At the beginning of March, I attended the Converge Biennial Meeting, where the keynote speaker was Karl Vaters, a well-known advocate for the value of small churches—congregations with fewer than 250 people. His book, Small Church Essentials, challenges the traditional notion that numerical growth is the primary sign of a church’s success. Instead, he emphasizes the health and faithfulness of a congregation over its size.
Vaters writes, “According to Carl F. George, The typical church in North America is small. Half of this continent’s approximately 320,000 Protestant churches run about 80 in weekly attendance. In addition, George writes that at the 100 mark in attendance, a church has become larger than 60 percent of its peer churches—at 140, 75 percent and at 200, 85 percent.”
And as Vaters continues on, “Surprisingly, there is no biblical mandate for congregations to grow larger… The Bible is clear that we are to make disciples. The growth of the church is not an option or a side note. It’s the Great Commission, not the Voluntary Suggestion. But as long as people are coming to Jesus, why do we care about the size of the buildings they’re meeting in? Isn’t an increase in the number of healthy smaller churches as much a cause for celebration as an increase in the size of an individual congregation? As long as the increases for both are due to conversions, that is.
For decades, we’ve been told that if a church is not growing numerically, it’s failing. That denies evidence that clearly indicates three things:
1. Growing a big congregation is not a biblical mandate.
2. It’s not common.
3. It’s not inevitable.
Building the church is clearly Jesus’ job, not ours. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” He did not say, “I will build bigger churches.”
Here’s what Greg Laurie said about who bears the responsibility for church growth in the blog post “4 Dangerous Church Growth Myths.” A careful reading of Acts 2:42–47 shows the early church didn’t make bigger and better their business. Instead, they focused on five priorities: worship, prayer, evangelism, learning and loving. The passage ends with the words, “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (KJV). The first church didn’t have a problem with growth because God took care of the growth as they took care of honoring His principles. Church growth is ultimately God’s business, not ours to control.”
Karl Vaters’ insights challenge the idea that church success is measured solely by size. By quoting Carl F. George and Greg Laurie, he reinforces the biblical truth that healthy churches focus on disciple-making, not just numerical growth. While we certainly desire for Rockwell Church to grow, our primary mission is not to entertain crowds but to develop committed followers of Jesus.
Greg Laurie’s sharing of these principles in his book The Upside Down Church 25 years ago influenced me to use the W.E.L.L. life as both a filter and a compass—guiding how we Worship, Encourage, Learn, and Love as we follow Jesus. I have been committed to promoting living a W.E.L.L. life ever since.
In his book and in what he shared at the Converge Biennial Meeting, Vaters emphasized that it’s not about how much ministry you can do in your building, but how much you can do from your building. This is an encouragement for us to keep inviting our neighbors through personal connections and to influence the world through technology—leveraging every opportunity to share Christ beyond our walls.
Additionally, Vaters’ most recent book, De-sizing the Church, published by Moody Publishers, has been recognized as the 2025 Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year. This recognition underscores the importance of focusing on church health and mission over merely pursuing numerical growth.
As we stay faithful to these biblical principles, we trust that God will take care of the growth, just as He did with the early church in Acts 2. Our goal is not just to fill seats, but to fill lives with the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
Source: Karl Vaters, Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of Under 250 (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2018), 18, 80–82.