My favorite writing about church matters is Keith Drury’s “Tuesday Column.” I always look forward to what he has to say. He tackles all kinds of topics and inevitably imparts a fresh spin.

Today I read his latest, “In Praise of Mediocrity.” He writes, “Mediocrity is the average, the median, the ordinary churches, music, talent, and intelligence. In short I want to say a word of praise for you, and me, and most ordinary people like us.” He then praises ordinary churches, ordinary marriages, and people with “ordinary” spiritual passion. It’s really great stuff.

About churches, he writes:

I think ordinary churches deserve more praise. I’m talking about churches in the big fat center who don’t have thousands of attendees and sprawling TV ministries. They aren’t famous and nobody ever asks their pastor to teach “How I Did It” seminars. But the pastor and people show up every week and worship and study and serve each other and love their community. Good for you!¬† I wish more of my students wanted to go to ordinary churches.

After nearly 30 years working for my denomination and being around churchmen from the broader Christian community, I’ve seen up-close the disdain directed at small churches, especially the little white church on a country road that has never had more than 80 people. Many times over the years, I’ve heard sentiments like this: “We need to just close a bunch of our little going-nowhere churches and cut our losses.” Yes, I’ve heard that many times over the years.

I disagree with that view (and, I’m afraid, I’m typecast as an apologist for mediocrity). Churches go through ups and downs. I’ve seen superstar churches crash and burn, tiny churches come alive under the right leadership, and all manner of churches enter a period of funk. But usually, there’s still a community of believers and a foothold in that neighborhood, and God still does things there, regardless of how we in Mecca view them. Today’s superstar church might be tomorrow’s goat, and vice versa. You can’t write off (or deify) a church based on what you see today, because God’s purposes tend to take a long view.

Not that every church should survive or be kept on life support; some are so dysfunctional that they should be closed, because they only bring disgrace to the cross of Christ. But if there is a community of believers, regardless of size, I see God in their midst and think they deserve some respect. But in a culture that worships the megachurch, I’m in the minority on that.

There are a lot of “Best Church” lists. The “Fastest Growing Churches” and the “Largest Churches in America” lists are always popular (PDF of 100 Fastest-Growing in 2006). A few months ago I came across a list of the “50 Most Influential Churches in America.” Wikipedia has a list of the “Tallest Churches in the World,” tallness being an obvious factor in church health. And now I’ve discovered a list of the “25 Most Innovative Churches in America.” They are mostly megachurches with high name recognition.

I’m sure there might be, somewhere in America, a fellowship of 50 believers laboring in a slum amidst tremendous poverty and adversity, doing things that no other church in the country is doing, and getting by on pocket-change resources. But can that church rank among the country’s most innovative churches? Absolutely not. Not with a mere 50 people. Heck, they don’t even count. Might as well not exist. Fifty people? Who gives a rip?

These lists are not “the 25 Most Innovative Churches with Over 2000 Attenders,” but just the most innovative churches in general, and the results imply that smaller churches either don’t count or just don’t cut it. Now, I’m not big-church bashing. Many of these churches display an incredibly focused passion for reaching the lost, and we can learn much from them. But the adulation, hero worship, and self-congratulation that often surrounds megachurches is not necessarily a wonderful thing which thrills the heart of Jesus.

While there are about 400,000 churches in the United States, the “Best Church” oscars generally get circulated among the 1200 megachurches. For example, 15 churches placed among both the “25 Most Influential” and “25 Most Innovative” churches. How cozy. Over 400,000 churches to choose from, but they round up the usual suspects.

Around 20 years ago, people thought of megachurches as having at least 1000 people. Now, membership in the Megachurch Club requires at least 2000 people. I guess way too many churches were crashing what had been an exclusive party, so they raised the admission fee. Riff-raff churches with a mere 1400 people (most likely non-innovative people) became bouncer-bait. It’s good to have high standards. Even then, the club is swelling and becoming less intimate. In 1990, the US had 350 megachurches. By 2000, there were 900 megachurches. Among the current 1200 megachurches, the average attendance exceeds 3800. So now there’s a Premium membership–the Gigachurch, for congregations with 10,000+ people (currently, about 35 members).

The 1200 megachurches represent .3% of all congregations (not 3%, but three-tenths of a percent). But they get all of the kudos because, as James 2 tells us, we should go out of our way to recognize the rich and influential and famous. But I’d like to suggest some other “Best Church” lists that nobody will bother crafting, because it would entail recognizing those inconsequential 99.7% of churches that don’t qualify for the Megachurch Club, and therefore do nothing meaningful for the Kingdom.

For example, these lists might be interesting:

• Churches that don’t have lots of money and their pastor isn’t the most gifted fellow, but they have a great heart and try real hard.
• Churches least interested in entertaining themselves.
• Churches that best integrate evangelism with a keen social conscience.
• Most effective landlocked churches–no room for more parking or building–that refuse to leave their community to build a new campus on farmland with highway access, so that they can become a megachurch and make a Best Church list.
• Churches that, per capita, give the most money to missions (small churches would dominate this list).
• Churches with the smallest proportion of worship attenders who are just spectators, rather than active Christians.
• Churches that intentionally locate themselves in poor communities, rather than merely “go to the poor” on mini mission excursions and feel really good about themselves when they return to their suburban cathedrals.
• Most innovative churches with less than (choose one: 100, 200, 500) people.
• Churches located in wealthy suburbs with the largest number of low-income people attending regularly.
• Churches with the largest proportion of people actively involved in ministry.
• Churches with the lowest average income among its lay leaders.
• Churches that have maintained a positive reputation and influence in their community for the longest period of years.
• The smallest churches that have intentionally given away the most people to start other churches.

When I write this kind of stuff, people assume I’m just a traditional small-church guy who is insanely jealous of large churches, and takes gratuitous potshots at highly visible targets. I have never attended a church that wasn’t innovating and reaching the lost and growing; I could never be satisfied sitting in the pews of a status quo church, of which there are legion. But I don’t think megachurches are the final word in faithfulness, nor the only qualified candidates for “Best” lists.

I’ve been going to write about something I learned last Friday during my Communications workshop at Granger Community Church. The leader was Kem Meyer, Granger’s Communications Director. I took a seminar by her at the MinistryCOM conference in September, out in Phoenix, and loved both the content and her delivery. Her slides expertly use graphic metaphors, with not a single bullet point in sight. And aren’t we all tired of PowerPoint bullet points, which just keep coming and coming and COMING from all directions with tiresome, gimmicked-out flourishes? They are soooo nineties.

Perusing my notes, I see a lot of good stuff, but nothing which I feel compelled (or smart enough) to expand upon. So I thought I’d just bullet-point some tidbits which I found interesting, useful, or insightful. These are not necessarily the main points. Just things I scribbled down.

• Churches are often a small number of people overhyping their product. Can they really deliver on their promise of health, success, good families, etc?
• People want information, but not more information. They have a specific question, and want the answer to that question.
• Don’t give people more choices to make. It has negative consequences, regardless of generation. Boomers get overwhelmed and shut down, GenXers fuss over whether or not they’re making the right decision, and GenYers just ignore you and move on.
• Pastors can be prostitues or prophets. A prostitute is someone you pay to make you feel good. A prophet tells you what you need to hear.
• In trying to reach nonChristians, put them in their comfort zone. That may mean behind a cup of coffee, or in front of multimedia.
• People today enjoy the buzz of large groups, but they like to process in small groups.
• If you can’t maintain something, don’t implement it. (For instance, a website.)
• True creativity comes from limited resources.
• Two types of people read the bulletin: first-time visitors, and people looking to see if you used their announcement.

Though I loved the MinistryCOM conference, my first impression was a groan.

When I registered, I was directed to choose one of four colored badge holders based on my church’s size. Blue for churches of under 1000, green for 1000-3000, yellow for 3000-5000, and red (I think it was) for churches above 5000. I, of course, took the blue one. Reluctantly. I hate pecking orders, and that’s what this sounded like.

Throughout the 1980s, I attended the Evangelical Press Association’s annual convention, a really big deal which brought together editors and staffs from several hundred evangelical publications, incuding all the biggies (like the Christianity Today family, Moody Monthly, Decision, Focus on the Family, etc.). I then edited a denominational magazine with less than 5000 subscribers. Denominational magazines were at the bottom of the pecking order, and 5000 subscribers was peanuts. Now, I had invitations to move to large, status publications, but I always felt God wanted me to remain with the United Brethren church. So I just sucked up the general disdain from the snooties.

But after a decade, I grew tired of being looked down on. The final straw came when I talked over lunch with an editor from The Banner, a prominent, award-winning denominational magazine for one of the Reformed denominations. The lady asked me who I worked for, and I told her. What’s your circulation? Five thousand. How large is your staff? It’s just me. Then she said, “Well, it must be very rewarding work.” While what I read between her words was, “Loser.” She then seemed bored talking with me, and turned her attention to others.

In reality, I knew I could write circles around her. I had three EPA writing awards to my name. I’d sold freelance articles to over 40 Christian publications. But because of size issues–denomination, circulation, staff–she considered herself a cut above me.

The editors from the big publications hung around each other, they ate together, they formed circles during break. Meanwhile, we little guys scattered around the edges, drinking coffee by ourselves, waiting for the next session to start. At meals, we filled in at tables with an extra chair.

I went to one more convention and stopped. I’d had enough with the status positioning, the snobbishness of the Big Boys (and Girls).

So, when I picked up my MinistryCOM name-badge holder, those old feelings came back. I represent a small church in a small denomination. I wouldn’t be considered a person with much to offer, just a peon coming to learn from the Biggies.

I asked one lady what church she was from, and her instincts immediately went to size. Her response was a chagrinned, “We’re not a large church.” Amused by her seeming sense of inferiority, I told her, “My church has 120 people. We’re a land-locked church plant.” She perked up and said, “Oh, we have a thousand people.” She paused, then said with a smile which humbly recognized the silliness of our dance, “I guess you win.”

So, I probably had the distinction of representing the conference’s smallest church (though I actually came representing my denomination, which was as big as two Christ’s Church of the Valleys).

But joy of joys, I experienced none of the snootiness I experienced in the Evangelical Press Association. Nobody paid attention to the color of your badge. We were all communications professionals serving the Lord. And I found that so extremely refreshing.