The Place of the Small Church in Today’s World -- By: Kenneth O. Gangel

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 141:561 (Jan 1984)
Article: The Place of the Small Church in Today’s World
Author: Kenneth O. Gangel


The Place of the Small Church in Today’s World

Kenneth O. Gangel

[Kenneth O. Gangel, Chairman and Professor of Christian Education, Dallas Theological Seminary]

Sixty percent of all Protestant churches in the United States and Canada have fewer than 200 members each. Two-thirds of those average less than 120 in a Sunday morning worship service. And at least one half of all Protestant congregations in North America can be labeled “small.”1

Furthermore the population shift over the past decade actually favors the viability of small churches. According to research reported by the United Methodist Church, the towns and countrysides of this nation added people nearly twice as fast as did the cities from 1970 to 1980, a trend which is expected to continue. The last time nonurban counties outgrew urban ones was more than 160 years ago.

Meanwhile, religious leaders at all points on the theological compass are rethinking the super-church craze of the 1970s. Speaking of the largest Protestant denomination in the world, Danielsen writes, “We praise the Lord for large churches, but the fact of the matter is that churches with over 1,000 in membership make up about 11 percent of the churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. Churches with membership under 300 make up 61.3 percent of the churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.”2 In the United Methodist Church congregations with fewer than 200 members represent 64 percent of all the congregations, and in that mainline denomination, 10 percent of the churches have an average attendance of under 20 at the

morning worship service, 26 percent average fewer than 35, and 57 percent maintain an average attendance of fewer than 75.3

But what is “small” when that tag is applied to churches? Researcher Schaller identifies a figure of 175 worshipers on Sunday morning as an ideal.4 Allowing for a flexibility factor of 25 either way from that mean, one might say that a church of 150 or fewer worshipers on Sunday morning (or at its principal weekly service) is small. Of course, this is a relative designation since before the days of urbanization, industrialization, and centralization, that size would have been considered more than ample. When viewed against the backdrop of the current infatuation with size, “150” and “small” seem synonymous.

History is on the side of the small church. Bigness is the new kid on the block. Historically, Protestant denominations in the United States h...

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