A Sense of Community

For the past three years, two personal streams of interest have come together – small church ministry and the missional church. The Z-4:10 Network and this book blog are the fruit of that convergence. Bickers’ chapter “A Sense of Community” in The Healthy Small Church reminded me of the “eureka moment” that brought those two streams together.

The basic organizing principle of the small church is relationships. I recently listened to the pastor of a large church tell of someone in a public place who approached him saying, “You look familiar.” In the course of conversation it dawned on the person, “Oh, you’re my pastor!” That is unimaginable to the pastor of a small church. In the small church, the people know each other (or at least can know about each other), they know their pastor and their pastor knows them.

Since the basic organizaitonal principle of the small church is relational, that means the health of a small church is tied to the quality and outward focus of its community life. Unfortunately, relational life can be the small church’s greatest weakness. "Closed fellowship" was one of the top five pressing issues identified by pastors of EPC small churches. A pastor of a small congregation told me about his congregation’s experience with the Natural Church Development survey. They were shocked when the results told them that one of their weakest characteristics was “loving relationships.” There were family groupings within the church that were friendly within their families, but had little to do with the others or with welcoming outsiders. They felt friendly, but didn’t realize how inwardly focused their relationships were.

In my years serving in a small church I grew frustrated with church growth thinking. It seemed to beat up on the small church and its leaders, treating them as problems to be fixed. It was more defeating than helpful. Church health thinking was better. But the more I read about church health and how it might relate to small church ministry, frustration began to surface again. Every author had a good list of health characteristics, but every list was different. Every list was a mixture of biblical and sociological principles. How many health characteristics are there? What list is the best one? Each one seemed to have a part of the whole, but the whole was too big to get my arms around. Ultimately, church health seemed like church growth in another costume, rooted in technique and method. This is where I found the missional church conversation so refreshing. It is absolutely insistent that we start at the critical, foundational level of the church’s core identity, before we get to strategy and tactics. One piece of that identity is understanding the church as a contrast community.* We are set apart by God for his purposes and have beliefs and practices that demonstrate a different way to live.

“Eureka.” There it was. “Community” is built into the fabric of small church life and a key theme of the missional church. Small church ministry isn't about duplicating large church programs.  It's about a renewed, biblical, size-blind understanding of who we are as the sent people of a sending God.  Relationships are the strength of the small church when they are kept open.  Missional community isn't the community of an encounter group, it's the community of a mission team.  The small church is a community of disciples, called together by God for a compelling purpose outside of and greater than themselves. They are called from the world to be a contrast community and sent back into the world, participating in God’s mission right where they are and around the world.

If you need a laugh, here’s an illustration of a “eureka” moment – Monty Python’s “Philosophers’ World Cup”



*For much more about missional church themes, see "The Missional Primer."