On Saturday, October 19, 2024, we will hold a Courageous Discipleship Day: Celebrating Small Church Ministry. A little over two years ago, I started listening to the podcast Small Church Big Impact Collective, which inspired me to reflect deeply on the power of small churches, culminating in the development of this event. The premise of the podcast is that the message that most congregational leaders get is that size matters — that is to say that small churches don’t make big impacts. The podcast creators came together to seek a different message and amplify the beauty and grace of small churches. Recently, more and more people have begun to discuss the power of small churches. Here are some important points (1) most churches have fewer than 100 active members; (2) there are many people in the world for whom small congregations are the best spiritual and community fit; and (3) rapid changes in the church will require significant reinvention of our models and assumptions, and small churches are likely to be the cutting edge of those experiments. By virtue of their size and their struggles, they are motivated to try things and nimble enough to move fairly quickly.
These points have reflected the reality that I have experienced in my three years of spending time with congregations and their leaders throughout the diocese. Most EDOW congregations are small. Many are anxious about whether what they have and what they are will be enough. Enough people? Enough money? Enough energy? Enough generational connection? The challenges are real. But here’s what else I see: when small congregations let go of fear and step out on faith, they do amazing things. People find homes there who may have no other place in this world to call home. Small congregations can connect with their communities in the most basic, intimate ways, listening to their neighbors and walking with them through lives that may also struggle with having enough to survive.
The Celebrating Small Church Ministry event will gather congregational leaders to lean into God’s long history of calling the small and the forgotten to do great things in the service of the Kingdom. It will be an interactive, experiential day, where we’ll try some things together to illuminate the creativity and innovation that is possible in the small church. The Rev. Anna Olson will share learnings from her book, Claiming Resurrection in the Dying Church, which invites the church to see ministry not through size of accomplishments or marks of affluence, but by the love of God and neighbor trusting that God capable of doing a new thing with us and through us.
Everyone is welcome. We pray that whatever the exact size and shape of your ministry, you will leave inspired, ready to step out in faith, trusting that the Holy Spirit is moving no matter how small you may be.
Learn more and register. Thanks to St. Barnabas, Temple Hills, for being our gracious hosts for the day!
Feel free to contact Canon Anne-Marie Jeffery or School director Anna Olson with any questions about the day.
The Rev. Anne-Marie Jeffery
Canon for Congregational Vitality
