Karl Vaters: The Small Thinking That Divides Churches

In this excerpt from our Small Church America issue (July/August), Karl Vaters, pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, Calif., and founder of NewSmallChurch.com, shares his thoughts on big thinking, ministry metrics and leading a healthy small church.

What does that look like—to be a small church with big thinking? How do you embrace being a small church and find meaning within that paradigm instead of obsessively seeking change or growth?

Here’s an illustration that often resonates with people: Imagine if Starbucks’ executives got together and said, “We’ve sent our spies out and measured all the IKEAs in the area. The average IKEA has 250,000 square feet, but the average Starbucks only has an average of 1,000 square feet. We need to get our averages up. We’ve got to get bigger stores. You can drive by one of our stores and not even see it. Some of our stores don’t even have their own property; they’re stuck inside another store. So let’s consolidate some of the stores and make them bigger.” You hear that and you think, “That’s ridiculous. Starbucks’ business plan is different than IKEA’s business plan, and no one can say either one of them hasn’t been successful. Starbucks is about smallness and intimacy, and it works for what 

they’re doing.”

Small churches are the same way. There are people who like the smaller setting and the smaller place. They discover God more deeply in a smaller setting. They’re more comfortable inviting their friends to a smaller setting. They like that they can ask questions. They like that when they’re in a store and they run into a pastor, the pastor sees them and knows their name. They’re not wrong or selfish for wanting those things.

So it was that premise I started from: the things that a small church can do better—and that’s not to put down big churches. I love big churches. I love megachurches; I want to see more of them. But I want to see more teaching that is applicable to small churches, because we’re taught almost exclusively from a megachurch standpoint using megachurch principles. And there are some principles that megachurch pastors can teach me, but I can actually use less than half of them in my church. The rest of it I have to adapt, and some of it can’t even be adapted. Keep reading