ETE Season 4-Debunking the Myth_Small _Churches_Small_Leaders

Summary: In this episode, Dr. Jeffery D. Skinner explores the often unspoken bias against small churches and their leaders within church systems. He discusses how visibility bias, resource limitations, and perception issues contribute to the marginalization of small church pastors. Dr. Skinner emphasizes the need to redefine leadership pipelines, highlight the stories of faithful leaders in small congregations, and revalue bivocational ministry as a model of engagement. He concludes by urging the church to honor faithfulness over size in leadership.

Takeaways

• Small churches often lead to small leaders due to systemic biases.
• Pastors of larger churches are more visible and have more opportunities.
• Bivocational pastors face unique challenges that limit their visibility.
• The church must redefine leadership pipelines to include small church pastors.
• Faithfulness, innovation, and spiritual depth should be prioritized over attendance numbers.
• Stories of small church pastors doing impactful work need to be told.
• Bivocational ministry can be a model of community engagement.
• God values faithfulness over numerical success in leadership.
• The church must stop equating leadership with the size of the congregation.
• Every leader, regardless of church size, has a role in God's kingdom.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Marcus Rerelius said, what we do in life echoes through eternity.
What is your life echoing through eternity? Welcome to echoes
through eternity with doctor Jeffrey Skinner. Your encouraged leaders from
across the globe, national churches and be servant leaders, small

(00:20):
churchill and the stories of servants God echoes them to return.
Brought to you by church plans and leadership, development of
dynamic church planning, international and systems.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Now, I know if you ask a denominational leader, or
a district superintendent, or a leader within a denominational leader
with within any denomination, they would deny this. Ask a
pastor of a large church if they believe this, and
they would deny it. Of course not. We value every
church to it, say, every pastor, every setting, and I

(00:58):
believe they mean that sincerely. But if you look at
our actions, our appointments, our platforms, our leadership pipelines, another
story emergence, and that story reveals a troubling by us.
Pastors of s bar congregations are given fewer opportunities to grow,
to lead, and to influence today. I want to name

(01:21):
this reality, explore why it persist, and offer a Wessland perspective,
because if we do not shift our thinking, we will
continue to silence the voices of faithful leaders who are
shaping lives in settings that will never make catlines. So
let's talk about the unspoken belief. Let's name the reality.

(01:42):
Across almost every denomination, especially those with appointment settings, we
see a clear pattern. Pastors who lead larger congregations are
more likely to be considered for even larger churches or
district leadership positions or denominational roles. Meanwhile, pastors of small churches,

(02:02):
even those who have faithfully served for decades, are seldom
considered for these opportunities. They become invisible to the system. Now,
before you get too defensive, if you're a large church
pastor or a denominational leader, this is not a hit
job on anybody. It's not a hit job on any
particular denomination. We're going to explain some of the reasons

(02:25):
behind this stuff, and some of them are legitimate reasons.
So let's explore the why visibility by us. Larger churches
produce larger platforms. That's just a fact of life. It's
not their fault. But they happen to have a large church.
Their pastors speak at conferences, they publish books, although today
it's much easier to publish a book even as a

(02:48):
small church pastor. In fact, I'm in the process of
writing a new book, Broken Toluias. We're going to be
exploring not just the pain within ministry, not just a
sob story, but talking about how God uses that pain
to shape us and redeem us and redeem the world
in important ways. I have invaded pastors and lay people

(03:09):
from across the nation to contribute and participate in this
as a way for them to get their story heard
and away for them to increase their visibility. You can
go to my Facebook page and just do a search
for the Broken how Legs book and you can join
that group and participate there. Back to the bias and

(03:31):
larger churches, so they are able to publish books easier
and their names become more familiar. Small church pastors, on
the other hand, often remain unknown beyond their immediate community.
They're resource by us. Larger churches often have multiple staffs,
they have budgets for innovation and margin for their pastors

(03:53):
to attend district and denominational events. Small church pastors are
often stretched then working along as sometimes are by vocational,
and this trend is increasing even among the larger churches
as giving practices changed and donation patterns change. So reality

(04:18):
is that when these events are planned, they're planned during
the day, and pastors who are by vocational either have
to take off work, or they just aren't able to go,
or they just you know, when they take off work.
If they don't have the vacation days, they lose money.
Perception bias. If a church doesn't grow numerically, there's an

(04:41):
assumption that's often made, whether it's fair or not, and
that assumption is that the pastor has plateaued in his
ear leadership. And again that's not true. I know a
lot of faithful pastors whose churches don't grow every year.
In fact, track of church, if a pastor remains in
a setting for a number of years, more ten or

(05:05):
twelve years, there you're going to discover that he's going
to have or she going to have ebbs and flows
within each year. Some years there will be increases, some
years there will be decreases. So that's just a wrong
perception there, but it is a perception by us. Now
what's fascinating is that almost no one says this out loud.

(05:29):
We all affirm the line there are no small churches
in the Kingdom, but our behavior tells a different story.
And behavior, as James reminds us, is where faith proves itself.
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show
you my faith by my deeds James to eighteen. Now again,

(05:49):
this is not to play victim by anyone. This is
not This is just pointing something out. It was posted
this on Facebook. I had a number of comments from
people who absolutely agree that this is a reality within
the church. Another factory by vocational and is bivocational ministry

(06:11):
and of itself, pastors of small churches are far more
likely to serve by vocationally, which which means they hold
down a second job in addition to the church to
make it his meat. Now, anyways, by vocational ministry is
deeply rooted within the Gospel. Paul was a tent maker.

(06:32):
John Wesley himself encouraged preachers to remain connected to their
trades because it kept them humble and connected to the
everyday struggles of people. But here's a catch in a
modern denomination. In our modern denominational settings, as systems by
vocational pastors are often excluded, not intentionally but practically. They

(06:56):
can't attend the midweek district events, they don't have the
funds travel to national conferences, they don't have time to
sit on communities or boards, and so their voices are absent.
And when our voice is absent from the table, the
system assumes you have nothing to contribute. That's just not true.

(07:17):
The truth is you have simply been shut out, not
intentionally but just necessarily as a result of the realities
of that ministry. There, denominations are getting better about recording
things so that you can participate later. But again, watching
and recording versus being in person or even something that

(07:41):
was streamed live and participating within a discussion there is
just not the same thing. And so over time the
absent becomes the absence becomes a self reinforcing cycle. Fewer
opportunities lead to less visibility, which leads to fewer opportunities. Now,
from a Western perspective, let's unpack this. If there's anything

(08:06):
our tradition teaches us, it is that God delights in
using what the world calls small. Jesus compared the Kingdom
of God to a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds
that grows into the largest of garden plants. Matthew thirteen
thirty one through thirty two. Wesley himself began in not

(08:26):
in great cathedrals, but in fields and living rooms. Class meetings,
often no more than twelve people were the seed beds
of a revival. Paul reminds us in First Corinthians one
twenty seven that God chose the foolish things of the
world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things
of the world to shame the strong. From a Wesleyan perspective,

(08:49):
leadership is not measured by the number of seats in
the sanctuary, but by the measure of holiness, faithfulness, and
fruitfulness in a leader's life. I think this is true
of any denomination, regardless of whether it's Catholic or Husbyterian,
or a Global Methodist or are United Methodist. It doesn't matter.

(09:11):
I think everybody would affirm that these three characteristics are
key fruits in a leader's life. And even if they're
not a holiness tradition. I've never heard of church say
they didn't value holiness. Oh no, we don't want a
holy life. It's just for those holiness folks over there.

(09:32):
The way that has expressed may look differently. The way
has talked about may look differently. But I've never known
anyone who suggested that holiness is not a part of
the Kingdom of God and a part of the spiritual
leader's life simultaneously. Holiness is not hierarchy. It doesn't mean
the more that you know, there are no degrees of holiness.

(09:55):
Holiness just means other it's non terminal morality or even ethics.
Faithfulness is not fame, now we don't. You know, we
don't get a star at the district office for being faithful.
And fruitfulness is not footprint. Now that doesn't That doesn't

(10:18):
necessarily mean that somehow have more influenced just because you
are going to bear fruit, bear more fruit. God gives
the increase, not us. Even great leaders of megachurches will
will tell you that it is God in their lives.
If they start taking credit for it themselves, you will

(10:41):
soon find that leader either on the sidelines because they've
had a moral or ethical failure, or you'll see that
that person simply becomes someone like a Joel Olstein or
something like that. So what can be done? How do
we break the cycle? Let's offer these three practical shifts.

(11:05):
We need to redefine leadership pipelines. Denominations and district must
create intentional pathways for small church pastors to be recognized, mentored,
and promoted into leadership roles. The means that means looking
beyond intendance numbers to measure faithfulness, innovation, and spiritual depth.
Now I want to take a personal privilege here and

(11:27):
brag my own denomination here in the Southeast to recognizer
in university. Our regional University has created partnership with various
districts around the Southeast and now the pastors that are
in the process of ordination will along with their spousets,

(11:49):
go to a Gold Weekend where they are mentored, They're
assigned a mentor. There's leadership development that goes on there.
There's accountability that happens there. There's discussions about theology and
making sure they understand the theology. This is all developed
by our denomination to be sure that the small church

(12:10):
pastor is not forgotten. It's there to make sure that
pastors in training how someone that they are connected with,
not just for accountability, but for encouragement. So I want
to applaud the church and Nazarene for doing this. That's
what I said at the beginning of this podcast. This
is not a slam on any denomination. This is just

(12:30):
a practice that I wanted to bring attention to. Platform
faithful stories. We need to start telling these stories of
pastors in obscure places who are doing remarkable kingdom work.
The pastor who shepherds thirty people through deep discipleship is
no less a leader than the one who shepherds three thousand.
Both are echoes through eternity. When I am training people

(12:53):
with DCPI, I often train people in obscure places in
the world, and they are serving the Lord faithfully. One
guy has planted seventy plus churches over the last three years.
He's in Indonesia. Every morning he wakes up and he
goes across the river in a canoe or a motor
boat where he takes his bicycle out or a van out.

(13:15):
He finds somewhere a village is unreached, and he begins
to evangelize that village. He identifies. Over time, he identifies
local leaders there and he plans a church. Those churches
may be a small village, it may be twenty five
thirty people there, It may be one hundred people. Sometimes
he'll have regional gatherings, he'll have island gatherings. He does

(13:39):
all this stuff, but he doesn't do it for applause.
He doesn't have a denomination backing him up and says, hey,
you're doing great job. He just does it because he wreckon.
He has a passion for the Lord. So we need
to echo these stories. That's one of the reasons I
started this podcast because there's lots of leaders out there
serving in obscurity that need their stories told. And you

(14:00):
want to go back to some of these other seasons
there you can hear some of these leaders. Have Bob
Hunter out in Arizona, who's basically mentoring young young men
what's something that is desperately needed in our country. Today,
we had Jeff oh shoot I for guys, he was
Olive olivet Nazarene University and you know he was in

(14:25):
another episode we had we had, you know, other pastors
that are serving in obscurity to do incredible kingdom work
that will never have their stories told. Before I had
Tiana Sunburn and uh, she's been in Ukraine. Uh, she's
on the front lines of missionary work. She can tell

(14:47):
you the ins and outs of what's going on in
Ukraine because she's not only seen it, she's lived it.
She was there with the refugees came across the borders
in Poland. She was there and then finally revalue by
vocational ministry. Instead of seeing by vocational ministry as a liability,

(15:08):
we should see it as a model of missional engagement.
These pastors are embedded in their communities in unique ways,
often with credibility and relational access that full time clergy lack.
These pastors will know twice as much or three times
as much or more than the pastor of large church

(15:30):
who has staff who's able to focus almost exclusively on
sermon development. Those pastors have the luxury of spending fifteen
to twenty hours on sermon development and often even have
the luxury of working through that sermon with the rest
of their staff before it ever gets there on Sunday morning.
That is an incredible blessing to have there. And those

(15:53):
sermons are very polished. They're some of the best sermons
that you'll hear because they've gone through so much work
and so much development there. They've been set through so
many iterations. But what those pastors lack is a community
awareness that these by vocational pastors are going to have.

(16:14):
So let me close with this. There's no such thing
as a small leader in the Kingdom of God. We
don't just say that, we believe that, and we act
upon that. There are only faithful leaders and unfaithful leaders.
There are leaders who hide their talents in the ground
and leaders who multiply them. The pastors serving in rural

(16:36):
Appalachia preaching faithfully to twenty five souls each week may
never speak at a general assembly, but Heaven sees eternity
echoes with their faithfulness. If we as a church wanting
to honor our biblical roots, we must die equating leadership
with size. And that's not just clergy, that's not just

(17:01):
denominational leadership, but that goes for the pew as well.
A friend of mine was recounting his story today where
a pastor tried to belittle him and told him that
his kindergarten class was bigger than his church, to which
his pastor responded, yeah, well, your church is bigger than
my city. So you know, it's all a matter of

(17:23):
perspective and a matter of context. And the pastor who
tries to belittle another pastor simply from the size of
its congregation, or a congregation member who wants to look
down upon the pastor of a small church. They need
to readjust the lens through which they're looking. They need
to go back to the Bible and recognize that you know,

(17:44):
God does not despise small things. So thank you for
joining me today on a custoy eternity until next time.
Bigger leadership be marked not by numbers, but by faithfulness
endures into eternity.