“The Lord does not look so much at the magnitude of anything we do as at the love with which we do it.” – St. Teresa of Avila

“We must not grow weary of doing little things for the love of God, who looks not on the great size of the work, but on the love in it.” – Brother Lawrence

Next month I will begin the journey of pursuing my doctorate. When I first sat down with my local church board to discuss the possibility of entering this program, I told them, “I do not see this as a stepping stone to ‘bigger and better things.’”

I pastor a “small” church in a rural area in central Washington. Such churches are used to being used as stepping stones for young pastors who soon go on to bigger churches. Despite the fact that I have only served here for eight years (which I do not consider to be a particularly long tenure) only one pastor has served here longer than I have.

Not long after beginning this assignment, a board member said “The only way he will be here in another five years is if we are growing.” My translation: “A pastor will only stick around in a small church if it is able to become a big church.”

Smaller congregations are not wrong to carry such concerns. They have been trained and discipled to think this way. I cannot count how many times I have heard phrases such as, “We are just a small church.” Smaller churches are often taught implicitly by their pastors and denominations and the prevailing culture that they are “less than” bigger churches. When their young pastor leaves after three years for a larger congregation, they assume this to be a promotion. She or he is going on to bigger and better things.

There are lots of reasons for a pastor to move from one church to another, from a small church to a bigger church, or even from a bigger church to a smaller church. Not all of those reasons are problematic. But to view a smaller church as a training ground for how to “do ministry” before moving on to a bigger church is not ministry. It is exploitation. Small churches do not exist for pastors to practice their skills before moving on to do real ministry. They exist for the same reason that any church exists: to give glory to God.

Let’s drop the “Small Church” title

A few years ago I was reading through Paul’s letters and I came to a realization: there is no mention or question about the size of any of these churches. Was the church in Corinth larger than the church in Philippi? How did the average worship attendance in Thessalonica compare to that of the church in Ephesus? How many people were on the membership roll in the church in Rome when Paul wrote to them?

These are questions that are impossible to answer because they simply did not matter to Paul. Nowhere does Paul ask for a letter in return with updated church statistics. He never once endorses church growth strategies. Much of the conversation that dominates the corporate church world of 21st century America is not mostly but completely absent from Paul’s letters.

Why?

Because Paul defined a church based on who God is, the saving work of Jesus Christ, the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Adjectives such as “small” or “large” are foreign to the biblical witness. When we begin to understand, as Paul did, that the existence of the Church is not a human reality but a divine creation, a label such as “small” is an insult to the God who made it. To call a church “small” – especially when we preface it with the word “just” (“just a small church”) – we are insulting the one who created it.

Who dares to call God’s work “small” or “little”?

Church growth

Acts is the book of the Bible that most church growth experts point to as an illustration that the church was made to grow. The problem is that the text is clear that it is the Lord who added to their numbers. The early church, as witnessed by Luke, did not grow because of any strategic plan that the apostles concocted. The Church grew because of the movement of the Spirit.

There are no strategic planning sessions in Acts. There are only prayer meetings and the surprising work of the Spirit who consistently brings in all the wrong people (eunuchs, gentiles, etc.)

There is also nothing to be found in Acts to declare that growth should be the norm for every time and every place the Church is found. Much of what we know of growth entails seasons. There are seasons of growth and seasons of dormancy, seasons of increase and seasons of decline. Nothing that is healthy grows perpetually.

A quick look at Jesus’ ministry in the gospels is evidence enough that growth is not always the best metric to consider. There are times when the crowds following Jesus grew. There are times when the crowds left Jesus. John 6 begins with a crowd of over 5,000 and ends with only the twelve. In the course of one chapter, Jesus went from pastoring a “mega church” to pastoring a “small church”. 

Scripture and church history testify to such times of ebbing and flowing. Sometimes a period of church decline is necessary. Perhaps God is carving out a remnant of the faithful? To think we can judge the health of a church based on a few numbers is little more than human pride and arrogance.

The greatest in the kingdom of heaven

Jesus’ disciples got into an argument about which one of them was the greatest. Based on the gospels, this seemed to be an argument they fell into often. Which one of us is the best? Which one is the most faithful? Who gets to sit on Jesus’ right and Jesus’ left?

On this particular occasion, Jesus responded by calling a little child over to sit among the disciples (Matthew 18:2). Jesus said: “I assure you that if you don’t turn your lives around and become like this little child, you will definitely not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, CEB). 

The image Jesus gave his disciples of greatness was not the large, strong, or stable but the small, weak, and fragile. 

This is an image that the church in America would do well to meditate upon. We are too influenced by our culture, too drawn to the large and impressive, too quick to assume that we understand what greatness looks like. 

We are an arrogant church.

I imagine if Paul were to write a letter to the church in America, he would not chastise us for ineffective church growth strategies or efforts. He would, however, warn us that we have abandoned the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, the way of faith working through love. 

We have sought to gain the world but instead have lost our soul.

The truth is that there are no “bigger and better things” in this business of Christian ministry. There is work done faithfully and work done unfaithfully, work done prayerfully and work done without prayer. There is work done with love and work done without love, work done with humility and work done with pride. There is work done in the name of Jesus in the way of Jesus and work done in the name of Jesus in the way of America.

The way matters.

The greatest in the kingdom of God is not the one who does something great for God. The greatest is the child, ever reliant upon the father.

Pray for me

As I begin this journey toward my doctorate, pray that I do not fall into the pride of the American way but stay faithful to the way of Jesus. Pray that I never see this as a stepping stone to “bigger and better things”.

In the world of church and in the world of academia there are many temptations. Pray I continue on the long obedience in the same direction.

It is my hope, prayer, and calling that God speak through me as one of many voices that remind the Church of Jesus Christ to be the Church of Jesus Christ.

Henri Nouwen once said: “The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus?”¹

Pray that I continue to answer the right question, and that I can answer it with a “Yes.”

1. Henri J M Nouwen. 1989. In the Name of Jesus. Crossroad. Pg. 37 ↩︎