In the past I have written about the "small church" as an advocate to encourage small church leaders that they are just as valuable in God's Kingdom as any other church.
I identified a small church as any church with less than 200 people attending Sunday morning worship. In 2008 and 2009, I even hosted a series of small church conferences that were semi-successful from my point of view.
Lately, it has occurred to me that the real issue that I was attempting to address dealt more with single staff churches than "small" churches. A single staff church can be a small church but it may also be a church much larger than the definition of a "small church." I know one pastor who is the only staff member of a church that has more than 300 attendees in Sunday morning worship. Now that's a tough job.
Single staff churches operate in a much different manner than do multi-staff churches (firm grasp of the obvious). I would even venture to say that there are more single staff churches in the USA than multi-staff churches (based on my hunch, not hard data. I will search for the data and report back to you).
If my hunch is correct and there are more single staff churches than any other type in our nation, then, of course, there are multiple resources that address the single staff churches to assist these pastors in meeting their unique day-to-day challenges. I searched the Internet, including good ol' Amazon and found [wait for it] {crickets chirping}... almost nothing. Amazon has exactly three books which specifically address single staff churches. All three are written by Southern Baptist single staff church expert D. G. McCoury and published by Convention Press. Yes, this is Southern Baptist literature written in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Unfortunately they are out of print. Fortunately, there are a few used copies floating around and I have ordered a copy of all three books. I'll give you pearls of wisdom from these books.
Now what? Do pastors of single staff churches want literature that specifically addresses their needs? What about a conference to talk about these needs? I don't know but maybe you do.
What I would like to do is to discuss issues involved with single staff churches. This is where you come in. What are the main issues of being a pastor of a single staff church? How are these issues being handled? Is there a better way to be the pastor of a single staff church? What other questions should be addressed to help the pastors of single staff churches?
If there is interest in this topic then we'll earnestly look into it for the good of all. If there is no interest, then we'll forget it and let the pastors of single staff churches learn by osmosis. It's up to you. Let me know what you think.
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