In Praise of Small Churches

I have been in churches where thousands worshipped and the music lifted the ceiling and the preacher's words landed with a precision that felt like prophecy. I am grateful for those experiences. They have shaped me.

But some of my most holy moments have been in small rooms. Twelve people around a table with Bibles and coffee and an honesty that is only possible when anonymity is off the table. A handful of voices singing something centuries old in a stone building that has held the prayers of generations. Two women on a porch, one of them weeping, the other simply present.

Jesus said: where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. He did not say where two thousand are gathered. He drew the threshold remarkably low.

There is something that happens in the small gathering that the large one cannot replicate: you are known. Your absence is noticed. Your struggle is seen. You cannot disappear into the crowd, which means you also cannot hide from the community, which means the community can actually do its work in you.

Small is not lesser. Small is often more. The mustard seed. The handful of flour. The two fish and five loaves. God seems to have a particular fondness for beginning with almost nothing and seeing what He can do.