Pastor, “Big churches are different” is an excuse. The principles work at any size.

Picture two pastors at the same conference, listening to the same pastor of a large church explain how they built their teams. The first one folds his arms: “That works for them. Big churches are different. Honestly, small churches are better anyway.” The second one pulls out a notebook and starts asking, “What here would work in a room of eighty?” Same session. Different belief. A few years from now, very different churches. If you’ve ever told yourself “big churches are different,” this one’s for you. Let’s look at what that story really protects, and what to believe instead.

The old story: “Big churches are different”

It sounds like this: “I can’t really learn from a big church.” Or the more spiritual version: “If anything, small churches are better than big churches.” I have an idealist friend who believes a church should never outgrow the senior pastor’s personal span of care. A hundred, maybe two hundred people, and that’s the ceiling.

It feels true because it sounds humble. It sounds like you care about people more than numbers. But a lot of the time it isn’t conviction. It’s justification. It’s a lack of excellence, a fear of hard conversations, or a lack of vision, wrapped in false morality. And once you’ve got one excuse, a whole waterfall of them comes right behind it.

What it costs

Here’s the irony: dysfunction thrives in a small church. Dysfunctional people get away with more, not less, because the small church pastor won’t deal with it. “I can’t lose that family. I can’t lose that income.” I know that pain. If you do church discipline and they leave, you lose money, and if you lose money, you might not get paid.

In a larger church, you get corrected. You’re given a plan. And if you won’t learn, the attitude is, “I hope you learn your lesson at the next church.” Dysfunction doesn’t scale. Functional systems scale.

And pastors talk. Once a buddy tipped me off about someone coming our way who had trashed his previous pastor. By the second Sunday I told him, “I’m good friends with the pastor you just trashed. If you don’t like him, you’re really going to hate me. You should consider another church.” That’s the kind of conversation small thinking avoids, and the church pays for it.

The other cost is quieter. If you’ve got a chip on your shoulder about larger churches, what you’re revealing is that you don’t have a teachable spirit. Throwing stones at big churches kills your teachability. Is that chippiness coming from an insecurity, from jealousy? It’s worth asking.

Breaking the old story

Let me get you to agree with two things you already believe. Is it our job to reach people for Christ? Yes. If more people are led to Jesus, does the church grow? Yes. Then why would we ever limit the gospel to your personal span of care?

Here’s the thing: is it your job to pastor every person? No. It never has been. Your span of care grows as you multiply leaders. That’s not a big-church trick. It’s leadership, and it works at any size.

Jeff Bezos started in a tiny office. Steve Jobs started in a garage. Smaller isn’t better than bigger. It’s just where you start. And where you start is not where you should end. If you say smaller is better than bigger, you’re saying no ambition is better than ambition. Healthy things grow. God has called us to be fruitful and multiply.

Some guys I know planted with a thousand people. Some of you started with a hundred. Some started with ten. It’s not about where you start. It’s about what you do with what God puts in your hand.

The new belief: the principles of effective leadership work at any size

The principles translate whether it’s a large church or a small one. The people who have scaled are exactly the people we should learn from. There should be guys just ahead of you that you’re learning from, and guys far beyond you that you’re learning from. We used to be about excellence. We used to be aspirational. Godly ambition says, “God’s called me to grow, so I’m not going to be chippy and I’m not going to make excuses.”

What to do this week

1. Stop throwing stones and start studying. Pick a church that has scaled well and learn how they did it. What are you taking back, and what will you actually implement?
2. Have the hard conversation. The one you’ve been avoiding because you’re afraid of losing a family. Do it with grace, but do it.
3. Multiply leaders. Your span of care isn’t fixed. Raise up people who can care for people, and it grows.

So pray it with me: “Thank You, God, for what You’ve entrusted to me. Help me be faithful to multiply it. Remove any insecurity and chippiness, and give me a teachable spirit.” Same situation. Different belief. Different future.