Preaching In The Small Membership Church

Step into the pulpit in a small membership church, and you’ll sometimes find your fair share of challenges, but you’ll almost always find more than your share of blessings as well. Those blessings, and the chance for authentic, life-transforming preaching, are what preaching in the small membership church are all about. Lewis Parks knows those blessings well. For nearly 40 years he has preached in small membership churches and taught others who serve in them. In this book he lays out the distinct roles that preaching in the small membership church calls on us to fill, and offers down-to-earth, substantive guidance on how to be the best preacher you can be in these most numerous, and most important, outposts of Christ’s church.

There is much value in "thinking small," say William H. Willimon and Robert L. Wilson. The importance of the small-membership church is illuminated in this thoughtful and insightful assessment. In Preaching and Worship in the Small Church, authors Willimon and Wilson identify the problems facing small churches and offer well-grounded advice for solving them. The need for this is seen in the fact that from one-half to two-thirds of Protestant churches in the United States are small (fewer than two hundred members). These tightly knit little communities of faith focus mainly on the very basic and much-overlooked fundamentals of Christian theology. As the authors note, "It is in such family-like churches that true worship renewal will occur, long before their larger counterparts will taste of this fresh new wine." This is an affirming book: "It affirms the role and basic values of the small church. It affirms the centrality of Word and Sacrament. It affirms the role of the pastor of the small congregation. It affirms the laity and their values. On this foundation of authentic affirmation can be built creative and inspiring ministries, as the laity and the minister serve God together, in and through the small church."

Christian Education is part of the vital ministry of all churches, but especially of small membership churches. In a culture that places great value on numbers, small membership churches often mistakenly see themselves at a disadvantage. Small membership churches can create wonderful opportunities to form and disciple faithful followers of Jesus Christ. In offering viable Christian Education, the role of the pastor is critical. This book invites pastors to lead their small membership churches to develop an imaginative and holistic vision of Christian Education. Read the Introduction

Dizzying changes have taken place in American religious life in the last half century. Yet in spite of that fact, taking a snapshot of a “typical” Christian church in America would reveal a surprising number of small-to-mid-sized congregations, rooted in a local neighborhood or community, tied to a specific denomination, where most of the members know each others’ names, and hence are blessed (and cursed) with being the church together. In this clear-eyed, humorous appraisal, Jason Byassee contends that the “church around the corner” occupies a particular place in the divine economy, that it is especially capable of forming us in the virtues, perspectives, and habits that make up the Christian life. Not that he romanticizes these churches, however. Having been a rural, small membership church pastor, Byassee knows too well the particular vices and temptations to which they are subject. But he also knows the particular graces they’ve been given, graces like the “prayer ladies,” those pillars of the congregation who, “when one told you she was praying for you it meant something. When one hugged you, you remembered all week. When one cooked for you the casserole tasted like love. And when you were around them you were in the presence of Jesus.” Anyone who serves, or belongs to, a “church around the corner” will find their ministry strengthened by this enlivening, inspiring book.

Pastors of smaller membership churches have a huge calling. They are responsible for changing the world! Rather than look at the small number of members in their congregations as a limitation, pastors should view their congregations as an elite force, able to impact their communities for the Kingdom of God. Small Church, Excellent Ministry is a handbook designed for pastors serving in smaller membership churches. This book will help you to conduct your ministry with excellence. Written by practitioners and professors, the information provided in this book is on the vanguard of pastoral ministry and is useful for training pastors to be leaders of their churches.

Imagining the Small Church: Celebrating a Simpler Path bears witness to what God is doing in small churches. Steve Willis tells stories from the small churches he has pastored in rural, town, and urban settings and dares to imagine that their way of being has something to teach all churches in this time of change in the American Christian Church. Willis tells us in the introduction, 'This book boasts no ten or fifteen steps to a successful small church. Instead, I hope to encourage you to give up on steps altogether and even to give up on success, at least how success is usually measured. I also hope to help the reader imagine the small church differently; to see with new eyes the joys and pleasures of living small and sustainably.' The joys and sorrows Willis helps us see through the compelling stories of faith in the small church puts flesh and bones on the possibilities that lie ahead for congregations in the future as well as the here and now. From the foreword by Tony Pappas: 'In Imagining the Small Church, pastor, writer, and lover of small things Steve Willis takes us on a narrative and imaginative journey. Some readers will have a sense that what Willis is describing simply names what they have already known in their hearts about their small churches. For them the journey will cover some familiar ground, explore some territory from a fresh angle, but deposit them nearly home again, hopefully with just a bit more awareness and appreciation. For others, though, Willis will take them on a long journey to a far and foreign place. They probably won't bother to finish reading it, and they will miss his invitation to find pastoring a small church extremely rewarding and meaningful. They will find this a strange book weird, off-center, and impractical; unlivable in the twenty-first century and undesirable in any event. This is because Willis is taking on the ethos, the values of our age, and claiming that it needn't be so. We can live on a different basis. We can live on the basis of gospel values.' There will be a variety of paths as the Church seeks new ways of being in this time. Willis knows this. In Imagining the Small Church he presents us with one that embraces a life of faith on the periphery and challenges church leaders to do the same.

Are small membership churches--as the conventional wisdom says--simply places where pastors bide their time while they wait for something better to come along? Are they places where long-standing family relationships are maintained, but little else? Are they places where attendance is dropping, the building is out of date, the programs are boring, and people don't want to change? If you believe this conventional wisdom, then this book is not for you. But if you see small-membership churches, especially those in rural areas, as opportunities for the radical message of Jesus to transform lives.