Small-church advantages in a fast-changing culture: authenticity

June 13, 2024

By Rev. Rick King

The United Church of Christ is a denomination of small- and medium-sized churches. Only a handful of UCC’s nationwide are what you’d call megachurches with a weekly attendance over two thousand people. Megachurches as a group comprise only 1 percent of all U.S. churches.

The majority, 92 percent, are churches with under 250 weekly in worship. Here’s the breakdown, according to LifeWay Research:

  • 50 attendees or fewer – 31 percent
  • 51-99 attendees – 37 percent (that’s us)
  • 100-249 attendees – 24 percent
  • 250+ attendees – 8 percent

Last week, I began a series of three brief Seeking and Serving columns highlighting some advantages small churches like New Life and ours have that can make us more effective if we embrace and capitalize on them.

This week’s small-church advantage is authenticity, especially in relation to many churches’ obsession with the latest technology to give people an “experience.”

Authenticity is the degree to which a person’s actions are congruent with their values and desires, despite external pressure to conform to something else, socially. Authenticity is genuineness, originality, integrity that emerge organically from being who one is and acting from that core identity, again and again, over time.

Smaller churches can come to believe we have to compete with large churches and the “experience” made possible by their state-of-the-art technology, whether for livestreaming or their overall online presence.

But what if the unique experience we have to offer as a smaller church is our authenticity, our genuineness, our integrity?

The newest generations, the Millennials and Generation Z, are already used to being marketed and sold to—more than any generation before them. As I said last week about the limitless content available online, people can have an “experience” of any kind online, anytime, anywhere. What they lack and long for is an alternative to that: real, genuine relationships, and character to trust and emulate.

One of the things I love most about leading a smaller church is that I can interact with most, if not all, the people in the congregation. And that informs how I preach, what I talk about, the stories I tell, the columns I write. Our relationship is as much the medium of my message to you as any of the content of what I say or write to you.

Where have YOU seen authenticity in a person? In a group? What’s it mean to YOU to be authentic?
I’d love to hear from you!