PEOPLE IN PRINT
July 1, 1989
Big Ideas for Small Churches
Developing Your Small Church's Potential by Carl S. Dudley and Douglas Alan Walrath, Judson, $6.95
Reviewed by Dave Wilkinson, pastor, Moorpark Presbyterian Church, Moorpark, California
"Small churches are not smaller versions of large churches." Nor do small churches share the same history, face the same problems, or enjoy the same opportunities. But every small church can become a more vital fellowship and more effective in reaching men and women with the good news of Jesus Christ.
This is the theme of Developing Your Small Church's Potential, co-authored by Douglas Walrath, director of the Small Church Leadership Program at Bangor Theological Seminary, and Carl Dudley, professor of church and community at McCormick Theological Seminary. The book is filled with the kind of insights that seem obvious once somebody says them. It is only four chapters long, but each chapter is loaded. I underlined and made notes on almost every page.
In the first chapter, "How Change Is Challenging Small Churches," Dudley and Walrath paint a picture of three churches in three fictional towns.
The first church is in Matthewstown, facing the challenge of a declining population. "The overall pattern of change in most rural areas is one of loss," they write. "Moreover, the loss is selective. … Persons with better abilities are more likely to leave." This selective loss has the greatest impact on the mainline churches that draw their participants from middle-class and upper-middle-class groups. "During the last several decades, most mainline congregations located in rural settlements, villages and small towns have lost members, usually not as a result of weak church programs or pastors, but because so many of those ...
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