The Importance of Church Size Dynamics

Understanding your church size will help you maintain organizational health

As churches grow or shrink, they don’t just change in size; they change in culture, leadership needs, communication patterns, and relational dynamics. That’s why understanding your church’s size dynamics is essential for healthy leadership and strategic planning. Whether a church has 50 people or 500, the size influences how the church functions at its core.

Each size range—whether a small family church, a mid-sized program church, or a large or mega congregation—operates with distinct assumptions about leadership, relationships, structure, and authority. Without understanding the dynamics of the size you are or the size you’re moving toward, your church risks misalignment between its structures and its reality.

Please note that just as it is in our individual lives, it is difficult to have an accurate sense of self. We operate based on who we think we are and can become very attached to our self-identity. It’s the same for congregations. When congregations think of them themselves, they are not always able to see themselves as an outsider would. A healthy congregation needs to have an accurate self-image.

Example 1: Living in the Past

When a church decreases in size and scope over time, often the church will continue to operate as it always has for at least a period of time. It is difficult for church leaders to recognize the need for adjustments, because they cannot see themselves clearly as an outsider might. You may hear things like, “We’re known for being a ___ kind of church” or “We’ve always done it this way.” This church runs the risk of burning out staff and wasting monetary resources trying to support programming that only a few people attend or that may not be best suited for their current, smaller congregation.

Example 2: Growing Without Realizing

When a church grows quickly in worship attendance and budget, there can be a focus on available seats and space. Yet leadership roles and processes need to shift too. The small, intimate feel diminishes as the congregation grows larger, and staff may need slightly different skillsets to meet the organization’s needs. Additional programming will require a more managerial style from clergy and staff members. Lay leaders and volunteers will need to be identified and engaged in a more strategic way too, or things will not run as smoothly.

Understanding your church’s size dynamics will equip you to lead wisely, grow responsibly, and serve effectively at every stage. It will help church leaders right-size expectations and practices, which is crucial for both health and sustainability.

Questions to help uncover what you think about church size and health

1. When you think of a “healthy church,” what size comes to mind? Why?

2. What do you think is working well in how you organize people, ministries, and communication?

3. Where do you see things getting stuck, dropped, or overly dependent on one or two people?

4. Have you noticed ways the church has changed in recent years—either in size, energy, or how things get done?

5. When you tell yourselves the history of your congregation, does size enter into the storyline? If so, where? Has size ever been a defining element in your congregational story

6. What are the core values of your congregation? Do any of your core values seem to require being “small” or “big”?

7. How does the size that you are today compare to your size at other moments in time? What size was your congregation in its “glory days”? If you are bigger or smaller today, how does that make you feel?

   
   

“When a church is changing sizes, it has to dismantle one way of doing things, and construct a new way…that's called transition, and it is always uncomfortable.

It can be stimulating and life giving, but it is always uncomfortable.”

  -Alice Mann