Leading the Small Church from the Porch Swing

“On my first Sunday, I held a church meeting in the sanctuary immediately after worship to tell everyone that we needed to plan programs for the fall season. I just told everyone to sit down after the benediction, and I led the meeting. They really didn’t seem all that interested in what I told them we needed to do…”

So the pastor went to the district superintendant and said, "I’m not sure I'm suited for pastoral ministry. In the seminary classes I’m taking, I was told that I'm the administrative executive and the ‘CEO’ of the church, but they really seem to have their own plans. I’m not sure where I fit in at this student-local-pastor appointment.”

As a district superintendent and an instructor in "course of study" program for training part-time, second-career, and bivocational local pastors, I've heard several variations of these statements over the years.

My UM conference is in an overwhelmingly rural state filled with mostly small congregations (86% of our congregations have fewer than 100 active members, and 66% of our congregations have fewer than 50 active members). Every church, large and small, has a God-given potential to make a God-sized impact, but congregations cultivate fruitfulness in ways that differ widely based on size and context.

While most church leadership books and training events are designed by and for mid- and large-sized congregations, with ordained elders and paid staff, most congregations are small. A ministry leader cannot simply scale down the leadership principles, methods, and models designed by and for a larger church and then drop them into a small congregation. The leadership approaches that a part-time or bivocational pastor must use are very different than those practiced in a larger congregation. The small church pastor is not the CEO, not the ministry manager, not the program director, and she is not the vision-caster. These types of leadership might work in a larger congregation, but in a small church (particularly a small rural church), they will be perceived as lacking awareness and respect for the church’s natural leadership style, history, context, and reality. Read More