Small churches acting like bigger churches

Lamb

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Sometimes the downfall of a small church is that it wants to do all the things the bigger churches do...and then gets frustrated because the members aren't doing enough to make all that happen.

If you've been in this type of situation, what things should small churches do until they get more people to alleviate stress and strain on membership? What reductions can be made or things eliminated so that everyone doesn't have to wear multiple hats as they serve the congregation?
 

tango

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This can be a tricky one. I think sometimes small churches can try and run all sorts of programs that they can't support, although if they run too few programs it's potentially more likely that they'll struggle to retain visitors.

Small churches may suffer with problems relating to very small cliques wielding disproportionate amounts of influence and pushing their own agendas through. At my last church it seemed a very small group became obsessed with live streaming services. We didn't have the volunteers to make it happen and nobody could define exactly what they wanted, but a select few continued to push it. Now, nearly four years later, there's exactly zero progress but the last I heard it was continually resurfacing. Before I left I saw no evidence that anybody except for a couple of people cared about it but it kept coming back like a bad penny.

Youth ministry can be very difficult in a small church. If there's going to be any form of sharing the load you need different people to teach kids every week and you don't need much diversity in ages before you need multiple groups. If you have three kids in the entire church but they are aged 2, 8 and 14 it's not going to work well to put them all in a single "children's class" but you potentially need 12 volunteers to cover three classes every week.

It's also good to just let people serve. In some roles there might be particular standards that need to be met but beyond that when you're really short on volunteers it's not a smart idea to annoy them or overload them. People will put up with a lot of aggravation but once they hit a certain point they'll just walk away. A friend of mine served his church in multiple ways until he got burned out and quit everything. I served in multiple places before I got sick of a variety of things, at which point I resigned from everything at once and stepped away. So the church, which wasn't exactly swimming in volunteers before, suddenly had a load of new gaps in the coverage.

Whatever the size of the church it's critical to let people rest and take a break from stuff. Sadly in a few places I've heard church leadership endlessly spout variations of how "we're a family here" and "we're doing God's work so don't slack off" or similar. When people feel the need to step back to recharge, even if only to take a break from something so they can resume refreshed later, it's more likely that they will burn out and quit completely. It's pretty sad when church leaders sound more like cult leaders, drive people ever-harder, and then act surprised when they decide to walk away completely. Likewise if the same person is constantly called on again and again it rapidly drains their goodwill - I personally know a guy who quit serving his church because he was retired and got sick of being the one person endlessly called to help with anything midweek. He was the only one who could do it - as the other volunteers were at work - but once he'd hit his limit he stood down completely.

I suspect in small churches there's the added issue that if you agree to do something you could potentially end up stuck with it for a long time, especially if it requires particular expertise. Once you've started doing something it's harder to stand down when it's clear there's no successor, so it's often safer not to volunteer in the first place.
 

Frankj

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Maybe Churches as a whole should avoid formally becoming social and recreational organizations.

Or limit their outside activities to hosting Bible studies and discussion groups that discuss the problems and challenges of Christian life in today's world that meet informally without defined leadership and direct support controlled by the Church.

Just my thoughts, not necessarily useful ones.
 

Uncle_Sol

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If the music is good and doesn't need much amplifying, also if it (more likely) needs less amplifying (but they will never believe that), downsize your "audio" kit VERY drastically

Visual projectors are so inefficient anyway, downsize those anyway

Simplify "home groups" as follows:

~ don't split the group into subgroups once arrived and assembled, as it reduces the amount shared and people sharing to too small (not enough people to stand up for each other, consequently intensity goes up and articulacy goes down)
~ don't split up the topic to minute "questions" as it's an extremely heavy workload on the "animators" and "underanimators" to continually tell me I'm off topic and it doesn't fall to me to lighten it

(Except by offering the content of this post - if only they would appear responsive)

E.g we are told Jn 4 is NOT to do with worship in Spirit and truth because we weren't supposed to say so that week. Also they don't like the B-word "believe" mentioned because we are supposed to "trust" without believing. They will wriggle out of this with their equivocations.

There is an unexamined habit in some churches to try to get us used to imagining that it's good to:

i ~ think joining in has to be onerous whatever your role for "good" spiritual reasons
ii ~ devalue thinking things out, theoretical and practical

I spotted when the nerves of the "animators" and "underanimators" were under strain (i.e all the time) but did anyone else? I've started to wonder where they had got their "training" from but religion bosses are habitually cagey LOL

One might hesitate to abandon those shy ones who one secretly feels have potential as human beings and fellow believers who might become part of ones own social lifeline. And why should I be thought to old to give something unique to them (rather than the organisation).

Explanation: it will benefit the organisation if it benefits them. It won't benefit them, if all benefit has to be channelled solely via the organisation to start with.

I've been lonely a lot, because of crazy churches, while "attending" as well as after dropping out. And most of the above points don't work well in bigger churches either. If a co-ordinator is remote (i.e frazzled) in a small one, then how much more . . .

They could always teach the congregation to pray, really pray, just pray (I hear sharp intake of breath)
 
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Uncle_Sol

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(further)

If I am to make so extra bold:

Don't use sectarian "bibles" (I do have one big product in mind).

Even youngish christians have got the experience of several different churches behind them and confirmation bias / bias confirmation is dangerous to minds and relationships.

For example I tricked my elder friend's wife into teaching me, a man (by text LOL) about how to do good works because the women do good works and "aren't allowed" to talk to us men about it. Consequently the men mostly act useless towards each other. She did it very well, citing principles (the dicey P-word LOL) from all over Scripture.

So put-downs reduce the vitality pool before they start.

Bonus remark: don't start sermons with anecdotes, waste of everybody's time.
 

tango

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Maybe Churches as a whole should avoid formally becoming social and recreational organizations.

Or limit their outside activities to hosting Bible studies and discussion groups that discuss the problems and challenges of Christian life in today's world that meet informally without defined leadership and direct support controlled by the Church.

Just my thoughts, not necessarily useful ones.

It does seem that churches have a depressing tendency to either resemble businesses or social clubs, and usually fail badly when they do.

Outside activites don't necessarily have to be limited to Bible studies but when there are limited resources to host it makes more sense to do what the church is best at (Bible studies, support groups etc) and leave the basketball games, bridge evenings etc to social clubs. That said there's no reason why a bridge club shouldn't meet in the church hall, even if it isn't organised by the church itself.
 
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