Small Myth Buster #1
God's Word offers NO exemption clause to small churches.
You will NOT find any of the following in the Bible: "make disciples… unless you're a small church—then wait until you grow larger" (see Matthew 28:19) or "equip God's people to do his work … unless you're a part of a small church" (see Ephesians 4:11-12). Training disciples and equipping volunteers to do the work of the ministry, according to the Bible, is for EVERY church regardless of size. God's Word offers no training exception clause to small churches—even if the church is so small it can meet in a house (Romans 16:5).

Small Myth Buster #2
Surprise! Your church might be one of the larger churches in America!
Want to know what a small church is? I once preached in a church of three people! And it got even smaller when I stepped up to lead the first song. Two of the three people in the congregation stepped up to the piano and the organ respectively—and I was looking at one person in the congregation! That, my friends, by any definition, is a small church! According to researcher George Barna, the average size church in America is 89 adults. Think about this with me for a moment. If your church has 90 or more adults in attendance on any given Sunday, statistically speaking, you're above average!

Small Myth Buster #3
Being small in number is a reason to train volunteers to do ministry—not a reason to ignore, avoid, or disregard the training of volunteers!
The truth is that authentic ministry training is best accomplished in a smaller context! Remember, Jesus' original "church" was only 12 volunteers. But note well what happens when a small "cadre" of volunteers are trained well to do the work of God's kingdom! (See the book of Acts for more info.) If your church is small, it's all the more reason to train volunteers to do the work of the ministry. Training volunteers is one of the keys to transforming them from pew potatoes to passionate participators!

Small Myth Buster #4
Smaller churches often do a better job of training volunteers to do the work of the ministry.
In a larger church, it is much easier for people to hide in the pew and stay uninvolved. In a smaller church, there is no hiding! Hence, training volunteers to do ministry can—and is often—being done better by "smaller" churches! I recently spoke in a small church of about 75 adults in very rural Illinois. By the time we got to this church, the cell phone reception was non-existent—and even the FM radio only had a couple of clear stations coming through. This is what we in Cadre Ministries affectionately refer to as "Cadre Country." Why "affectionately"? Because throughout history, God has used unlikely people from ordinary places to make an extraordinary difference for Him! This is precisely what I found at this church.

Here—in a town of about 1,200—is a young, growing, healthy church of 75 adults with four pastors. Four pastors? How can that be? The senior pastor is the only paid pastor, but because of his commitment to training people to do the work of the ministry in Ephesians 4:11-12 fashion—three men from his church have been trained to lead the church's youth ministry, evangelism ministry, and discipleship ministry. All of these men—two in their twenties and one in his thirties—purposely took jobs in the area so they can fulfill their God-given calling to this church and this portion of Illinois. The fact that these three pastors are bi-vocational only accentuates the power and importance of training. And these men continue to be trained with Jesus-like on-the-job training! The senior pastor told me there are five more people in his congregation who are just beginning to pursue ministry training.

This senior pastor gets it! What is the "it" he gets? The training heart of Jesus! The training heart of Paul! The training heart of God that permeates the Bible! So this pastor wisely invests his time training his people and launching them into ministry in Ephesians 4:11-12 fashion. You don't hear this pastor in this small church in a very small town in very rural Illinois saying, "We're too small to do ministry training." They're too busy training people to do ministry effectively!

Small Myth Buster #5
"Small" does NOT automatically mean "inferior."
What do people really mean when they say, "Our church is too small to do training"? The connotation of "small," when applied to conversations about churches, often erroneously insinuates "inferior." The implication is that only "big" churches can engage in the luxury of training volunteers to do the work of the ministry. This thinking is rooted in our FALSE belief that successful ministry requires large numbers of people. It is a very interesting exercise to compare our unbiblical "numbers = success thinking" with what Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14.

Attendance ought not to be the only measure of a successful church. Why? Because large attendance doesn't automatically translate into "biblical health," and small attendance doesn't automatically mean "spiritually anemic." It's much more complex than that. There are multiple variables involved in accurately assessing the biblical success and health of a church. Suffice it to say for our purposes that it's possible to have a large and biblically unhealthy church. And it is possible to have a small—or average size—biblically effective church. A mark of a biblically healthy church should not be based on the number of people it has coming into it alone, but how many people are being trained and sent out of it to impact the world!

I know this sounds strange to a North American mindset. But I get these "different" ideas from studying the life of Jesus who, in order to reach the masses, intentionally and painstakingly trained a "cadre" of disciples. It was this very same cadre of disciples who, when sent out as apostles, "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). Please don't misunderstand what I am saying. I have absolutely nothing against larger churches. I like and admire certain aspects of most of them. I just refuse to bow down to the false god of "large numbers = success."

Being a small church does NOT automatically mean the church is inferior! Barna offers these amazing and insightful words on the issue of church size and true biblical success: "Jesus did not die on the cross to fill up church auditoriums. He died so that people might know God personally and be transformed in all dimensions of their life through their ongoing relationship with Him. Such a personal reformation can happen in a church of any size. After all, the goal of every church should not be numerical growth but spiritual health and vitality" (italics mine). A critically important sign of spiritual health and vitality in a church—of any size—is a heart and strategy for training volunteers to do the work of the ministry!

Explore further the idea of what ministry success really is.

Small Myth Buster #6
Current trends in American church life should encourage smaller churches to embrace a training-for-ministry strategy!
Over the next 10 years, you will notice that younger adults are NOT jumping in to fill the empty seats in big Baby Boomer churches! According to Barna, "adults under 35 years of age are more likely than are older adults to attend small churches." One reason Barna cites this trend is "the Baby Bust generation's disinterest in participating in Boomer-led organizations and in large-scale enterprises. Busters are more interested in being personally known and connected, which many believe is more difficult to accomplish in larger churches."

Barna goes on to accentuate the importance of small and average-size churches: "Small churches play an important and valuable role in the religious landscape of America. They reach millions of young adults who have no interest in a larger church setting. They have tremendous potential for building strong community, as well as spiritual foundations. Megachurches draw media attention, but they collectively account for less than one out of every four adults in church." Because of different values and goals of the Buster and Mosaic generation, Barna predicts that the regular church will become "a more significant force in the future, with many of those churches spawning new congregations rather than expanding to become megachurches." It's an exciting day to be a smaller or average size church!

However, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the under-35 crowd is their deep DNA desire to participate—not just spectate! As this group begins to walk past larger churches to darken the doors of smaller or average size churches—as many of them most certainly will—they will not want to sit in church! This generation wants to roll up their sleeves and get involved. If volunteer and vocational church leaders in these smaller to average size churches make the mistake of keeping these young adults on the bench—rather than putting them into the game—this upcoming generation of young adults will tend to move on to another smaller to average size church that will allow them to put their gifts and talents into play for the kingdom of God! They will not wait for the benefits of seniority like those in the Boomer generation did. They want to make a difference for God NOW—and they will go to churches that give them the opportunities to participate in ministry that's making an eternal difference.

Therefore, ministry training in the mode of Jesus and Ephesians 4:11-12 must become a critical component of the strategy of the small and average size church—if such churches REALLY want to assimilate the coming generations into the life of the church! Without an authentic biblical approach to training volunteers, a church will never really be able to step into this window of opportunity to reach, train, and deploy the coming generation for Christ! And who is poised to lean into this window of opportunity? The smaller and average size churches—IF they will embrace a training-for-ministry strategy with these young adult volunteers!

Do you still believe the myth that your church is too small to train volunteers to do ministry?

Republished with permission from the Cadre Connection, a publication of www.cadreministries.com.  More help for ministry training: Cadre Training Festival, Saturday, March 18, Midland Evangelical Free Church in Midland, Michigan.