The industrial age has implanted this bigger is better mentality in our culture but does bigger always mean more successful?
In 2006 my wife and I moved from sunny San Diego to Roseburg, Oregon. As soon as we got to Roseburg we began to look for a church, Roseburg is a town of 30,000 people and what seemed like 25,000 churches. I am sure anyone who has ever relocated realizes what I am talking about. It seems like there is a church on every corner and you have no idea what you are getting yourself into until you walk through the doors. It took my wife and I nearly six months before we found a church where we both really felt at home.
If the churches in Roseburg had understood the concept of thinking small it would have saved my wife and I six months of church hopping. Nearly all churches project themselves to be one-size-fits-all but almost none are able to deliver. A church that thinks small is one that will end up with the right people in the pews every time. In the business world this is called having a niche. Thinking big is what keeps most churches small and stagnant.
When my wife and I were in college we began attending a church called Flood. This church was located just down the street from San Diego State and it understood the Think Small concept. This was a church for college students and they had college students attending in the thousands. Their concept was to create an environment where our generation could experience the living God. When you walked into the service it was dark, the kind of lighting that you would find in a downtown club, and the band was playing loud enough that you could sing at the top of your without everyone hearing your “pitchy” worship. Flood was thinking small and the results were amazing. Flood did not have a Sunday morning service but they had three Sunday night services, they didn’t have Sunday School but they would hold special classes lasting a few weeks during one of their services, they did not have a youth group, a nursery, a Wednesday night service, or their own building but what they did have worked.
This thinking small concept is not exclusive to Flood. One of Orange County’s most successful churches is Saddleback, a church of over 50,000 people. They also understand the concept of thinking small. Saddleback has a very small targeted audience, his name is “Saddleback Sam”. This is a character that they have created to help them understand who they are trying to reach as a church. They have every detail of his personality, family and work mapped out. Saddleback Sam is used to keep the churches focus small.
"Saddleback Sam" is a well-educated young urban professional. He is self-satisfied, and comfortable with his life. He likes his job and where he lives. He is affluent, recreation conscious, and prefers the casual and informal over the formal. He is interested in health and fitness, and he thinks he is enjoying life more than 5 years ago, but he is overextended in time and money, and is stressed out. He has some religious background from childhood, but he hasn’t been to church for 15 or 20 years, and he is skeptical of "organized religion." He doesn’t want to be recognized when he comes to church.
Saddleback understands that “Saddleback Sam” is whom they as a church can most effectively reach. Thinking small has helped lead Saddleback to their enormous success and it helped lead their pastor, Rick Warren, to write Purpose Driven Life, one of the most influential books of this decade.
Next time you start to think that creating a one-size-fits-all church is the best way to reach out to your community, remember that sometimes thinking small is the best way to BIG results.
