Small churches have the potential for explosive growth if nurtured properly.

I did it. Instead of playing it safe, buying the same variety of greenery, I tried something different for my office. I settled on a tree that I hope to retain for many years to come, a Bonsai tree. Bonsai (pronounced “bone-sigh”) is better known than it once was, thanks to the Karate Kid movies, wider visibility and cultural awareness. The Japanese term bonsai literally means “tray planting” or “tree in a pot.”

Bonsai trees are miniatures, not because of their innate incapacity (allowed to grow normally they can reach great heights) but due to human intervention. The young tree is planted in a pot too small for its roots to spread. The soil is carefully formulated to limit the tree’s supply of nutrients. Branches are wired together to force growth in a certain way. A potential giant of the forest is dwarfed into a household curiosity.
From a religious perspective, one might conclude that Bonsai arborists have been at work in the North American church. There are close to 100,000 Protestant congregations on this continent with fewer than 100 members. It’s been that way for many years. Church-growth methodologies of the late 20th century have done little to change this statistic. While mega-churches rise and fall, small churches remain.

Reasons to Celebrate
There are several legitimate reasons to appreciate small churches:
• Strength of fellowship in small congregations is difficult to replicate elsewhere. People know one another well and are in a position to minister to one another. In spite of occasional squabbles, there is deep concern for one another. Everyone is considered family.
• A unique form of discipleship is established through Sunday school classes, training sessions, youth activities and even fellowship times. Mature Christians take an integrated approach to discipleship so that it is more than just a program.
• Discipline is more effective because everyone knows everyone else. Small membership makes everyone more visibleby their presence as well as their absence.
• Democratic government occurs more organically because, in a simple church structure, everyone has opportunity to be part of the decision-making process. Committees may be few but the degree of ownership is high, even if it takes longer to reach consensus.
• Pastoral care is an attractive feature of the small church. People have much more direct access to their shepherd. The pastor has immediate influence on everyone’s life, especially during moments of great joy or sorrow.

Small is indeed beautiful. Strong, healthy, small churches have potential for great Kingdom impact if they choose to refocus on their missionary calling to today’s culture. The current “Simple Church” movement appeals to a prevalent desire for closeness and simplicity. It provides multiple varieties of small church in non-traditional settings where true community and incarnational evangelism thrive and multiply. Networks of simple churches, also known as niche churches, meet in houses, cafés, apartments, offices, on campus or even in warehouses! They have potential for explosive growth and are worth a significant investment of our resources.

Cause For Concern
The downside of all this is that the same qualities that make the small church appealing also tend to limit its growth:
• Exclusiveness can emerge out of a comfortable group that becomes so cozy there is no room for newcomers. The church may be located in a burgeoning population area, but still remain small because visitors find it difficult to break into long-established fellowship circles. Small is not always caring, neither is large necessarily impersonal.
• Dysfunctional or inadequate structures can prevent growth when a church fails to adapt and plan in response to changes in the community. Introducing people to Christ takes careful planning in small churches so that they retain their spontaneity and informality while focusing on the needs of those they seek to reach.
• Unrealistic expectations can inhibit the growth of the small church. If members expect the pastor to sustain the same level of pastoral care that has always been given, maintenance and nurture will trump outreach and mission every time. In order for the pastor to lead an outreach effort, insiders need to sacrifice their desire for in-person attention for every need. The small congregation is faced with the challenge to preserve its strengths, embrace the possibility of a new future and tip the “sacred cow” that keeps it small.

Tipping the Bonsai Tree Sacred Cow
1. An attitude change. There is sometimes a tendency for small churches to sanctify smallness. If they are not plagued with an inferiority complex, they may possess an arrogance that is just as prevalent as that which is perceived in larger churches. Or they may try to imitate the programs and strategies of larger churches without considering their suitability for a smaller context. Whatever the size of our corps, we are called to be faithful and passionate missionaries to our communities (see Matthew 28:18-20; John 17:18, 20:21).

2. An atmosphere of anticipation. The early Church and the first Salvationists were marked by eager expectation of what God would do next. They constantly prayed for greater things. Expectation focused on growth in holiness, participation in ministry and engagement in evangelism. Numerical growth was an expected outcome. If it wasn’t happening, everybody wondered why and prayed for a breakthrough. Is there a corps in the territory that would not benefit from a gigantic release of latent passion for this kind of Kingdom growth? If that is not our expectation, then we may have long since settled into a Bonsai view of Kingdom and corps.

3. A resurrection of mission. In his latest book, A Second Resurrection, Bill Easum claims that North American churches “have died to the purpose of the New Testament church, to make disciples of Jesus Christ … are more focused on the past than the future, and watch the bottom line of the financial statement more than the number of confessions of faith.” In other words, what is required goes beyond renewal to resurrection. When we truly believe that Jesus Christ is not just one way of living morally but is the hope of the world, when the centre of our passion is Jesus, when the daily life of our corps is shaped by the needs of those who do not yet belong, when we (like William Booth) are less concerned about the preservation of the Army as we know it than we are about the establishing of the Kingdom of God in our midst-then we are becoming what has been called a G.O.O.D. (Get Out-Of-Doors) church (for more information visit www.missionalchurch.org).

Could Booth’s lack of concern regarding the Army’s future be attributed to his conviction that an Army effective in mission will always be useful in the hands of the Master? Is it God’s intent that small corps across this vast territory remain small? Did Jesus die on the cross so that his followers would forever be a minority? Or is it God’s intention for every congregation to serve as a search-and-rescue operation, continuing the mission statement of Jesus-to seek and save the lost? Do we still embrace this as our mission today? Do we still believe that those without Christ are spiritually lost and in need of a Saviour? Did God intend that his Church serve only as a gathered community, or did Jesus not say that it will advance like a gigantic battering ram against which the forces of darkness cannot stand? Is your corps seeking the lost or has it become lost itself, needing to find its way back to mission?

You can have a little shaped-to-order pet tree in your garden, bearing tiny flowers or fruit with miniature leaves and bark patterns. It is beautiful, but sad to see. Small churches often look like that and they, too, are sad to behold. In and of itself, small is not bad. Small, healthy and strong congregations remind us of New Testament Christianity where multiplication of fully functional cell churches was a key to success. If reaching the full Kingdom potential of our corps is our ultimate passion, size is not a major issue. What really matters is to maintain strong commitment to our central purpose to be effective agents of total transformation in our communities, one person at a time. Where missional health prevails, God’s Church has influence and is sure to grow.

Rationalizing Smallness
• Unhealthy thinking embraces a scarcity mentality (i.e. we really can’t expect big things to happen here).
• Instead of building on the strength of small churches, this mindset sanctifies smallness. Smallness is the price paid for “purity.”
• It pursues a strategy of “welcome evangelism” because it assumes its position is on the margins of society rather than being integrated with the neighbourhood.

The Tipping Stance: Expect Growth
• A healthy approach means creating an environment of expectation that values ministry growth and spiritual maturity.
• Expectation is rooted in a harvest mentality.
• Healthy small churches embrace full-bodied evangelism: missional versus marketable; incarnation versus withdrawal.
• The church becomes the seeker, not the lost.

Scripture: “The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few” (Matthew 9:37 NLT).

Big Group Interaction
• If there are thousands of unreached people within a 20-minute drive of the church is there a problem if the church is plateaued or declining?
• What would missional worship and ministry look like?

by Major Clarence Bradbury, Director, School for Leadership Development, Atlanta, U.S.A. Southern Territory

Reprinted from Salvationist, November 2007