209: Small Churches Got Honest: What 2025 Revealed About Pressure, Hope, & What’s Next

As we wrap up 2025, we’re looking at the conversations that truly landed with small churches - the episodes and quotes that sparked response, resonance, and even pushback. 

Topics like decline, pressure, money, conflict, and culture change weren’t just popular; they named real life. In this episode, we explore what that tells us. 

And why honesty mattered more than neat solutions.

You’ll hear:

1. What this year’s most-downloaded episodes and most-shared posts reveal for all of us
2. Why honest conversations drew people in, even when they were uncomfortable
3. The unexpected hope running through some tough topics
4. A grounded way to close the year and look ahead with more peace and hope than ever

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Transcript

Laurie Graham  0:00 
Hey, hey! Welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast. I am so excited to be wrapping up the year with this episode, talking about getting honest and what 2025 revealed about pressure, hope, and what’s next. This is an episode that is really near and dear to my heart. 

As I look back over 2025, I was paying a lot of attention. I was paying a lot of attention to what episodes were downloaded the most this year—and maybe a little bit of why—and the quotes and the posts that we shared on social media, the ones that got the most comments, shares, and conversation. Sometimes they were met with a big old "Yes!" and sometimes with a little bit—or even a lot bit—of pushback. When I looked at those together, there were a few patterns that showed up. 

My hope for this conversation today is to bring you in on a conversation I was pretty much having with Jesus about all this. When I see information like this—patterns and responses—I think it’s so short-sighted just to look at it as information that's not attached to anything. I really think what we’re talking about today isn't just information about past trends or about 2025; each of these observations, I believe, is an invitation. It is an invitation for us to see where God is at work, what’s next, and what He is calling us to as small churches all over the globe—seeing what we have in common and why it matters. 

This past year, we’ve talked about a lot. We’ve talked about church decline, burnout, and change. One thing we don’t always do mid-year is stop and ask why certain conversations land the way they do. Not every episode or every conversation got a lot of traction. Not everything gets shared. Not everything results in people quietly messaging me saying, "Thank you for saying that out loud," or, "I thought I was the only one." But when something does land in this way—with momentum and energy—it is totally worth asking why. Response tells us something, not just about trends, but about real life, about right now, and about experience. 

Let me put this in a ministry context before I jump back into our top episodes. Have you ever had an event, a sermon series, or maybe a small group you were excited about—and people just didn't end up as excited as you were? Or maybe you put on an event for the kids that you thought wasn't going to be great, and it was amazing? This is what I mean about some things landing differently than others; let's be curious enough to ask why that is. That’s what we did with the podcast and the posts. We’re going to walk through these three observations that stood out like crazy to me as I really took a look at our top episodes and posts. 

My first observation is this: People responded to less pressure, not more expectations. This one is about how people want church to feel when they come in. One of the most downloaded episodes this year was Episode 197, when we talked about reaching young families as an older church and what was key. One of the most shared quotes of the year came straight out of that conversation, and it said this: "The best way to reach young families? Be the one place in their week that doesn't ask for something." Another line that got shared everywhere was this one—it's familiar if you're hanging out with us a lot: "What do you call a church without a nursery? A church." These two lines don’t offer strategy. They don’t offer programs. They don’t outline some new reframe. They don’t tell us what to build or fix or launch next. What they do is something quieter and, honestly, more revealing: they take the pressure off. They remove the pressure to compete, the pressure to do more, and the pressure to prove that we're even legitimate based on the amount of programs we offer. This should tell us something really important. It tells me that people are tired of church being another place that "takes" from them, even when it means well—another place that asks for more time, more energy, more commitment, and more output from people who are already stretched. 

I want to be really clear about something here, because this matters a lot: this is not about people wanting less care or less connection. It’s not about disengaging from the church, and it's definitely not about churches doing nothing. It’s more about how we show up, why we show up, and where we put our priority. Honestly, I believe this is about doing ministry more like how Jesus modeled it. What families are responding to right now is not less love; it’s less demand. Honestly, this is what most of us are responding to right now, not just families. None of us need to do more. We don’t need more things on our calendar. What we need to do is just keep showing up consistently and relationally, without an agenda always attached. This is another place where small churches actually have an advantage because of our size and our uniqueness. 

When we stop trying to offer more programs and start offering real connection, something shifts. When relationships matter more than systems or events, people notice. When belonging comes before expectation, trust grows. This is not about lowering the bar; this is about paying attention to real life—what’s happening in the lives of people today—and meeting them there. I honestly believe this is what Jesus did. So again, my first observation—the first pattern I saw emerging—was that people were responding to less pressure. That’s a good thing. 

When pressure comes down, when pressure lessens, something else becomes more possible: honesty. The second observation I have to share today is that honesty did not push people away; it actually pulled us in. This was really surprising to me. This past year, I called out some pretty tough things. In the past, I’ve stayed away from more controversial call-outs. If I'm honest, I really did not know how these tough conversations were going to land. Some of them felt really risky. They were things that were on my heart—deep values I talk about with my trusted friends—but I knew putting them out publicly would, at the very least, make some people uncomfortable. I knew some of them were challenging long-standing assumptions, and honestly, I figured a few would be offensive. There were moments when I wondered, "Is this too much? Is it too direct?" What surprised me was the response. Instead of people pulling away, a whole lot of people leaned in. Instead of a crazy amount of backlash, there was some pushback in a few conversations, but I heard a whole lot more of, "Thank you for saying that. Thank you for speaking what I’ve been wanting to say. Thank you for calling this out; I knew it was wrong."

Laurie Graham  9:58 
Two of the top episodes that led to this observation were Episode 189 and Episode 180. I'm going to be sure to drop the top five episodes that I'm mentioning throughout the show today into the show notes. Episode 180 was "When Dysfunction Becomes the Culture and No One Talks About It." We talked about general church dysfunction, which honestly feels more like the norm today. Very few churches exist consistently in a healthy relational space; there's more dysfunction than health in many, many churches around the globe. Episode 180 got a lot of traction, but it led us to Episode 189, which gained even more momentum. That episode was titled, "When Grace Protects Bullies in the Church." We talked about bullies being present in most churches. Instead of anyone addressing it or talking about harmful behavior in a way that reconciles and draws people together, many times—under the guise of grace—we end up protecting bullies. We offer them grace and endless "reign," really, as they damage other people within the church—the very people we're supposed to be protecting, who are then left ignored and often even leave the church. 

These were tough topics. They were uncomfortable and disrupted some familiar narratives. They had us looking at things and calling things out—things that we'd often rather avoid because it feels peaceful, at least in the short term, to do so. But these conversations—and I was a little surprised and a whole lot delighted by this—didn't drive us away. They actually drew us together. One of the most shared quotes this year—and again, this was a tough one—was: "Biblical counseling often means well, but without understanding trauma, even our best intentions can do more harm than good." Now, that quote, that saying—that’s me saying that. I will own it. It is not anti-faith. It is not dismissive of Scripture. It is careful, it is honest, and it is true. Biblical counseling practiced within church settings has unintentionally, and more often than we would like to admit, caused more harm than good. If that quote has just raised the hair on the back of your neck, please go and listen to those episodes. 

They came out of a little miniseries on the podcast where counselor and licensed therapist Katie Quigley joined the conversation. We did three episodes, and the series was titled, "Do No Harm." Katie is a licensed therapist, a Christian, a pastor's kid, and a youth director. She loves God and she loves Scripture, but she also knows trauma and has seen harm caused within church settings. We opened up the conversation, and the response to that quote—and to the others I mentioned before—tells us something really important: as a community here in Small Church Ministry, we're not afraid of hard conversations. What we are afraid of is being dismissed, being silenced, and being hurt again—especially in places where we used to feel safe or where we're supposed to be safe. I love these honest conversations. I love the response, and I believe it's an invitation for more. 

When honesty is grounded, respectful, loving, and kind, it doesn't break trust; it builds it. When we can have conversations respectfully, even when we disagree on points, it builds trust. And here's the hopeful part: this tells me we can not only have more conversations, but we can do better in our churches. We're learning more; let's do better. We can meet people in hard places without rushing them to the end. We can tell the truth without tearing each other down. We can share our experiences and offer each other validation and empathy for what we've seen and gone through. We can move toward healthier cultures. No matter where you're at on the spectrum—whether you're super healthy, kind of healthy, or not healthy at all—we can all move toward healthier cultures, not by pretending things are fine, but by being honest enough to grow. That kind of honesty isn't destructive; it's actually often the starting point for healing. 

Once honesty opens the door for conversation, it has a tendency to reveal even deeper things, which leads me to my third observation: We are carrying more than we were ever meant to carry. This isn't just about the "doing" part of church ministry, but about where we're holding responsibility that isn't ours to hold, and where we have fear and anxiety. If the first observation about people responding to less pressure was about what people are responding to from the church, this observation is about what many of us have been carrying inside the church. This brings us to the most downloaded episode of the entire year—and actually, it's the most downloaded episode from the beginning of anything we've released: Episode 187, "When Your Church Feels Like It's Dying." The download numbers matter not because of the numbers themselves, but because of what it tells us about what's sitting under the surface for so many small churches right now. This episode was just released a few months ago, and it's already surpassed our very first episode. Typically, older episodes have an advantage because they’ve been around for years; when a newer episode rises that quickly, it is pointing to something really significant. 

For Episode 187 to rise that quickly in shares and downloads, it's pretty clear that there's a lot of fear out there: fear that churches are shrinking, fear that what we love so deeply might not last, and fear that if we don't keep everything going, something important is going to be lost. When fear shows up like that, our instinct is not usually to slow down. It's to work harder, to push, to do more, and to hold tighter.

Laurie Graham  19:45 
Episode 187 did not offer a solution. This is also significant because of how much it was shared; it didn't give a rescue plan to save your church or to grow your numbers. What it did was name the reality and say: "You're not wrong for feeling this way. You care deeply, you are not alone, and God is bigger than what we're afraid of." That is why it landed the way that it did. We've been carrying this thought that it's our job to save the church, but Jesus is the One who holds His church together. That’s not just "reframing" something; it’s the truth. What's so interesting about this episode is that once that fear was named, the conversation didn't stop there. It shifted. It moved from "Are we going to survive?" to "Why does this feel so heavy for so many people?" 

Shortly after that, Episode 191 addressed the idea that we need to stop saying people aren't committed, because the thought that others lack commitment is hurting our ministry. There are so many themes wrapped in here about how we are carrying responsibility for things that were never ours to carry. There are also a few other top quotes that fit into this realm. One is: "The small church doesn't need more strong women holding it all together; it needs women who know when to set it all down." Is that not beautiful? And then this other quote, which was shared everywhere: "Revenue won't save the church, but it might save your building." These lines landed well because they put words to something many of us already know and feel deeply. 

In small churches, responsibility doesn't always—or even usually—get assigned to people; it gets absorbed. It gets absorbed by the people who step in because they care. We don't even always have official roles or titles. We stay because it feels safer to stay involved than to risk things falling apart. There's a sense of not just ownership, but over-responsibility. Over time, it's really easy to start believing that if we just work hard enough, we can keep everything steady. Most of us didn't even plan to carry this much; it just kind of happened—especially for volunteers, especially for women, and especially for people without titles. 

The exhaustion that follows carrying what isn't ours to carry is not failure; it's information. It's an invitation to something different. Episode 187 did not offer a solution. This is also significant because of how much it was shared; it didn't give a rescue plan to save your church or to grow your numbers. What it did was name the reality and say: "You're not wrong for feeling this way. You care deeply, you are not alone, and God is bigger than what we're afraid of." That is why it landed the way that it did. We've been carrying this thought that it's our job to save the church, but Jesus is the One who holds His church together. That’s not just "reframing" something; it’s the truth. 

What's so interesting about this episode is that once that fear was named, the conversation didn't stop there. It shifted. It moved from "Are we going to survive?" to "Why does this feel so heavy for so many people?" Shortly after that, Episode 191 addressed the idea that we need to stop saying people aren't committed, because the thought that others lack commitment is hurting our ministry. There are so many themes wrapped in here about how we are carrying responsibility for things that were never ours to carry.
 
There are also a few other top quotes that fit into this realm. One is: "The small church doesn't need more strong women holding it all together; it needs women who know when to set it all down." Is that not beautiful? And then this other quote, which was shared everywhere: "Revenue won't save the church, but it might save your building." These lines landed well because they put words to something many of us already know and feel deeply. In small churches, responsibility doesn't always—or even usually—get assigned to people; it gets absorbed. It gets absorbed by the people who step in because they care. We don't even always have official roles or titles.

We stay because it feels safer to stay involved than to risk things falling apart. There's a sense of not just ownership, but over-responsibility. Over time, it's really easy to start believing that if we just work hard enough, we can keep everything steady. Most of us didn't even plan to carry this much; it just kind of happened—especially for volunteers, especially for women, and especially for people without titles. The exhaustion that follows carrying what isn't ours to carry is not failure; it's information. It's an invitation to something different.
 
What resonated so much this year wasn't instructions, to-dos, or solutions—honestly, we offered a lot of those—but what resonated most with you and others was permission, release, and freedom. The permission to admit that trying to control the outcome doesn't actually bring peace, and it's not even our job. The permission to notice that holding everything together is not the same as being faithful or even healthy. The permission to lay down the things you're carrying that weren't really yours to carry in the first place—things that may be beyond our capacity or outside our influence. 

Laying things down like that, letting go of holding so tightly to something that God already has in His hands, isn't giving up. It's learning to trust differently without needing to be exhausted all the time. When we put all this together—the episodes, the quotes, the responses, the emails—here's what stands out: we didn't respond most to answers, quick fixes, or "five steps." What we responded to was honesty—to language that named reality without immediately jumping to the next "to-do." That doesn't mean we don't want guidance or that we aren't moving toward solutions or health. It means we want to be understood first. It means we want to see each other, see what we have in common, and know that we're not alone. Honestly, that's growth. We teach so often that God created us to grow in community, and we're finding that community together. This is where there's so much hope for small churches and for what we're doing here. 

So many people in our community are sharing stories of how God is using their tiny church where no one has ever heard of them—reaching out, doing outreach, feeding people in the community, or running programs for foster families. People don't engage like this if they're checked out. People engage because they care. People engage when something finally sounds like what they've been living. This tells me small churches aren't fragile; I never thought they were. Small churches are thoughtful. We're asking amazing questions. We're less interested in appearances and more interested in health and doing ministry like Jesus. This is such a great place to be as we head into the new year. 

As we close out 2025, here's what I want to leave us with: we don't need "better" answers right now. We don't need to fix everything today. We don't need to rush toward clarity. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is pay attention to what lands, to what's stirring inside, and to what gives people a little more room to show up honestly and join the conversation. This kind of honesty doesn't weaken the church; it strengthens it. 

I keep coming back to this picture of Jesus. Jesus didn't rush. He wasn't spinning all the plates. Jesus didn't work Himself into exhaustion trying to hold everything together. He walked. He noticed people. He had real conversations. He met people literally where they actually were and He stayed with them. The speed He moved at was slow. I love to talk about moving at "the speed of Christ." If there was a person in front of Him, He looked them in the eye. He stopped for children. He responded. I think there's something so important for us here. We don't have to do all the things. We don't have to prove anything. We don't have to carry all the things that were never ours to carry. We get to move at the speed of Christ: thoughtful, attentive, grounded, and trusting that love—not pressure—as well as connection, relationship, and honesty, are what actually change things.

Laurie Graham  29:43 
Before we wrap up today, I want to say something gently, because I know that many of you listen here every week and you've never once thought about joining anything or signing up for more. This podcast has always been about showing up for you without strings attached, and that's not changing. But every so often, somebody reaches out and says, "I love this space; I just wish I didn't have to hold all this by myself." If that thought has ever crossed your mind, even quietly, I want you to know that there is a place for that. 

The Small Church Network is a $29-a-month membership for volunteers and ministry leaders who want honest support, practical tools, and conversations that actually fit real small-church life. We do monthly trainings and live conversations. We provide resources you can take back and use in your church—things that really help shift culture, clarify expectations, and make ministry feel lighter and more aligned. 

As we kick off the new year, we're doing something simple to make it easier to step in. If you're curious and you want to check out the Small Church Network, and you join before the end of January, you'll get $20 off your first month. This is just a small way to lower the barrier and let you see if the space is helpful for you. If you join now, you can jump into the current conversation right away. You can also cancel at any time. You can find the link to the special deal in the show notes, or just go to smallchurchministry.com/network. 

Thank you so much for being part of the conversations this year. I'm so grateful for this community and am totally looking forward to 2026. All right, until next week, be a light.