We are too small!

How big do you have to be before you can engage with community?

I was attending a church leaders’ gathering when a vicar put up his hand and asked, “How large does your church have to be before you can effectively engage with community?”

It was a good question then as it is now.

We can assume that it must require more people than we’ve got. But fortunately, to engage effectively with the families in your community, you don’t have to be any larger than a family.

The average family in the UK today consists of two adults and 1.6 children. So the obvious answer to the question is – that’s how big you need to be to start.

Of course, today’s families come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes - so we could start even smaller. A single parent and one child - or even a single!

A church of 12 adults in Rochdale wanted to engage its community but couldn’t see how. As they considered their options, one of the church leaders read in the local paper that there was a real need for foster parents. He brought the need to the congregation and asked whether any would consider volunteering to foster. Amazingly, six of the congregation agreed and for a while they became known as the foster church.

Size is often not the issue. It is willingness. Another church leader I spoke to recently told me that when he joined the church it had six members; now they are up to 20. I asked him what the secret was to their growth; he said “We started hitting above our weight”. Often this is a key ingredient to climbing out of a history of decline; to increase the strike rate.

I asked him whether they were managing to meet family needs in their village. He said they weren’t able to do that yet, though they would like to. “All we can manage at the moment,” he said, “is getting ourselves known as open for business in our little village community.”

Another key element is to do something new and start small. Start with one need; or adopt one street. Identify a need and start to address it with the resources you have. The key is to start.

If you are small - or feel small – don’t lose heart. God loves to use that which regards itself as small and weak to do wonders. Many of the churches showing the fastest percentage growth in the country are relatively small.

Last Updated 03 December 2010