Laurence A. Wagley, Preaching with the Small Congregation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 140 pp., paper.

Does the size of the congregation shape the preaching event? Laurence Wagley thinks that it does, and Preaching with the Small Congregation is his manifesto for reclaiming the proper homiletical form for the small congregation.

Wagley, professor of preaching and worship at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, grew up in a small church and has served small congregations as pastor and interim pastor. Reflecting on his youth, Wagley commented, "If the Rymers or Wagleys were absent, it was difficult to 'have church'."

Though this fact is often ignored, the vast majority of churches in the United States are small congregations -- very small. The average size for a worshipping Protestant congregation is less than 75. Nevertheless, many preachers and homileticians function as if the small church was an aberration, rather than the norm.

"We live," says Wagley, "in a culture that values bigness. If it is not big, it must be failing." Ministers have been infected with what Wagley terms a "numbers virus" which demoralizes both preacher and congregation, if the large church is seen to be the norm.

The problem is not the size of the congregation, suggests Wagley, but the form of the sermon and the model of the preaching event. Preaching with the small congregation "requires a different kind of communication than practiced when preaching in the large church." The preacher who does not understand the difference between these two congregational models is doomed to frustration.

Wagley looks to Jesus' own model of preaching for instruction. He reminds the reader that Jesus preached to small groups, and that He shaped the form of His message to fit the preaching event. "Jesus' preaching was participatory. It grew out of the lives of the people, used shared conversations as a common vehicle, and discovered the grace of God in social encounters."

The small congregation, Wagley insists, is the place to emulate Jesus' "dominant style of preaching." Though society "measures success by bigness, the small congregation has made a life-style of swimming against the current." In this swim against the current, small churches "represent something persistent and crucial in our modern society."

What is distinctive about the small church? Wagley provides an extensive list of traits. Small congregations place a high priority on relationships, recognize the importance of the primary group, have more shared experiences, higher participation in worship, an informal communications system, and tend to incorporate family passages into the life of the church. These are but a few of the distinctions Wagley identifies.

Wagley suggests that the greatest danger faced by the small church is that it will seek to be what it is not. It may do this by attempting to emulate larger congregations, trying to conduct a "perpetual revival," or by reducing its message to the reinforcement of community standards. The small church may also spend much time and energy "trying to be what it used to be" (or what members think it used to be).