The Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast brings you interviews from leaders across the theological spectrum of the global Church. Our goal is to bring you thought-provoking interviews that encourage you, challenge you, and help you build, run, and keep great teams.
In today's Vandercast, William Vanderbloemen, founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, talks with Karl Vaters, teaching pastor at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California. William and Karl discuss best practices for effectively leading a small church.
Karl Vaters has been a small church pastor for over 30 years. He has spent the last 25 years at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California, where he now serves as the teaching pastor.
Karl is the author of two books titled The Grasshopper Myth and Small Church Essentials. He also blogs regularly to encourage, connect, and equip innovative small church leaders at newsmallchurch.com.
William talks with Karl about:
“We always have to work to increase our capacity for effective ministry. That will result, I believe, in Kingdom growth even if it doesn't result in the number of people sitting in front of me on a Sunday morning.”
“There’s a whole skill set that’s needed in the big church that isn’t necessarily needed in the small church and there’s another skill set needed in the small that isn’t necessarily needed in the big; so we need to understand what skill set is needed at which size.”
“In the smaller church, the pastor doesn’t establish the culture, but the pastor had better understand the culture as quick as possible because if the culture is dangerous, or toxic, or problematic, then they need to understand what that is so that they can help to adjust that culture into a healthier place.”
“If we can help to take an unhealthy small church and help it to become big, then we’re just going to have an unhealthy big church. But if you take an unhealthy small church and make it healthy, even if it doesn’t become big, at least it became healthy."