Years ago I was speaking at a Regional Leadership Conference. After one of my sessions I opened it up for some Q and A. After about five questions I started to notice a theme. Every question started like this … “I’m a Pastor at a small church” or “We have some great things going even though we are a small congregation”. Everyone in the room all of churches of different sizes, were all saying “I’m at a small church ” or “I lead a small youth group”.
Small … Small .. Small. That is how they were defining themselves. As I stood there listening, I decided to ask them a question. “Small? Would you define that please?” I went on to say “What is a small church? What is a small youth group? What is small?
When you think about it, a youth group with 10 feels small compared to a group of 50. But the Church of 50 people feels small compared to the church that reaches 100. And the ministry of 100 feels tiny compared to a huge church that ministers to 1,000. However, the church that reaches 5,000 remembers back in the day with they were small and only reached 1,000 people. So what is small? Is small 10 – 50 – 100 or 1,000. Each ministry is large to one group, but feels small when they compare themselves to another.
Here is something I really think we need to remember.
Large or Small is not defined by how many people sit in your seats as much as it is by where you are planning on taking them.