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What’s so special about the small-town church?

Ron Klassen and John Koessler

Vernon Sigl

Have you ever thought about why pictures of little country churches are often on Christmas cards, but pictures of megachurch facilities never are? Or why it is such a compliment for a visitor to a big suburban church to say, “This feels like a small church”? Yes, there is something special about the small-town church.

Why, then, do so many small-town churches feel inferior to larger churches in cities and suburbs? That’s easy to answer. It’s because big churches can do so much more. After all, what small church can put together a mass choir? How many small churches can hire a youth pastor, a children’s director, a director of senior adult ministries or a full-time minister of music?

Both of us, as pastors of small-town churches, have at times tried to imitate larger suburban churches. The result? Our churches didn’t feel like big churches, and, in the process of imitating someone else, we lost some of what makes the small-town church so special. We discovered that there are some things big churches can do best and some things small churches can do best. For any church to be all it can be, it has to make the most of its strengths.

Big tractor, little tractor

Most farmers have at least two tractors, one large, one small. The big tractor is better for some jobs, the little tractor for others. Trying to mow a ditch with a big tractor is an exercise in frustration, but a small tractor does the job handily. Ploughing a large field with a small tractor would take forever, but a large tractor can make short work of it. The smart farmer uses each tractor for the jobs it does best.

Just as it is foolish to use a small tractor to do a big tractor’s job, it is counterproductive to imitate large-church programs in small churches. The small church that tries to become a scaled-down version of a big church will become a pale imitation of a big church.

The small church is at its best when it makes the most of those qualities that make the small church special – intimacy and involvement.

The first I – Intimacy

While the large church scrambles to find ways to encourage warmth and personal relationships, the small church, if it is healthy, naturally has a family atmosphere. Large churches work to create small-group ministries; in the small church, many small-group dynamics occur spontaneously. In the large church, many faces are unfamiliar; in the small church, everyone knows everyone else. In a large church, an usher passes a note to the pastor, who then announces, “A brown Ford, licence TMG 527, has its lights on.” The pastor of a small church looks out the window and says, “Jim, you left your lights on.”

Anyone who has belonged to a healthy small church has many memories of warmth and intimacy. One of our favourites is of the holiday on which we (Ron and his wife Roxy) awoke to find ourselves snowed in, with no electricity or phones. Church friends had invited us to spend the day at their home, but, with the road buried under knee-deep snow, we resigned ourselves to spending a lonely day at home.

We were feeling depressed and disappointed when, about noon, we heard a knock at our back door. There stood the 21-year-old son of our friends. He and his dad had spent the last four hours on two tractors, clearing the way from their ranch to the main road so they could get to our house. This warm friendliness is a big part of what large churches are hoping to recreate when they try to cultivate a small-church atmosphere.

The second I – Involvement

As an organization gets larger, the level of participation usually goes down. Eighty percent or more of the members of a small church often have designated ministry responsibilities, while most larger churches feel fortunate if 30-40% of their members accept specific assignments.

Before Scott and Lyn began worshipping at Valley Chapel where I (John) was pastoring, they attended a larger congregation of about 300. Though they had grown up in that church, neither had been very involved in its ministries. When I asked why, they said they hadn’t felt needed.

They both quickly got involved in Valley Chapel. Lyn worked with several of our children’s ministries, and later volunteered to type the church bulletin. Scott became a leader in our mid-week children’s program, and used his mechanical skills to keep the church’s lawn mower in shape.

Using your two I’s

To some extent, intimacy and involvement happen spontaneously in the small church, but a church can also intentionally build on these qualities.

We have often heard pastors of small churches complain about what their churches cannot do in their worship services because of their size. But the small church makes a mistake if it tries to copy a large-church worship style. Rather, the small church needs to shape its worship to capitalize on what the small church does best.

In no other area is the small church tempted to feel inferior to the large church than in the area of music. We look at the megachurches’ big choirs, keyboard artists and great talent, and think, “If only we had just a little bit of that in our church.”

True worship, though, is not a performance. A friend of ours who has served as the minister of music in several large churches points out that some large churches fall into the trap of approaching their music with a performance mentality that hinders worship. Good worship is not a fancy sound system or talented soloists or professional instrumentalists. The best worship takes place simply when all the people participate in ascribing worth to God. How can a small church encourage everyone to participate in worship?

Special vocal music. The big church only lets people on the platform if they can sing well. The small church that follows that policy will seldom have special music. Plus, this flies in the face of maximizing involvement. Warren Wiersbe describes the attitude called for in the small church: “If the players and singers are doing their best, and seeking to do better, then God accepts their ‘sacrifices of praise’, and so should we. . .. Whenever I am listening to a below-average presentation, I imagine my Lord receiving it and presenting it to the Father; and that changes my attitude completely.” Special music by children. The small church should invite children to play instruments or sing, even though their music is less than perfect. Everyone forgives children when they make mistakes. Plus, parents will think, “If our family was in a large church, they would not let my daughter play a piano solo.” Special music by families. Both of us have heard family music presentations that, though full of imperfections, connected powerfully with the audience. To the small church’s credit, the congregation is more interested in giving people opportunities to participate than it is in judging those who participate. Congregational singing. The small church cannot have a mass choir, but neither can the large church sing around the piano. The informality of the small church can make congregational singing something truly special. Leading worship. Consider forming a worship team to share in leading worship. Encourage broad participation in all parts of the worship service, such as Scripture reading, praying and taking the offering. Young people especially should be encouraged to take part. This is excellent training for future ministry. Sharing times. Small churches can easily include testimonies and sharing times in their services. In our impersonal world, people feel a deep need to have a place to share their experiences, yet such sharing is almost impossible in a large-church worship service. In the small church, personal sharing in the service can lead to powerful ministry.

What’s special about the small-town church is its two I’s – intimacy and involvement. In a world where most people feel like faces in the crowd, many are longing for intimacy more than polished performance, for involvement more than spectator status, for small rather than big. By focusing on what it does best, the small church can be there for people who are hungering for a personal touch in an impersonal age.

Adapted, with permission, from No Little Places: The Untapped Potential of the Small-Town Church by Ron Klassen and John Koessler (Baker, 1996). After many years of pastoring small-town churches, Ron is now general director of the Rural Home Missionary Association in Morton, Ill., and John is assistant professor of pastoral studies at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

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Last modified January 11, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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