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Why I like small churches

Getting on for two and a half years ago, Michael Lockwood moved from Thornhill Baptist Church with his wife and two daughters to join with four believers in fellowship at Hall Green in Haworth, West Yorkshire. He tells us what happened...

We went with an awareness of some of the inherent difficulties of life in a small church and prepared as well as we could for the hardships ahead. What we were not prepared for, however, was the enormous blessings we would experience, not despite the church being small but because it was small.

Here are three unexpected blessings experienced in the last two years, which we hope will be an encouragement to those in similar situations.

Casting ourselves on God

Every Christian knows that 'without Christ we can do nothing'. We gladly acknowledge our complete dependency on him in every aspect of our life and not least in church life. It is, however, one thing to depend on Christ when we are surrounded by godly mature brothers and sisters in a large and prosperous church and quite another thing when only a handful of people gather together, making it crystal clear the future witness of a church is hanging by a thread.

Committed Christians

Another blessing is the privilege of working with some of the best of saints. Any believer reading this in a tiny fellowship will know the scenario where a new young couple with their children come into the Sunday meeting and all hearts are encouraged and lifted. After the meeting all efforts are made to make the family feel welcome. But the conversation is not encouraging. What they are looking for is a church where their children can make friends with others their own age, a toddlers group, and a fellowship of those who are of a similar social standing, with similar interests to themselves. They won't be back, but will slot in nicely at a larger church where all their needs are met.

Larger churches know only too well the ongoing problem of seeking to have a fully committed fellowship. The larger the fellowship, the larger the problem of those Christians who simply attend meetings but show no indication of sacrificial living for Christ. By contrast, what sort of people are found in tiny churches? Well, of course, it is not always the case, but in my experience it is those who have a deep sense of God having called them to serve him. They are not looking for what they can get out of church - not looking for a comfortable, easy situation. They are looking to serve Christ, and have actually chosen a difficult situation so they can be of more use. In other words, the choicest of Christian people. What a blessing to be among these who are on fire for Christ.

Awareness of wider fellowship

A third blessing is an awareness of being part of a much wider fellowship of believers. I mean not only fellow Christians of our generation but those who have worked before us. In church planting work you become acutely aware of work which has been done before you, in breaking up the ground and sowing the seed. I remember Michael Toogood some years ago when pioneering in Soho telling us the greatest difficulty was that the distinct lack of prayer and sowing over many years had made the spiritual ground as hard as iron.

Haworth is not at all like that. There is, of course, a hardness and resistance to the gospel as there is anywhere. But when sowing it becomes increasingly obvious that others have paved the way. When I first arrived in Haworth someone asked me if there was still evidence of William Grimshaw's great preaching 250 years ago. I laughed, thinking the very idea preposterous. Now I am not so sure. There is a readiness here to at least believe in the reality of God, which is harder to find just 20 miles away in the heartland of West Yorkshire. Maybe, just like we have the faintest signals from distant stars millions of light years away telling us they are there, in a similar way we can observe the last faint ripples of a ministry 250 years ago. But much nearer than that, there were men like George Lumsden from 30 years ago and, nearer still, Keith Dredge, who laboured seven years in the village. Anyone working within any community will soon become profoundly thankful when it becomes obvious that the person you thought had only very recently shown an interest in the gospel was spoken to many years ago, and now at last some fruit is seen. In a small situation you can see very clearly that one reaps, and another sows - and if God has made you a reaper how thankful you are for the sowers.

Certainly, a most unexpected blessing, however, was enjoying the fellowship of brothers and sisters from a much wider distance geographically. I have heard many saints say that the isolation experienced when in a tiny fellowship is a difficult burden. What unexpected joy then to experience real love and fellowship from many churches.

Free from isolationism

I suppose having a building project where our need was made known helped in this. We had over 30 churches contributing financially to the work in Haworth, and the great blessing of that made us very conscious of the love and concern and prayer for us. I have no doubt these churches would have prayed for us anyway, but we may not have been aware of it. To be aware of a wider fellowship of soldiers fighting for the cause of Christ, and supporting us in the fight, rids us of any dangers of isolation.

Indeed, it seems to me, that there is a greater danger of isolation in a large church that is so preoccupied with its own projects that it increasingly cannot see what is going on outside itself. We have cause to thank God for the handful of larger churches who are geared up to helping missionary projects, not only financially but also in very practical ways.

The mission hut

These are all blessings experienced in the past two years, not despite the church being small, but because it is small. This is not to advocate that all churches should be small! We are not as small as we were - and are hoping soon to experience the blessings of being a bigger church if the Lord should prosper us. But the size of a church is a relative matter anyway. In our previous church, we were considered locally to be a large church, until some American missionaries joined us who were used to churches of several thousands. They thought we were a mission hut. I can tell you there are worse ways of describing Christ's church than that.