Deus Misereatur

Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of under 250 by Karl Vaters My rating: 5 of 5 stars Karl Vaters, who pastors Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley California, writes for Christianity Today, and founded NewSmallChurch.com, is at it again with his new 256 page paperback, "Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of Under 250". Very much like his previous book, " The Grasshopper Myth ," the author energetically and thoughtfully encourages small churches and their pastors, but moves more into practical ways to be a thriving church. "Small Church Essentials" begins in familiar territory, showing how being small does not mean being broken. In the first three chapters Vaters addresses the reality that over 90% of churches in North America are under 250, and that this is a good thing. "Let's stop acting like we're embarrassed by all the s...

The Grasshopper Myth: Big Churches, Small Churches and the Small Thinking that Divides Us by Karl Vaters My rating: 5 of 5 stars How do you perceive your small church? Do you see it's smallness as a problem to be fixed? Or is it possible that it is small by God's own design and in his delight? Karl Vaters, Teaching Pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California, tackles these questions and many, many more in his heart-lifting 212 page paperback, "The Grasshopper Myth". The book's appellation comes from Numbers 13 when the twelve spies returned from reconnoitering the Promised Land, and ten of them recounted how tall and big everyone and everything was, and then exclaimed, "and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (13.33). Viola! The Grasshopper Myth! Without being jaundiced or jaded, Vaters challenges our self-imposed expectations that gut many a minister, and asks all of the "wrong" qu...