June 19, 2017
Large Church . . . Small Town?
By Jim Estep It”s easy to understand why small towns have small churches. We can visit a town of 3,500 and find several congregations with fewer than 100 people in each. In fact, some would say that small towns like small churches. Bristow, Iowa, for example (population 160), boasts of having “The Smallest Church in Iowa.” One can readily explain a large church being in a large city. Finding a church of 1,000 in a city of 200,000 people””that”s reasonable. Most megachurches are in “mega” cities. But, what happens when we encounter a church of 1,200 in a town with






