The Normal-Sized Church

Seventy percent of Southern Baptist churches run fewer than 100 people in weekly attendance.

• Mark Clifton, NAMB's replanting lead, gave that number at the Small Church Pastors' luncheon in Orlando on June 9.
• He has a better name for those congregations: "These normal-sized churches are in every community, every crossroad, every major metropolitan area of our nation, and most of them are pastored by bivocational pastors."
• Speakers urged pastors to root their identity in Christ rather than in attendance.
• A resolution honored bivocational and volunteer pastors.
• Clifton's charge: "Love the church you have because only eternity is going to reveal the results of your labor."

Nearly every church in the Baptist Convention of Iowa sits in that 70 percent.