Big Church, Small Church: What We Can Learn From Each Other (Alex Janzen & Brent Warkentin)

Church size is one of those topics everyone tiptoes around. If you're at a smaller church, it can feel like you're always playing catch-up; if you're at a bigger one, it can feel awkward to talk about resources without sounding like you're bragging. In this episode, Matt sits down with two pastors living out very different realities: Alex Janzen, lead pastor of Community Bible Church in Mountain Lake, Minnesota (congregation of 20-25), and Brent Warkentin, lead pastor of Ridgepoint Church (congregation of 1,200). 

Rather than avoiding the "elephant in the room," they name it head-on and dig into the honest pros and cons of leading at either end of the spectrum, how discipleship happens differently at scale, why numbers are the easiest thing to measure but not the most important, and Brent's challenge to the assumption that bigger churches automatically produce more life change.

Alex offers a memorable picture of what smaller churches gain from staying connected to larger ones, not by copying them, but by learning to use tools and techniques big churches have the resources to develop and test first. Both pastors close with hard-won wisdom for leaders of any size: don't wear someone else's armor. Whether you're leading 25 people or 2,500, faithfulness looks the same — listening to God, leading from where you are, and trusting He didn't make a mistake putting you there.