The Good (and Bad) News About Small Church Worship Ministry

By Jon Nicol

Recently, Musicademy, a worship/music resource site based out of the UK, released their top 100 articles of 2012. I've guest posted there occasionally, so I was pretty happy to see that seven of my articles made it on that list.

This week, I'll be working on a couple projects that I'd like to finish before the baby #4 comes. While I do that, I thought I'd hightlight a few of my posts that made the list. This one came in at #21:

The good (and bad) news about small church worship ministry

I always like to hear the bad news first. Don’t sugar-coat it. Just lay it on me so I can deal with it. So for those of you who are like me, here’s the bad news about small church worship ministry:

People aren’t coming to your church because of the music.

Typically, if your church is less than 200 people, you’re in what’s called a “relational church.” (For more on this concept, see “Taking Your Church to the Next Level” by Gary McIntosh). While there might be a variety of things that get people in your front door, the glue that keeps them coming back is the relationships with others.

Earlier in my vocational ministry adventures, I served in two churches that were squarely in the “relational church” category. The first ranged from 75-90, and the second 90 – 120 (total attendance, kids and dogs included). Both struggled to pay a second staff person. And in both situations, the churches’ financial struggles eventually dictated the loss of my position.

During my tenure at each church, I worked to elevate the quality of the music and flow in the worship services. When it came time to leave each church, the quality of the music and service at both suffered because they weren’t able to hire a replacement worship pastor/leader.

However.

Neither church lost significant attendance when I left...

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January 9, 2013