Small Can Be Hopeful

We tend to think that big is best.  Most churches certainly aspire to grow – and there can be nothing wrong with that.  However, smallness also has a lot to commend it.  CWM (Council for World Mission) Europe is doing some work on small and hopeful congregations.  As their website (www.cwmeurope.org) points out: “A small congregation can be light on its feet, quick to respond to the changes in its community. The members are likely to know each other well, and care for each other, in ways that, in a large church, have to be found in small groups within the church.”  Of course, there is nothing wrong with big churches, but they work best if they are broken down into smaller units.  Jesus began with a group of twelve – and look where that got the church!  One of a number of new mugs arrived in our home at Christmas bearing the caption ‘Size Matters’.  It is a large mug, so I think the message was about the value of bigness.  Size does matter, but what matters is being the right size, the size we are called to be, the size that God has in mind for us.  If God wants us to be a big church, ‘great’ – but if God wants us to be a small church, that, too is ‘great’!