Day 26 of Lent - A Love Letter to the 98%

I enjoyed this article in Christianity Today, circa 2017.

The article is titled “The World’s Best Small Churches”. I have to say, I feel like I must know them all, and I love them fiercely.

98% of the church worldwide is made up of congregations of under 200 people. And most of the revivals, historically, broke open in small pockets and small congregations of praying believers.

Last year, I wrote small churches a “love letter” of sorts, and published it to social media. The response was astounding. When it came back up in the now-ubiquitous “FaceBook Memories”, I shared it again today.

And there were more tears. It moved the heart of a small church’s pastor’s wife in California. It was read out loud this morning in a small church in New Jersey. And it deeply encouraged the heart of a young small church pastor’s wife, who is brand spanking new to this gig (her husband took the job only a few months ago) in Texas.

There’s more, but I will just share the letter, instead of boring you with all the people who God used these words to speak life to, this day:

Dear Small Church,

You are not unhealthy

You are not going backwards

Your pastor is not defective

You are not hindered

You are not limited

You are not flawed

You ARE God’s “Plan A” in the earth

You are the majority

You are often artisan (…so unique, not “big box”…)

You are full of creativity (…gotta be…)

You are the size God intends

Your people are planted in you by God, not in spite of being a small congregation, but because of it. Your vibe attracts a certain special tribe.

The gifts of the Spirit can be PRACTICED with a greater ease in you, as naturally as can be, and without the anxiety that comes with having to manage outcomes, or guard a massive amount of people from the inevitable misuses of the gifts by flawed human beings.

PS and by the way: Brian Houston/Andy Stanley/Joel Osteen could not do your pastor’s job. They would not last a year. (No critique whatsoever of those men is intended.)

It’s been a year, hasn’t it? One year ago this week, our church was hurled with all the others headlong into “pandemic church”. The Preacher and I decided to go to the church building , when the world was on lock-down, and we live streamed from that place. We encountered a small bit of criticism from a scant few, for not being one of the cool pastors who simply live streamed from home with a cup of coffee, wearing pajama pants no one could see.

No, we even took a skeleton worship team, all of them standing 6 feet apart, and one of our elders (the ever faithful David Reese), and our sound techs were always faithful to be there, and we live streamed from the building, because we felt it would bring people comfort. And you know what? It did.

And it did more than that. We have added to our numbers, because when almost no one else was doing church, people would drive by on a Sunday and see a few cars outside our building, every week. We were there, defiantly (but safely, and even hard core social distanced) live streaming church to an almost empty sanctuary. It was weird, and it was hard.

Then, we went back to meeting corporately, earlier than anyone else we knew, with five on-site options to facilitate all levels of anyone’s need to social distance. Five options, even with a church the size of ours, with the number of families we have. We upped our live-streaming game, spending what it took to give those at home the clearest broadcast we could afford. It was three times the work for everyone involved, and twice the stress, but because we both believe in The Gathering, and we love people, we knew we had to do it.

Necessity is the mother of creativity - we came up with systems that other, and even larger churches ended up borrowing from. We also had a few parking lot services - those were so fun, because the other churches in our neighborhood were doing the same, and the gospel was being preached literally in the streets and my husband was one happy pastor.

We have had people tell us with tears streaming, that the simple knowledge that we were there, Sunday in and Sunday out, even in the most anxious moments of a 100-year pandemic event, brought them comfort that they didn’t even know they needed until they suddenly needed it.

We have been scrupulous with protocol, our church’s families have been scrupulous in their compliance and their eagerness to still gather, and as a consequence, not one case of COVID has been traced back to our gatherings.

How?

Well, because we are small. We can shift on a dime. We are lithe, nimble, and incredibly adaptable and creative. We could pack up and meet outside in a random parking lot in the next city over, next week! We could alert all our families, and not be missing anyone who wants to be there in that parking lot come Sunday.

If 2020 has taught the whole church world anything, it has taught us that small church definitely is not small thinking.

There’s a genius in it.

The Preacher and I will plant more artsy, small churches with cool small buildings that can be renovated to have big, clear windows that let the sunlight stream inside. We don’t want to advance the Kingdom with any other blueprint. We feel that confident that small churches are one of God’s Best Big Ideas.