Small-church pastors often set out to read practical ministry books only to find that most of them are geared toward larger churches. The ideas they promote would not work in a smaller congregation, so the small-church pastor must take the general principle of what the book teaches and adapt them for his own setting. Of course, pastors of larger churches must also discern how to apply the principles set out in a book, since so much depends on each individual church. Even so, smaller congregations receive less attention than larger ones.
Karl Vaters’ book, Small Church Essentials, attempts to fill this gap. Vaters is a small-church pastor who seeks to help and equip other small-church pastors. His primary thesis in Small Church Essentials is that small does not equal broken. Just because a church is small does not mean that it is unhealthy. Vaters pushes back against the idea that church health should be assessed by numbers and offers a more nuanced approach to assessing church health that leaves the small-church pastor believing that his church being small does not mean it cannot be great.
Summary
Small Church Essentials is broken up into four main parts. In part one, Vaters explains that being small should be embraced rather than shunned as broken. He argues that “no church can be a great church if they don’t know they can be a great church. Too many small churches and their pastors are laboring under a false impression—a lie, really—that their church can’t be great until it becomes bigger” (24). He is not suggesting that small-church pastors should settle; he is simply helping them to see that they can still do good ministry even while small.
In part two, Vaters expounds with more detail on how to think like a great small church. He encourages small-church pastors not to let the number of people in their congregations week-to-week dictate their work ethic or their sense of value to the kingdom. He says, “Jesus didn’t wake up this morning depressed by the size of your church” (54). Further, Vaters points out that, if a church is broken, trying to make the church bigger will not fix anything. If a small church is a healthy church, Vaters notes that numerical congregational growth is not inevitable and that small is not necessarily a sign of the lack of healthy. Basically, he is arguing for a broader definition of church growth, one that focuses more on the church’s health rather than its weekly attendance.
Part three focuses more on what the idea of being a healthy small church looks like in practice. He explains the difference between a church’s being small because it is stuck versus strategic. He says that a church is stuck if it is small by mistake, by exclusion, frozen in time, or not engaged in the surrounding community. On the other hand, churches can be strategically small. A pastor may do everything right but not see numerical growth as quickly as he would like. Vaters encourages pastors in this situation to see that, if they are being a healthy small church, they are not stuck. They are strategic.
Communities develop over time, and it is likely that the church’s community looks much different today than it did when the church was planted. Small churches that are strategic rather than stuck will reflect the changes in their community. For example, if the community is now more ethnically diverse, the strategic church should also be more ethnically diverse. Consider also that if the average age of church members is significantly older than the average age of the community, the church may be stuck. However, if the church is surrounded by senior citizens who have retired, this age demographic is no issue at all.
Part three also addresses dealing with conflict in a small church and how that may look different than what you may find in a big church. He discusses dealing with controlling church members, which are very prevalent in small churches.
Perhaps the most helpful aspect of this section regards “Intensive Care for Unhealthy Churches.” In it Vaters suggests that unhealthy churches should be pastored differently than healthy churches: “Unhealthy churches aren’t like healthy ones, and acting as though they are doesn’t help them, it hurts them” (114). He notes that many books and blogs teach pastors to challenge their church by requiring greater levels of commitment from their members, focusing on the people who are not there, and spending more time, energy, and money on ministry than on maintenance (115). These are great ideas if the church is healthy, but making an unhealthy church bigger does not make it better.
Finally, part four addresses becoming a great small church. Vaters closes out the book by discussing what it looks like for a small church to become more welcoming. He encourages churches to take an honest look at their friendliness. For a small-church visitor, walking in can be an act of great vulnerability since there is nowhere to hide or blend in with the crowd (192). Instead of just assuming that a church is friendly, he suggests making friendliness a priority in small churches. He poses the G.I.F.T. plan as a way to become a friendlier and more welcoming church: “GREET someone you’ve never met before. INTRODUCE people to each other. FOLLOW UP with someone you met recently. THANK someone who did something you appreciate” (194).
He also discusses mentorship and discipleship in the small church and how to plan for success. In any church, believers must make disciples of other believers. Vaters stresses the importance of being more intentional about mentoring other believers by meeting with them regularly, doing ministry with them, not for them, and helping them to find ways to use the gifts the Lord has given them.
He ends his book by encouraging the small-church pastor that his church is big enough. He says, “Pastoring a small church with passion and joy is not about settling for less, it’s about doing all you can with everything you’ve been given” (251). If we get stuck thinking that our church needs to be bigger to do better ministry, we miss out on doing what the Lord has for us today (252).
Analysis
I was very encouraged while reading Small Church Essentials. I did not have high expectations for the impact it would have on my own ministry in a small church, but it really helped me think through how my church, though small, can be a great small church in our community. It also helped me think through how to prioritize my church’s health over growth.
By way of critique, I think Vaters could have clarified some things in his chapter entitled “Starting, Changing, or Stopping a Ministry.” He talks about how small churches must “adapt or die” and how “any individual congregation that wants to thrive and survive in the coming generations will need to constantly adapt to a fast-changing landscape” (145). There is certainly a place for change in the church, and many times it is absolutely necessary. I think Vaters gives some helpful advice on how to go about change in a small church. However, I wish he would have encouraged small-church pastors to continue trusting in the sufficiency of Scripture and the ordinary means of grace. God has chosen to work through means such as the reading and preaching of the Word, congregational singing, prayer, and the ordinances, not our ability “to constantly adapt to a fast-changing landscape.”
Conclusion
Overall, Small Church Essentials is a helpful, encouraging read for pastors of small churches for at least two reasons: First, it highlights that a church does not have to be big to be healthy. And second, it provides an abundance of practical advice for doing ministry in a small church setting—something that many ministry books do not consider. I highly recommend this book to any pastor or leader in a small-church setting.
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