My son, Taylor, asked me to complete the following questionnaire to assist him with a class project. It has to do with being the pastor of a small church and I thought some others might be interested in reading it. Taylor
Questionnaire:
1. What is your role at the First Church of God?
Answer: I’m the pastor of the church.
2. How many people on average attend FCOG on any given Sunday? (not
including Holidays or special occasions)
Answer: Approximately 300 in attendance.
3. What are some positives about being a pastor at a smaller
church?
Answer: At a smaller church the pastor can have a first-hand relationship with, relatively speaking, a higher percentage of the people in the church. I have found this relational connection to be of value, particularly when people are dealing with trouble or stress. It can be helpful and comforting to have a pastor at your side who genuinely knows you on a first name basis during times of difficulty.
Here’s another potential positive to being a pastor at a smaller church. (Actually, I’m guessing here a little bit, but since I’m assuming this paper is asking for my OPINION, I’m offering my opinion.) I would think that it would be very tempting for a pastor to start to grow in importance, in his own heart and mind, as his church grew to a large size. Knowing the pride in my heart, that would be a temptation for me. Being a pastor of a small church might help to temper that tendency toward grandiose self-importance that could possibly stir in the heart of the pastor of a large church. (Obviously, I’m not suggesting that the pastor of a smaller church is immune to pride or other related issues, but the tendency to think of yourself as a, sort of, local celebrity is diminished when there’s only 75 people in your church.)
In some ways, I think it could be possible for a smaller church to have a more effective focus, in terms of ministry objectives. Smaller churches do not have the number of people or other financial resources to offer lots and lots of ministry options or other types of programs. However, I think this can create the possibility for the effective smaller churches to focus tightly and do the few things that they do, well. (Notice, I suggest that this sharp focus is a “possibility”, I don’t mean to indicate that it’s always a “reality”.
4. What are some negatives about being a pastor at a smaller
church?
Answer: In some ways, it wouldn’t be far off for me to say that the opposite of the positives that I listed above are also potential negatives for pastors at smaller churches. But you might think I was copping out, then, huh?
One very practical problem that can arise is that smaller churches have, by definition, fewer givers and, therefore, they can often deal with financial problems that can feel very threatening. Because of God’s goodness and grace we have not had to deal with that kind of financial stress, but I know a number of smaller church pastors who have felt that pressure.
Here’s another issue: I meet on a regular basis with a group of ministers who pastor very small churches. My church, at about 300 in attendance, is actually the BIG church among this group. So, I can report from my own experience and from the experience of many conversations with other pastors of small churches that there can be a sense of hurt and disappointment and frustration with which pastors of small churches struggle. Often times these are good, sincere, intelligent men who love God and are doing their best to be obedient and to lead their churches faithfully. And, yet, we recognize and honor and celebrate the big mega-church success stories (actually, I think this attitude is possibly shifting a bit, but I’ll continue my sad tale, anyhow). So, pastors of smaller churches sometimes wonder: “What am I doing wrong? What’s the problem? Why is our church not growing? Why doesn’t God seem to be blessing this church?” Obviously, not all pastors of smaller churches wrestle with these questions to the same degree. But I think many (most?) pastors of small churches, if they will be honest, ask these kinds of questions somewhere along the way.
Another issue that can be a problem for smaller churches is, in some ways, the flip side of one of the positives of smaller churches that I mentioned above. Smaller churches do not have the people or financial resources to offer lots of programs. This can result in a frustrating catch-22 for smaller churches that works like this: People come and say, “We like this church, but do you have this XYZ-type of program?”
“No, we don’t have the XYZ-type program.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Because we like this church and we’d like to attend here, but we really need the XYZ-type program.”
The smaller church could possibly offer the XYZ-type program if they had more people. But they may find it difficult to attract and keep more people because they don’t have the XYZ-type program. It’s a catch-22. I know from many discussions that pastors of smaller churches can really experience frustration over this kind of issue.
One more issue. Pastors of smaller churches often, by necessity, wear many hats. This can be tiring, and can, at times, spread the person thin dealing with multiple issues that span a wide range of subjects. It’s not impossible for the pastor of a smaller church to be called upon to offer some type of expertise or render decisions on matters ranging from church history, substance abuse counseling, theological/doctrinal issues, conflict resolution, office technology matters, group leadership dynamics, building/site maintenance issues, benevolence assistance to the needy, and helping students with English papers, all in a single day. That can be very challenging.
5. What is one of your favorite stories (funny, emotional, scary or
anything!) that has happened while being at FCOG?
Answer: Here’s a story that happened at our church just last Sunday (April 25th).
[ NOTE: If you are reading this on Facebook or on my blog, you may have read this story already. If so, you may want to scroll past this story to question number 6. ]
There was a popping sound and suddenly the lights went out, the electric guitars went dead, the sound system shut down, and the emergency lights in the church building flashed on. It was about 7:55 am. Our worship team run-through happens at 8 am. The first of our two morning services starts at 9 am.
Mike, who was running the sound board, is an electrician. As he came walking down the aisle of the church, he said, “The whole building is out.” We quickly discovered that it wasn’t just our church building. There was some type of power outage affecting the area.
This was not very good timing. People would begin arriving for the 9 o’clock service in less than one hour. The most obvious and most pressing question became, “What are we going to do?”
Can a church that relies heavily on electronic sound equipment and instruments; and projection devices and computer technology, provide a worship service in a dark building with no electrical power?
Teresa had placed a call to Com Ed, our electric utility, and was told that they expected to have power restored by “somewhere around 10 o’clock.” Hmm, our first service begins at 9. This was not very good timing. Oh yeah, I mentioned that already, didn’t I? So, we went and found lots of candles. We grabbed the acoustic guitars. We opened the skylight in our sanctuary—which we normally keep closed because the light from it washes out our projector screen.
Our church drum kit is electronic. I thought about seeing video of people playing overturned buckets out on the streets, as percussion instruments, so we grabbed a bunch of buckets of various sizes and Bob set those up. He played “the buckets”! Really!
By about 8:15 we were ready to try a run-through with our new make-shift set-up.
Guess what? It was fun. It was different. We were flying by the seat of our pants and we were loving it. Several early birds had already arrived as we finished our run-through and they said, “Hey, that was great. It sounded terrific. We love the un-plugged, acoustic feel. It’s really neat.”
When we gathered for prayer, as we usually do, just before the start of the service, Rose led us in a wonderful prayer. I could sense that God was going to do something terrific.
And He did.
In fact, we had such a blast in our candlelit 9 o’clock service that when the power came back on around 10:30, several of us from the worship team huddled up and decided we would go ahead and do a candlelight, un-plugged service at 11 o’clock, too. Why not? It was such a neat experience at 9 am, we figured we should give the 11 o’clock folks the experience, too.
After both services, numerous people came to me and said things like this:
“We should do that again. It was fantastic.”
“The Spirit in the service was so powerful.”
“I love the candle light, it creates a nice soothing atmosphere for a nap.” […Okay, there’s always one or two wise guys in every group.]
I said to several people today, “You know what? Christianity has been around for over 2,000 years. For the vast majority of that time there was no electricity and, yet, people managed to gather together to worship and praise God. We’ll figure out how to do this without electricity.”
And we did….well, with God’s help, we did.
Jesus said this phrase: "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." Matt.18:20. Today, we were reminded that we don’t need technology or electricity to have a rich and meaningful time of worship. We just need willing hearts and the presence of God.
It was a great day!
6. What is a little background information about FCOG? (Anything
you’d like a person who’s never attended the church to read)
Answer: Our church began over 100 years ago in the late 1800’s in the city of Chicago Chicago , the name of the town is Oak Lawn .
We believe that God has given us a mission to reach out to those who don’t go to church or those who have been hurt—perhaps even hurt by religion—and help them come to know Christ and to grow to maturity in the faith.
We have a contemporary worship style (that information seems to matter to some). We have been told on more than one occasion that there is something special, distinctive, and noticeable about the love of our congregation. I believe that is true. (I genuinely hope and pray that is true.)
Our church is far, far from being a perfect group of people, but I genuinely believe that it is a wonderful group of people, who love God, and want to serve Him. They are an incredible blessing to me.
Dan Marler
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