Chapter 1

Is Bigger Better

We measure all kinds of things by their relative size, success being one of the biggest (no pun intended). And, guess what. When it comes to matters pertaining to religion and the church, we have jumped neck-deep into this big is good and bigger is better mindset. Many have decided that a local church is inferior if it is small. Some people make their decisions about what church to be part of by the numbers reflected on the attendance board. The larger the numbers the better the church! Consequently, the church with the most people in the pews on Sunday morning is considered the best and the most influential. In the minds of some, if the church is small for some reason, and it matters not what the reason, there simply must be something wrong.

  I have been a pastor for more than 17 years. I have shepherded more than 500 members, but never more than 75 at one time. Many view what I am doing for the Lord as insignificant or unimportant, simply because I don’t have large numbers. Get a group of preachers together and soon after the small talk and pleasantries are over talk turns to size. Usually the question is, “Doc how are things going there in the church?” Translated, this means, “What’s your headcount on Sunday morning?” Now don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this. A group’s size can be one factor when determining relative effectiveness, but it is only one factor among many.

  My purpose here is not to challenge or put down large churches who are faithful to God. To the contrary, I wish every church were a large church and every church were consistently faithful to God. I think most of us would like to begin to see standing room only in our church buildings. It would be wonderful, indeed, to see local churches consisting of thousands of members, because this

would mean that more people were committed to serving Christ than is now the case. But I am concerned with the prevalent idea that small is wrong or inferior or impotent when it comes to the church. Clearly, this story of Gideon points out that God can and does use small groups of people to do great things. There may be times when the only church in town that is going where God wants is that place where the numbers are thin. Believe me, I know it is very easy to become discouraged when a local church continues to be small in numbers. Our culture’s value system says that small is backward, insignificant, and hokey. Therefore, many view the small congregation as an embarrassment that is out of step. But of the ones who should know better, it is preachers who often fuel this idea. I heard one preacher who pastors a large church in our city say, that all small storefront churches should be closed down.

  Smallness is not equal to being ineffective, and bigness is not equal to righteousness. Anyone who loves the Lord will rejoice when they hear of fast growing, large, productive churches. I recently spoke with a sister in Christ who told me about a church in the south suburbs of Chicago that was experiencing phenomenal growth; I was overjoyed. But I’m here to tell you that God still can and still does do great things through small groups of people who are truly dedicated to him. As a matter of fact, I’ll show you in just a few moments that, if it were not for small groups of people, Christianity might not even be with us today! Therefore, lets look at this story of Gideon in an effort to learn three important lessons.

  The first thing I want you to see in this story is it that small numbers are not insignificant to God. You don’t have to use much math to figure out that Gideon’s little camp of 300 men must have looked pretty silly and insignificant when compared to the crowd that God sent home that day. As for the odds of the enemy they faced, they were outnumbered nearly 400 to 1. Not only that, but there they were, holding not weapons of war, but pitchers and trumpets! What a joke! At least that’s how it must have looked like through human eyes. But that’s the lesson! God isn’t dependent upon human strength or numbers to accomplish his ends. Working through this small group of people in this case was his preferred means! It gave him the opportunity to show his strength in a way that couldn’t be confused with human strength. That’s why he sent all those soldiers home. Let’s read again Judg. 7:2, which says, “And the LORD said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying, my own hand has saved me.” What was God combating? He was interested not only in defeating the Midianites, but also in defeating pride among his people. Pride is a subtle sin and there is a lot of it around today in religious circles. For many people, status has much more to do with church choice than doctrinal soundness or evangelism, and many have the idea that attending a small church makes them small people.