is 70 to 75,” says Guntis Bukalders, communication and health ministries director for the Adventist church in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“This is partly because of people’s mentality,” Bukalders continues. “People are not willing to be just a speck of dust in the big heap of sand. Small churches offer more personal relationships, friendship and a possibility to participate with his or her spiritual gifts.”
Despite the benefits small churches can offer, Sahlin says “each church has a window of maybe five to 10 years that it needs to get beyond a certain size or it will die”.
Dave Gemmell is an associate director at the Church Resource Center in the North American region of the Adventist church. Gemmell has a doctorate in ministry in church growth from the Fuller Theological Seminary and has been a pastor since 1978.
He explains that growth also has a lot to do with the number of potential converts. Those churches that are in areas with small numbers of people such as in rural areas and on islands “have won everyone who is winnable. If a church is in a community of 5,000 or less and have 100 members they’re maxed out.”
When asked why more Adventist churches aren’t exploding in huge metropolises, Gemmell cites a familiar refrain: “We still haven’t figured out how to market to those in urban areas. We are still using the same tactics we used to win people in rural areas and small towns.”
Sahlin faults a strategy that dominated the church’s evangelism plans until the 1980s. “The North American church was focused on having at least one Adventist church in every county,” he says. “That strategy focused on bringing Adventist churches to rural areas and to small towns where only 20 percent of Americans lived. That approach left out the 80 percent of Americans who live in metropolitan areas.”
The mission field has shifted, Sahlin continues. “The unreached metropolitan areas in North America and Europe have by and large much less penetration than the traditional fields overseas.”
And now the church has to learn how to rethink its approach to urban populations. The church has in fact started to pay attention to large cities through a new campaign called “Hope for the Big Cities.”
Large churches alone are not the only way to spur church growth. They have their own challenges too, Gemmell says, one of which is that they are chronically understaffed. He has noticed in some places such as Las Vegas and at his own church—New Hope Seventh-day Adventist church in Fulton, Maryland that every time they add a new staff person the church grows. He also noticed the reverse—every time they take away a staff member the church shrinks.
Ironically many are also touting very small groups as a way to reach urban populations around the world and those in postmodern Europe.
Anthony Kent is a native Australian who now works at the Adventist church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is an associate secretary for continuing education for pastors. He says: “Before we can put any agenda before people they have to feel pastorally cared for. If we are going to reach postmoderns, we have to do so in home church settings.”
Small groups within larger churches may be one way of combining the best of both worlds, Evans says. He says small groups are critical to increasing face-to-face relationships among members. “We have sometimes substituted pastoral care for interaction among members.” he adds.
In the Highland area of Papua New Guinea, there are 65,000 Adventist church members and 30 pastors, Kent says. So how does a pastor then adequately care for approximately 2,000 members? Especially without a car, bicycle, computer or a cell phone? The area could definitely use more pastors, Kent says, but notes that empowering lay people has made pastoring large congregations more manageable.
“We have to think about small groups, which essentially form small churches within a church,” Bukalders says. “I think that the number of membership isn’t that important. What’s important is the quality of the church and good quality probably can be reached even with the membership of 30 to 40, if all members are active and share their gifts and talents.”
Evans admits, “one size doesn’t fit all ... the bottom line is that the church meets the spiritual needs of people.”