The problem of being a small church

I wonder how you would answer the question; what is the problem with a being a small church?

I guess there are lots of ways you could answer it.  We've had people say that there aren't enough people like them in the church so they want to go somewhere bigger.  That they find their encouragement in numbers so being in a small church is too hard.  That a small church can't do all the different types of ministry that a church needs to do.  That a small congregation doesn't provide appropriate role models for children across all age ranges.  That being small limits our ability to care appropriately for one another. That being small means we can't do worship with a music group and so on and so on and so on.

The problem is that when we hear those things often enough we begin to believe them.  Something clicks with what our culture tells us; that bigger is better, and we can find ourselves settling as a small church for what we are in peoples eyes; limited.  I can't help but wonder if that is why pastors and others often view a small church as a stepping stone to something bigger and by implication 'better' or 'more significant'.

But that is not how the Bible speaks about God's people.  I have to confess some of those little Trojan worms of thinking had begun to infect my thinking.  We can't do this because we don't have the resources, we can't do that because we are only so big and so on and so on.  But one theme has come out loud and clear in so many contexts over the last few months as God has patiently been teaching me and debugging my thinking about church.  Size is not an issue for the people of God.

In Judges when Gideon takes on the Midianites God decimates Gideon's army before he destroys the Midianite army.  Gideon starts off with 32,000 men, even then he is outnumbered by the Midianites and Amalekites and people of the East who are like locust in number.  But God says "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianties into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, 'My own hand saved me.'"  So God reduces the army to 300 men and dependent on God they win a great battle because God fights for them.

Fast forward a few hundred years to 1 Samuel 30 and David is in trouble, the Amalekites (again!) have kidnapped all his men's children and wives, so David assured of victory by God sets off with 600 men, but has to leave 200 behind.  The enemy he faces number far more than 400, because only 400 escape, yet David and his men win a great victory.  How?  Because God has preserved them and given them victory.  Later in Psalm 20 David can write "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."

Then when you read 1 Corinthians 1v4-9 we read Paul's pray to the Corinthians, a church I guess we would  want to do due diligence on before we joined, and he writes this.  "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge - even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ..."  That is an astonishing thing to write, this church has been blessed in Christ with every gift, it has been enriched in Christ.  And it's not a one off Paul writes to the Ephesians of the blessings that are theirs in Christ, Peter writes to the churches in Asia reminding them they have everything they need for godliness, John writes to battered and discouraged churches and reminds them who they are in Christ.

So why do we think somehow that we are missing out in smaller churches?  God has given us everything we need it is just that our ministries will look different; different in scale, different in budget, and different in other ways.  The problem of being in a small church is often in our mindset that views us as limited by size rather than reliant on God.  God is the resource for our ministry and he promises abundant blessing and lavish provision, so don't limit your thinking.  There is no problem with being a small church because we have a great God.