Seven Forms of the Small Church

Small churches can be wonderful, delightful, and a blessing to the world, but they're not all cut from the same cloth.  Precisely the opposite, in fact.  Unlike larger churches, which rely on replicable models and systems, little churches take forms unique to their particular local environment.  They're as unique as the fluttering variety of little finches that Darwin once marveled at as he toured the Galapagos.  Each is subtly but meaningfully different.

That said, there are notable similarities between teeny tiny Jesus gatherings, types of small church that share features with one another.   One of the best typologies I've come across in my years of serving and studying the small church was created by David R. Ray, a Congregationalist pastor, author, and scholar.  In his classic book The Indispensable Guide for Smaller Churches, Ray lays out seven different ways we can do small together.  

I've found it useful, because self-understanding is always useful, and I figure it's worth sharing.  Let's take a look at Ray's thinking about what forms little churches can take:

1) Semper Minor.  That's the motto emblazoned on the crest of a particular type of church, and it just means "Always Small."   As Ray describes it, these are the churches that have just always been the size they are, and they're completely copacetic with it.  They know who they are, and what they are is just fine.  They're not bothered by their size, and the comfort they feel in their own skin makes them tough, resilient, faithful, and effective.

2) The Remnant.  This church was once many times larger than it is now.  It tends older, and is often paired with a sanctuary or facility that it fits into the way your five year old feet fit into your mom or dad's shoes when you snuck into their room and tried them on.  They are lost in memories of what was, and wish they could bring back the day when those pews were filled and they moved powerfully in the world.   "Back in the day," they sigh, "things were better."

3)  The Startup.  Ray describes these gatherings as “Not Yet Large.” Sure, there are only twenty souls gathered, but they're only six months old.  They've been planted in a mushrooming ‘burb by a charismatic leader with a good plan to tap local energies.  They've got a strong online presence, often have connections to an existing ministry that understands evangelism, and all the trappings of a big church in microcosm.  They'll either blossom or wither on the vine, but growth is their goal and big is their aim.

4) Small on Purpose.  These are the Christian gatherings that Ray calls "intentionally small."   They're not unfriendly, but they have a very disciplined and particular way of life, with high thresholds for entry and a demanding set of commitments for continuing participation.  Monastic/Neomonastic communities and collectivist intentional communities where goods are shared inhabit this category.  They're authentic, intense, and by design they ain't for everyone.

5) Islas Etnicas.  These "ethnic islands" provide a home away from home for displaced people, and as immigrant, refugee, or expatriate gatherings, they offer a place of welcome and cultural familiarity.  They are particular blessings to Christians who are FOB (fresh off the boat), as they offer a safe place in which a new arrival can find their bearings.  Unlike most other forms of small congregation, they're not representative of the larger community in which they find themselves.

6) The Clan. These churches tend to form in rural areas, and have their pews filled by the extended bloodlines of one or two families who live nearby.  Although they can be perfectly friendly to folks visiting, and can do good work in the surrounding community, the only way you really become a member is through birth, marriage, or intimate relationship.  They're as robust as the families that comprise them.  Or as dysfunctional.  

7) The Schismatics.  These churches are defined by their constant state of conflict, driven by power-oriented leaders who prevent growth to maintain control.  Who are they in conflict with?  Their denominations.  The other side in the Culture Wars.  Anyone who crosses the pastor or his wife.  They can be strangely attractive to people who hunger for drama in their lives.  Ever see the Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man?  There are really churches like that one.  Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close.

Obviously, some of these categories are more inherently healthy of soul than others.  Schismatics are driven by the energies of conflict, and aren't generally healthy places to spend time.  Each of the others has a purpose, and some share paradoxical similarities.  A Remnant church can often be as separate from the life of the community around it as an Isla Etnica, for example.

If we are collectively sentient enough to shape the communities in which we live, I tend to think that we should work our little gatherings so's they have all the best features of Size 1 churches and Size 4 churches.   Combine a sense of Gospel purpose and integrating intent with a comfortable, confident resilience, and you've got quite a blessing.

If you're interested in more of David Ray's writing and thinking, definitely give his Indispensable Guide a look.

Attending a Crow Funeral

I heard them before I saw them.

Coming up the sidewalk towards my house, the sound of their cawing filled the morning air.    

Hearing them, I'd assumed the local murder was rousting a hawk or an owl, driving away the threat to their chicks and their territory.  But they weren't in flight.  There were a dozen of them, perched on the branches of a large poplar, or standing as dark smudges upon the light grey shingle of our roof. And all of them were shouting together, piercing the quiet after dawn with their percussive ruckus.

I peered into the trees, expecting to see the brown wings of a harried raptor.  But there was no evidence that my eyes could discern.  Just crows, yelling at the world and at one another.  I watched the trees for a few more moments, but my dog wanted to go into the house where treats awaited, and so we did, leaving the din behind.

I gave the boy his requisite treat, for he had been a good boy, then settled in to do some writing.  My phone rang shortly thereafter, an old friend calling to chat and talk about a visit.  It was still early, and the house was still asleep, and so I stepped out into the warming air of that summer morning to pace about the front yard and talk.

The crows were still there, although a little quieter now.  As I walked and talked, I paused for a moment.

There, on the ground by one of my four by four raised beds, was the corpse of a crow. 

It lay ragdolled in the grass, wings cupped around its head, as if in its last act it had hidden from the world in a tent of dark feathers.  I came closer.  There was no evident injury, not that I've got the eye to discern such a thing.  Peering down at the glossy black body, I saw that the flies and the ants had already found it.

I would need to dispose of it.  As I had that thought, the remaining crows gathered and flew overhead and to the east, singing their gutteral song of lament.

A few minutes later, when the call was done, I got a lavender-scented garbage bag and a garden spade.  Burying the crow in the back yard wouldn't have worked.  My curious dog is a remarkably able digger, and I didn't want us to be on the enemies list of the local murder.

I scooped up the remains as gently as I could, bagged them, and tied it tight.

Afterwards, I looked up crow mourning rituals.  

"Scientists believe," purred back the AI generated reply, "that this only looks like grief, but actually is just a learned response and adaptive behavior to avoid harm and assess danger."  Digging deeper, I found some of the research that led to that assessment, in which...in a test of the mechanisms of empathy...scientists captured a wild crow, restrained it, showed it images of dead crows, and then tranked it and ran a brain scan to look for signs of frontal lobe activity associated with grief.  

This, to explore another living creature's capacity for empathy?  Oy gevalt.  Maybe you should test your own understanding of "irony," Science.

Later that day, as I attended the celebration of life for a friend who'd been taken by cancer, I found myself coming back to those crows.  

Corvids are highly intelligent and social creatures.  They're aware of loss, aware of the absence of a member of their tribe, aware that death is an eventuality to be marked.  They're not homo sapiens sapiens, to be sure, but grief and the rituals of loss are not just a human thing.  They are part of what it is to be mortal and sentient.

Not just crows and humans, but dolphins and elephants and primates and every bright creature that realizes what it is, and has a flickering sense of its fleeting moment in the great flow of time.

We that live lament those who do so no longer.  We grieve their absence.  We miss the presence of those who have passed on, borne away by Death on great dark wings.

The Reflecting Pool Emergency

The area around the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall is one of the most hallowed public spaces in the United States.  It's a place of singular beauty, mirroring the stark presence of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, catching the light of the sky.  It's a short walk from memorials honoring America's war dead, like the Vietnam Memorial, where as a teen I was humbled to find that a soldier with my name died in Vietnam the day before I was born.

So when...with no discussion and no input...our president invoked emergency powers to declare it was going to paint it a light powderpuff blue?  I'd thought it was just going to be embarrassingly tacky, conferring all the dignity of a putt putt golf hazard in Ocean City.

But the cerulean he wanted first wasn't patriotic enough, and so what we got instead was a deep, dark blue, so blue it's almost black.

My second thought, having seen the images of the "New and Improved Pool," was that the color was far more elegant and way less tacky than I'd feared.   

"American Flag Blue" now covers every inch of the seven acre concrete rectangle of the pool, which is now being filled.  Millions of gallons of water will be poured into it to fill it, at a shallow depth of 18 to 30 inches.  It will look striking.  Very very dark, but striking.  From my own subjective aesthetic standpoint, I think it's going to be attractive.  

But that was my second thought.

My first thought was: Wow, that's going to get hot.

Very hot.

If you paint a surface a dark color, solar energy isn't reflected, but absorbed.  If you then cover that surface with a shallow layer of water, the combination is going to act as a heat sink.  It'd be like making a baby pool out of asphalt.  The water is shallow enough that it doesn't cool, but absorbs energy all the way down, and then continues to heat up.  That's the exact principle of any garden variety rooftop solar water heater.  

That, in effect, is what the Reflecting Pool has become.  A seven acre open-faced solar water heater.   

This will have two effects.  First, radiant heat will make the ambient temperature around the pool considerably higher, possibly as much as 10 to 20 degrees warmer on a hot day.  Second, at the height of summer that heated water will evaporate far, far faster than previously, shedding as much as an additional 100,000 gallons a day in evaporative loss.  On a day with still or modest breezes, that will supercharge the humidity right around the Pool, pushing the hyperlocal wet-bulb temperature to dangerous levels.

Meaning, simply, that on days exceeding 90 degrees, the human beings who spend considerable time around the Reflecting Pool and the nearby Memorials will be hotter, and it'll be so much more humid that the air won't take up more moisture.  Sweating won't cool them off, and shade won't help.

It's likely to mean more heat-related illness for anyone who spends any significant time around it on a hot summer day.  

Particularly on the Fourth of July.  Especially on the Fourth of July.  The Mall typically sees four hundred thousand visitors that day, folks who settle in and linger for hours to wait for fireworks.  On a typical Fourth, that won't be too big a deal, because temps usually are in the 80s.  People will just be a little more uncomfortable, and the pool will be like bathwater. 

But if the temperature is in the mid to upper 90s with clear skies, especially if that's been the case for several days?  You couldn't design a more effective heat-stroke hazard if you tried.

Here's hoping I'm very wrong.  And if not, that the Park Service and local hospitals are prepared, or that the 4th is unseasonably cool with high clouds.

Because what an absurd emergency that would be.

The Tiny Gospel Radio Hour

That first Sunday after my little church hunkered down to weather the COVID epidemic, we did worship differently.  We went online.  We'd not scaled up for professional level livestreaming, so what this frazzled and slightly overmatched pastor managed to pull off was the best I could manage at the time.

For a couple of months, I'd knit together bits and bobs of audio and video on an old repurposed gaming laptop, cobbling together something that was one part worship, and one part podcast.  

That effort needed a name, and so...as it was intended to serve my small congregation...I decided to call it The Tiny Gospel Radio Hour.   

Eventually, lay-folk with more innate talent for such things were able to gather what was needed for a better livestream, the pastor was relieved of that duty, and The Tiny Gospel Radio Hour name was set aside.

Still, it seemed like that name could serve another purpose.  Like there was more for it to do.

As I've gotten close to wrapping up work on a book about the blessings of life in little churches, the idea kept coming back to me.  "Do something with this," said a little voice, poking and nudging and as insistent as my dog when he really really wants to go outside and chase chipmunks.

What I don't want to do is just have me blabbering into a mic about all my bright small church ideas.  Not that my little church isn't a life-changing blessing, but ours is only one little light.

Out there in America, there are thousands upon thousands of small congregations. 

They ain't fancy.  They're fifty souls in a small suburban sanctuary, twenty five folks in a small town storefront, twelve souls in an old clapboard church in a valley, six folks singing together in the living room of a doublewide, three souls sitting in a bar and talking life and Jesus all the way through to closing time.

Some go back hundreds of years, and some just came into being.  These churches are human scale, intimate and personal and real, and every single one of those gatherings has a story.

So I figured, why not go looking for those stories?  Find the places where church folk are living on a human scale, where they love what they're doing and have found beloved community together, and let them tell the Good News of what that looks like?

I'd also like to share the wisdom of the human beings who've come to love the unique blessings of intimate communities, and who've chosen to spend their lives caring for and supporting them.

Take all those stories, make sure they're witnessed to and remembered, and share 'em with folks who might need a little dose of humble church courage and insight.

So I'm trying that, over on Substack.  Give a listen as you'd like.  Subscribe, and it'll come your way for free whenever I encounter something new to offer you.

And if you've got a story of Gospel goodness you'd like to share, or a little gathering that's been a blessing to you, let's talk.

Peace and Blessings,

David

When Fools Screw Around

During my sermon last week, I had an entertaining bit of call-and-response with my congregation.  As I noted the essential Goodness of God's work in creation, a congregant saucily responded that mosquitoes were a notable exception.  I agreed, of course, as I loathe skeeters.  Only rarely do I feel moved to show them mercy, and even then I'm only inclined to spare the harmless, pollinating males. Beyond the pleasure of serving a little church where sermons can include some dialogue, that exchange was a useful reminder that creation is both very good and often more than a little unforgiving.  

If we human beings are wise, we take every necessary step to ensure that we aren't sickened or devoured by life, particularly those forms of life that find us appetizing.   Only fools traipse through the world imagining it doesn't want to eat them.  

Where, for example, do we find the Goodness in something like the New World Screwworm?

Screwworms are only worms in their larval stage, after which they flit about as a brightly colored fly.  The males are harmless pollinators, like their mosquito brothers.  The ladies?  Females of the species Cochliomyia hominivorax, on the other hand, are the farthest thing from harmless.  When they lay their eggs, they seek out a living mammal.  They find a soft spot...a wound, a cut, an orifice.  The navels of newborns, the perineum, or the flesh near the eye?  Those areas are also particularly desirable.  There they lay hundreds of eggs.  Those eggs hatch into screwworms, which then bore their way deep into the meat of any mammal, rotating as they eat, literally screwing themselves inwards.  In the process, they inflict agonizing pain and considerable damage, to the point where a severe infestation can kill a host.

Generally speaking, those unfortunate hosts are wild animals or livestock or pets.  But sometimes?  Well, sometimes the Latin name of the species is all too accurate.  Literally interpreted, Cochliomyia hominivorax means SpiralFly ManEater.  It'll infest infants, it'll infest the elderly, it'll infest anything with warm blood, which we have.

Humans generally don't like getting slowly eaten alive, and in the last century, science and agriculture combined forces to eradicate the New World Screwworm from the United States.  Our approach took advantage of an amusingly ironic screwworm weakness: the female screwworm fly can only screw once, after which it retains the sperm of the male within itself to fertilize its eggs for the remainder of its life.   Knowing this, we bred sterile male screwworm flies by the hundreds of millions.  When they mated with females, the union resulted in no offspring...and the species collapsed.

To keep it suppressed, all we needed to do was to continue monitoring screwworm fly populations, both in the United States and...importantly...across the border to our South.  That, and because flies can fly, we needed to support our Mexican and Central American neighbors in their efforts to keep that parasite from recurring.

There was just such a screwworm resurgence in Central America in 2022 and 2023, which...not being led by complete morons at the time...America dedicated substantial resources to help defeat.

But in March of 2025, America's emergency international support for Central American and Mexican screwworm monitoring and suppression was eliminated.  That wasn't our problem, or so the DOGE Bros and their algorithms insisted.  Why send our Borrowed Dollars to foreigners?   Cut cut cut!  

Among all of those blindly applied cuts, this one stuck in my memory.  First, because it had a powerful element of writhing body horror.  And second, because it was so damnably and obviously shortsighted.  Golly, what might happen next?

The infestation in that region worsened, and by August of 2025, with the parasite spreading northward through Mexico, it was clear it was going to breach our southern border.  Flies can fly over walls, after all.

We've scrambled to ramp up sterile male fly dispersal in the US, with nearly four million released weekly along the border, and begun doing the same in Mexico.  Anticipating that boundary being breached, The USDA initiated emergency construction on a new sterile male screwworm production facility in August of 2025, but it's not going to be done until 2027.

Yesterday, the first case of screwworm infestation in sixty years was reported in Texas.    Back before they were eradicated, those flies could spread all the way up to the Canadian border in a hot year.

So that's where we are now.  Who could have predicted it?  Golly.

For a moment, though, let's return to the question of goodness in creation.  A screwfly is a horror, sure, but is it any more horrific than an industrial pig farm?  It's a mindless nothing, as incapable of malice as an earthquake or a forest fire.  It simply exists, and those mortal beings blessed by sentience can find ways to prevent it from doing harm.  In those efforts, and in the blessings of compassion and wisdom, we can find a hint of grace.

Unless, of course, we become so lost in the echo chambers of our ideology and egocentrism that we fail to see the good path before us.  

Good is Its Name

What the lectionary this last Sunday offered up, in all of its length, was Genesis 1 and the first three verses of Genesis 2.  This is the familiar "God made everything in six days, and on the seventh, he took a breather" story.  The rhythms and patterns of that scripture rise from ancient liturgy and worship, with cycles of repeated words that appear to have been intended to be chanted or recited or sung by priests in the temple.

This story clearly affirms that Creation…all that we see and perceive…is good. It is to be viewed not neutrally, or as inscrutable and dangerous, but as essentially positive. That is certainly true of our tiny delicate little living gem of a planet, but it is also the operating presumption about the entirety of existence as we are able to observe it, all forty-six-and-a-half billion light years in every direction.

Seven times in this ancient liturgical chant, we are told that in the midst of his work, God observes it, and sees that it is good, or that it is very good.

In Genesis, the Hebrew word for “good” is one you probably know.  You do, really you do, even if you weren't required to take Hebrew in seminary.   Seriously.  You can do this.  

Just complete the following two word statement:  "Mazel _____!"

Yeah, you know it.  Tov.

The word for good is tov, as in the familiar Jewish celebratory affirmation mazel tov, which means basically “good fortune.” “Good morning,” for example, is boker tov, which is always a pleasant thing to know when you're entering your wife's synagogue for morning services. 

God sees his creative work, in all of its abundance, and affirms that all of it is either tov or…if it is very good, tov me’od.

In prepping to preach on this, I went down an unanticipated linguistic rabbit hole, one I didn't subject my congregation to when I hit 'em with the sermon.  The focus of that sermon was on the nature of work, and how God values all work in ways our blighted and grasping economic assumptions do not.  Walloping folks with an excursus on a bit of peculiar Hebrew subtlety seemed a distraction.  

I'd always considered those recurring "and God saw that it was good" statements as adjectival in nature, affirming of the character of each stage of the work of creation.  

But tov is a word that serves many functions in Hebrew, and it can be both an adjective and a noun.   In the construction of the verses in Genesis, it's phrased like this: vayar Elohim ki tov, which means, literally, "and saw God that good."   Most English translations incorporate a logically assumed "it was" into that formulation, for obvious reasons.  But in the Hebrew, that isn't actually there.  

Which means, given the sentence construction, that it could be just as easily read as the nominative "And God saw that Goodness," or "And God saw that Abundant Goodness."  Tov could be a noun here.  It doesn't have to be, but there is sufficient linguistic ambiguity that it could be.

For some reason, this struck me as delightful, as a deepening of God's affirmation of Creation, as if Goodness and Great Goodness were so essential to the nature of God's work that it could be our name for it.  It isn't a question of the Lord saying, "Yup, that's some quality work I did there."  It's an ontological affirmation that Creation is fundamentally radiant with the sacred.

If only that was how we were able to perceive it and name it, not as a thing to be used and owned and controlled, but as Goodness itself.

Take a handful of warm sweet compost, filled with the richness of life and the promise of harvest.  The name of that is Goodness.  Look up to the first star in the night sky at dusk in the late spring, and in the cool breeze of the evening, name it all as Great Goodness.