Strategically Small
Brandon J. O’BrienThe Strategically Small Church2nd Edition, Baker Academic, 2025
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Brandon O’Brien argues in this book for a different ministry paradigm than has been the norm in evangelicalism over the past 50 (plus) years. Rather than seeing “small” churches as anomalies, or problems to be fixed, small churches are the norm both globally and historically. Therefore, we must alter our perceptions. Instead of viewing the small church with a scarcity mindset (“we don’t have the talent, the budget, the facilities, etc., to do effective ministry”), we should instead see our normal churches as loved and graced by God with everything necessary to please him.
O’Brien devotes one chapter to giving examples from few large ministries attempting to “get small” in order to be more effective. The upshot of this is that your normal church already is small, and therefore positioned for effectiveness. He then goes on to discuss the authenticity of a fully local (as opposed to regional) church, the value of being focused and program-lite (he uses the term nimble), the opportunities small churches have to empower community ministry, the immense value of cross-generational relationships, and the unique characteristics of worship in a small church.
O’Brien’s style is engaging—he does a good job of writing about ministries in various settings in a way that invites you to consider the possibilities in your own context. I often skip stories in non-fiction books because they feel like a ham-fisted way to connect with the reader or an easy way to puff an article-length idea into a full book. Not so here. Whether the congregations in question are Lutherans in western Washington or Baptists in southern Arkansas, O’Brien helps you catch a glimpse of how God is at work in congregations all over the place.
That “all over the place” is theological, not simply numeric or cultural. O’Brien operates in this book with what he calls a “minimally viable ecclesiology” (p. 21) and will later refer to a “minimally viable theology of worship” (p. 115). That might bother you. It would bother me in a theology class, an elders meeting, or a sermon. But in the context of what he is doing with this book—trying to shake loose your dusty paradigms about church health and success—I could get past my own disagreements and value the lessons there were to learn, even from those with whom I profoundly disagree.
In the end, I share O’Brien’s vision of the normal church. These churches may be poorly positioned, much of the time, to attract religious consumers. But they have been given by God himself everything they need to make disciples. And, “[t]he church’s God-given job description is to make disciples, not to attract consumers.”
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