Strengths of the Small Church - Part 2

By Glenn Daman

This is part 2 of a 6-part series

2. Built in accountability

Accountability occurs when people lovingly confront others when their
actions, attitudes and behaviors are damaging their own spiritual growth
and the growth of the rest of the body of Christ. Because the church is
small there is built in accountability within the whole church. When
someone's behavior is destructive to themselves or to others, then
people are willing to say something to them. Not because they are
judgmental and desire to belittle the other person, but because they
have a genuine concern for them.

When a person in the church is struggling spiritually, not only does the
pastor know about it, but people within the church are aware of it and
often will talk to the person to help them deal with the situation. When
someone is absent from the church people will call them to find out
where they have been and if there is a problem. This is not done
through a formal "follow-up" program, but informally because of the
relational connections people have. While the large church must
carefully examine why people are leaving through the "back door," in the
small church the "back door" does not exist. Before a person leaves the
church, they have often had several contacts not only with the pastor,
but also other members of the church.

While the small church often has an informal sense of accountability
regarding spiritual growth and the Christian walk, it often neglects to
hold people accountable in the area of ministry responsibility. Because
of the close relationships within the church, people do not desire to
hurt others. As a result they overlook the shortcomings of others. On
the positive side, this means that people are not judged by their
performance, but by their faithfulness and willingness to be involved.
On the negative side, people are not challenged to change when they are
incompetent and ineffective in ministry because of their failure to do
the job assigned to them.

The challenge in the small church is to maintain the balance between
loving acceptance of the efforts of others and loving accountability
when people are not fulfilling their responsibilities because of neglect
and apathy.

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The Country Shepherd (formerly entitled Mikros) is published bi-monthly
by the Center for Leadership Development, a ministry of Village Missions
and the Institute for Small Church Heath a ministry of Western Seminary.
Dr. Glenn C. Daman, editor.

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