“A larger church up the road is hoping to serve other area churches by helping them to organize their security teams,” a denomination leader told me once. When I was a kid, our church had a team of men (and sometimes their sons) driving around on golf carts as part of the security team. I loved the doughnuts in the shed. In my current small church, all the men are the security team every Sunday morning. That’s not a separate ministry.
Most church training events and conferences don’t include the average church. The average church is 65-75 people and has one pastor. Most training events are geared for churches of 200-500 that have multiple pastors and several ministry leaders.
I don’t think there is anything sinister in the event planning. I think the kind of person who organizes training events for a parachurch ministry or a state convention likely comes from a larger church. He serves there. He attends there. It isn’t on his radar to think of what a smaller church might need.
When I look at a conference or event, I look to see if there are any topics that would help our lay leaders rather than discourage them. I know that our leaders will immediately feel that we don’t measure up to what all the other “normal” churches are doing if the topics are geared toward larger churches with specialist staff. If I see “smaller church” in a breakout lineup, then I know that our church and our needs are noticed and appreciated. It makes leaders like me feel seen and then equipped.
Because I think the problem is that organizers don’t know what would be relevant, I thought it might be helpful to list several topics that would benefit smaller churches.
Here are some ideas:
- Outreach and Strategies for Smaller Churches
- Leading Worship with One Instrument
- Yearly Planning in a One-Pastor Church Without Going Out of Your Mind
- Reach and Disciple Kids and Families in a Small Church
- Leading Change When You Can’t Get Your Church to Do Anything
- Preaching Better as a Bivocational Pastor
- Out of the Box VBS for Smaller Churches
- Worship Planning and Resources for Smaller Churches
- Youth Ministry Ideas for Smaller Churches
- Technology When All You Have Are Volunteers
- Sound System Basics for Smaller Churches
- Video/Screen Options that Don’t Break the Bank and How to Use Them
- Leading a Women’s/Men’s Ministry in a Smaller Church
If you plan denominational or church training events and conferences, then these topics will be relevant to 90% of the churches in your area. You can target multi-staff churches. Nothing wrong with that. We are all working together on the same team and toward the same goal. Small churches can use help too, though. Imagine a world where 90% of churches are more effective at reaching families, at doing evangelism, at worshiping, at making disciples. I think that would be amazing. That would be worth working for.
Do you have other topics that would help smaller churches? Share them in the comments.
Joe Radosevich is married to Emma and father to 7 kids. He is pastor of Manchester Baptist Church in Manchester, IL and graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He writes at josephfradosevich.com.