Both
Larger and Smaller Churches Have Same Focus
By
Charles S. Mueller, Sr.
The
LCMS is made up of two distinct and different kinds of
churches. By one definition, 20% or so of our congregations
are “larger” churches. Most offer two or more services a
week with 200 to 2,000 worshippers––even more—in
attendance. Each larger church is staffed by at least two
full-time, certified workers (some clergy teams), backed up by
who knows how many others in various support roles.
Most
larger churches support a graded day school and operate under
an annual budget that may start close to $200,000 and balloons
from there. They maintain a complex organizational web of
member-staffed boards and committees and fill hundreds of
essential serving positions each week from among their
members. Today’s larger church is a post-WWII phenomenon,
the product of post-WWII housing patterns, transportation
methods, electronic developments and plain old change. A
little more than half of all Lutheran laity chooses a larger
church as their church home.
Not
a Judgment of Worth
The
balance of the LCMS’s laity--a little less than
half--attends one of the 80% of our congregations that may be
described as “smaller.” Smaller is not a judgment of
worth. It refers only to size and style of organization.
Most
LCMS smaller churches offer a single, traditional worship
service weekly attended by less than 100 worshipers. While
many have a resident full-time pastor, many others share a
pastor with a sister parish--sometimes two. Smaller churches
have uncomplicated organizational arrangements, simple and
essentially needs-related. Major decisions are made in
monthly/quarterly congregation meetings operating as a
committee of the whole. Day-to-day matters are often handled
by the pastor or by a designated lay leader. Weekly activities
are limited and somewhat seasonal.
Two
Consequences
This
LCMS snapshot includes two interesting and important
spin-offs:
·
The laity of
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod are almost equally divided
between two quite different styles of church.
·
Most clergy,
by circumstance or choice, serve all or much of their
ministries in the 80% of our churches that are smaller.
You’d
think these conditions within an organization would spell
imminent disaster. But that’s not how these and other
differences have played out among us for nearly 170 years of
LCMS history. Smaller churches have kept going (some of them
growing into larger churches), sticking together as a family.
Dr C. F. W. Walther in his inaugural presidential
address over 150 years ago predicted that a shared devotion to
the Word, a shared life under the Spirit and a commitment to
persuasion as our family’s operating principle would see us
through. That’s how it has worked since 1838.
One
Ministry Mandate, One Focus
While
there are other reasons our LCMS has made it all these years,
of special significance is that both larger and smaller
churches have an identical mission and ministry mandate. That
mandate was spelled out by Christ in his end-of-life
directives recorded in all the Gospels and in Acts, chapter 1.
There is no larger church/smaller church version of the Great
Commission. It’s the same for both.
More.
Both churches function with identical ministry foci of worship,
witness, service, fellowship, teaching and learning,
stewarding. All six. While size will shape how a parish
comes at each, doing each is a must. No parish is excused from
any ministry focus. Parish worth is measured by faithfulness
to that full spectrum of ministry in their moment with the
means they have at hand.
One
Notable Difference
But there is one notable difference between the smaller
and larger churches: The non-theological things their pastors
do. Pastors of larger churches need leadership skills that
their church, because of size, requires. As with all LCMS
clergy, pastors of larger churches must be theologically
well-grounded. But they must also know how to organize and
supervise the organizational complexities that come with size.
Beyond the promised gifts of the Spirit they must have
specialized training on a scale comparable to that of the
pilot of a jumbo jet, the captain of a super tanker, the
manager of a thousand-acre farm. That training does not mean
they are of greater worth among pastors. It only means they
are qualified to offer the special guidance larger churches
need. For the good of the church he better be professionally
qualified.
What’s
true of the larger church pastor is also true of the smaller
church pastor. He must be just as singularly gifted and
prepared. Not every seminary graduate can make it as the
shepherd of a smaller church because they don’t have the
full array of skills serving a smaller church requires.
The
pastor of a smaller church must be an ecclesiastical general
practitioner—a GP. He must be minimally qualified as a
pastor, a preacher, a priest, a counselor, an administrator,
an evangelist, all rolled into one because he fills his clergy
position alone, 24/7. An inadequate, untrained, uncommitted or
unwilling smaller church pastor is a burden too heavy to bear.
If a pastor in a larger church falters or is confused, there
are others around to shore him up, rein him in or help him
out. But, when the GP pastor of a smaller church fails, he can
wound a parish so severely that it does not survive.
Hyperbole? Look around.
Both
are Jewels
So
which is more important for The Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod, the larger church or the smaller one?
The answer is both. Both are jewels in Christ’s
crown. More often than not, size just happens, a product of
location, population density and available assets. Neither is
better, neither worse. They are just different. Each must be
about His business where they are and be treasured and honored
for doing unique and important things. God does not shape
confessional congregations in only one mold. There are smaller
churches. There are larger churches. Both. Ours is a time for
an exuberant “Selah,” a
full-throated “Halleluiah,” a rowdy 21st
century “Attaboy!” or any other word of praise you
may choose, thanking God that He has given his people in His
church, a church that comes in two sizes of equal worth:
larger or smaller.
