Tiny Churches

 Our Wednesday night class has been small for quite a while.  On a big night, we hit 12.  Last week, we had 6, then that became 5 at the halfway mark.  To give you some context, our Sunday morning attendance is usally 80-90.

 I grew up in churches that ran 500-700 on Sunday mornings.  But I’m finding that even 80-90 can be too many for a lot of things. 

 Back to our Wednesday night class.  We’d gotten to the point where we didn’t really sing on Wednesday nights anymore.  It just didn’t sound very good, and the requests were always for the “older” songs.  Two of our Wednesday night stalwarts are senior dames, lovers of the pre-War tunes.

 Last Wednesday night, I decided we would sing, just the six of us.  We did, and it made our dames quite happy.  Me, too.  We went on to have a great class discussion led by our fearless youth minister.  As I’ve thought more about it, those ladies are the core of my church experience.  Most of the folks who “go to church” there are Sunday mornings only.  And that just isn’t church for me.  The six of us got to connect, laugh, pray, sing and share last week.

 Part of me hopes no one new shows up this week.  Not really.  Actually, I hope some other folks get the chance to experience tiny church with us.  I’ve described myself, and been described by my wife, for several years now as being task-oriented, not people-oriented.  I’m just not wired that way, I’ve thought.

 With every small interaction, maybe I’m learning that the secret to being people-oriented is not a dramatic paradigm shift in my lifestyle or personality, but just relishing the moments spent with people and getting to know them better.  I think it’s more about values.  For me accomplishments are still high on the list, but maybe I’m rethinking the worth of just knowing other people. 

 Tiny church has helped.