One Size Doesn't fit all: Bringing out the Best in any Size Church

by Gary L. McIntosh

Framed as a discussion between a pastor six months out of seminary and a veteran pastor, this book tackles the issues of how churches grow and how church size determines effective strategy for ministry. The pastors Saturday morning dialogues reveal ten areas that will help readers understand their own churchs psychology, addressing questions such -How do churches grow?-How does change take place?-What is the churchs orientation?-How is the church structured?-Who sets the direction?-What is the pastors role? This is a vital resource for any new pastor, church planter, or lay leader concerned about his or her local church. Each chapter concludes with a Taking It Home segment.

Genres: Leadership, Church, Church Ministry, Theology, Ecclesiology, Christian

174 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Karen Salisbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every pastor should read this, no matter the size of their church – but especially if they want to grow! It has great insight into what a church is and does at every level of growth, and how to move to the next level. It will give leaders insight into church structure, orientation, and how churches grow. A must-read for pastors!

[Dennis Henn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually shun these how-to books, but an elder in church asked me to read the parts in it she underlined. McIntosh offers good insights, affirmations and challenges for all church sizes, and challenges us to keep our eyes on God. Easy, quick read and I didn't end feeling despondent.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One Size Doesn't Fit All: Bringing Out the Best in Any Size Church - by Gary L. McIntosh

It’s been a decade since I read this (and marked quotes) for my Bachelor of Theology. After numerous moves to different church parishes I am now pulling it our of my storage box (Covid lockdown task).
I think this will mean so much more to me now having been doing pastoring. ****

“Church growth is a journey not a destination”
“It’s usually just a matter of time before he plateaued church gets smaller.”
…..

[Todd Mckeever · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one size fits all

This was a great book and an enjoyable read. Once I started it I just did not want to stop until I had finished the book.

Great wisdom being shared and enjoyed how each thing showed from the angle of small, medium, and large church. Now if only I could find a mentor/coach like this guy had, then I would have it made.

Good read for all.

[Jesse Kane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would like to see more of an emphasis on operating as a certain size of church in a healthy way rather than growing as a certain size of church. My LP was critical of the politicised approach McIntosh took, as this can often disregard the poor and needy and created a churchy hierarchy based on whoever is most helpful for growing the church.

[Bryan Burge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on how different church sizes operate. I believe this is a MUST for a young person coming out of seminary and going to their first church. If a young person can grasp this book and trust what they are reading, then this book can save them many problems. I refer to it many times when talking with other pastors and why they are seeing the problems in their church that they are seeing.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful at identifying where we currently stand as a church -- and therefore the kinds of steps and challenges and priorities that lie ahead of us.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

New and interesting way to view church growth strategy and understanding.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book with some practical insights into church leadership. The format is a bit different but well worth the read.

[Brian Pate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for the internship at Stanley Heights Baptist Church.

[Derek Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple, yet challenging book that I feel every Pastor and church leader should read at least once.

[Holly Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read for pastors, church staff, & leaders

[Justin Blackwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely helpful, every church leader should read this.

[Ryan and Sara Wendt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful book about church growth and church leadership! I recommend this book to every pastor and church leader.

[Alonzo Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

This was a good resource for staggering or declining churches. Some of the points are practical while others would take some time.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple idea behind a very helpful book. A young pastor, struggling with ministering to his small church, gains valuable lessons through dialogue with an experienced mentor. The mentor explains the difference between small, medium, and large churches - addressing topics such as leadership, obstacles, growth strategies, and structure. A great book for gaining self-awareness as a leader, and as a church.

[Markevans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary McIntosh's "One Size Doesn't Fit All" (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 1999) is an excellent book for considering the way church size drastically affects the way a church operates. He defines a small church as anything under 200; a medium as 200 to 400; and a large church as 400 or more. He says that the crucial time, between 200 and 400 attendees (not members) is when the church will either move forward and take some risks, plateau, or go into downward momentum. The key at this time is to "pull" rather than "push" when it comes to leading people - and to add additional staff to the church. He says that basically as a rule of thumb you need a paid, full-time pastor for every 150 people - but the kicker is that you need to hire that pastor just before 200 if you are going to push into the 300 area. At any rate, this book is really helpful especially for understanding the main failures of small churches, medium, and large churches. Broadly speaking the problem has to do with relational orientation - a small church is highly relational but tradition tends to dominate decisions; on the other hand, a large church is often driven by great vision, proclamation ministry, and fast change, but they often fail to integrate new people - they lack warmth. The goal of this book then is to realize that churches need to always be anticipating the next change, including multiplying new churches - and that God ultimately gives growth. My only critique of the book is that it is somewhat too programmatic in outlook (I think the "missional community" movement is more effective than having a heavily programmed church) and also that it is too quick to embrace multiple services without considering the ramifications - I would argue that multiple services in one building are actually multiple churches in one building, but I don't think McIntosh would agree with that assessment.

[katyjanereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. I was very confused at first because I didn't realize this was a fake story but real facts. I was like, "Wait. McIntosh's Typology of Church Sizes? He's the one who wrote the book.."
2. I'm giving it a four because when I finally realized the conversations with Bob weren't real, I thought the author could have left out a bunch of corny things that were made up anyway. Such as being at the restaurant so long that they left the waitress an extra tip. Who cares.
3. That being said, since it was told in story form I think I was more receptive of the information because it wasn't as boring.
4. My husband and I decided to start reading a book together at night so I read this one aloud. It was really great for discussion and I stopped a lot to talk about where our church was and what we could do to help. (We're the unpaid youth leaders and he's the unpaid music leader. My father-in-law is the pastor) We are in the small church category and it gave us so many good starting points. Plus, it was great just for awareness. And many times we would look at each other and say, "Has he been to our church? Is this church the one he's writing about because it's identical."
5. This book was very tangible, practical, and easy to understand.
6. I would love to pass this book along in the church. It would be great for anyone, really. The leaders, obviously, but it's interesting enough for anyone.

[John Medendorp · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very easy read, and very helpful, and very informative. I got rather annoyed at his format for presenting the information. McIntosh frames his research in a fictional story about a new pastor at a small church, who is being mentored by an older pastor at a large church. Both pastors constantly praise McIntosh for his great research and practical advice, which I felt was rather thinly-veiled self-praise. Also, McIntosh writes in axioms, which I find annoying, and uses endnotes, a practice that thoroughly angers me. It is also difficult to tell what in the book is a result of research, what is anecdotal, and what is biblical principles.
That being said, the book is an incredibly helpful exposition of the various challenges that face congregations as they move from small family congregations to programmatic churches to big churches. McIntosh helpfully breaks down the difference in a nice chart that he develops throughout the book, offering the complete chart in chapter 11 (for those who aren't that interested in the fictional narrator's description of taking notes while eating pepperoni pizza and interjecting to tell Bob how helpful all of Dr. Gary L. McIntosh's research is, you may just want to skip to page 144). Chapter 12 is about how the fictional narrator's fictional church grew as a result of Dr. Gary L. McIntosh's nonfictional research.

[Flip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a relatively fast read and kept me interested right up until the final couple chapters where it seemed to drag a bit. The book is essentially set up like a fiction story about two pastors: one mentoring another. The one being mentored just became the pastor of a small church and has no idea how to minister in such an environment.

So the book revolves around the differences between small, medium, and large churches. It actually is chalk-full of good insights, but it became redundant after a while which made the later chapters drag on (also the narration seemed to stave off at the end as well).

I liked the book, though I do disagree with a few of his ideas...such as the concept that a church is "large" after it has over 400 members. That still seems to be a medium church to me. So, other than some of the ideas related to church size, I can definitely see a lot of the ideas working out in churches.

I would recommend the book to pastors, lay-leaders, deacons, and Bible college students.

[Letty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for any church leader of a church in any kind of transition or frustrating situation. It provides great advice for plateaus and delines. I read through the book fairly quickly, underlined many things, and had a lot of "aha" moments. This book got me fired up to help make needed changes in my own church to promote growth and assimilation.

I agree with many of the reviews that the structure of the book as a narrative with a backstory of an older pastor mentoring a younger pastor is a little cloying and distracting. It does make the book read a bit quicker; however this book could have well stood alone as a purely nonfiction book with anecdotal examples of what has and hasn't worked for churches.

I would give the information in the book 5 stars, but am giving it 4 stars because of the awkward narrative structure.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because my pastor gave it to all the members of our church's long range planning committee. There is certainly some useful information in here, but its presentation is tedious. The information and statistics are couched in the story of a young pastor's discipleship relationship with an older pastor. The wise pastor passed information on to his disciple and, in re-telling the story, the disciple is able to pass it on to us.

The only thing more frustrating than having to pick through the 'story' to find the 'information,' was finding that all of the information was presented in a convenient chart... at the end of the book.

[Walt Walkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised at how informative this book actually was. McIntosh embeds helpful hints about the tendencies of various-sized churches into a fictional story which allows the reader to put himself in the shoes of the character who is seeking the information out. I found that many of the things written about the size of church I lead were accurate, though there were certainly crossovers to the other sizes as well. I would recommend reading this book to pastors who are hoping to better understand their churches. My one caution would be not to read it as though what is written is absolutely true of your situation, though. Simply use it as a helpful guide.

[Dan Winnberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I re-read this book recently. It is an evaluation of different size churches, how they approach each other, and what may cause church growth and health to be stifled. It is presented in a narrative style (one pastor meeting with another pastor) which makes it easy to read. I don't think it is intended to be a theological work on ecclesiology at all. Rather, it is a practical look at observations within small, medium, and large churches.

[Mike Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy Read. The book started out good but lost appeal close to the 10th chapter. I enjoyed some of his other book a little more than this one. The is a book of concepts behind the scenes of the 3 different size churches. Small, medium and large. His concepts make good sense but he dragged the book out a bit. Overall it was an ok read.

[Ko Matsuo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite a good book on understanding how different size churches operate differently. It provides good diagnostic tools to characterize individual churches. McIntosh points the way to be intentional and strategic about how to grow churches. With 80% of churches in the US under 200 attendees on a Sunday, this is a helpful resource to many.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend to any pastor who was taught they had to be all things to all people. Not all churches are the same.

Also, I got to have lunch in Seattle with Macintosh a few years ago - what a great guy!

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about the differing dynamics present in the varying sizes of churches. Written from a first person impersonation standpoint, thus making the book a more entertaining read. A must for any pastor of any size church.

[Cory Parish]

For any person active serving in a church in any capacity this needs to become a regular reference book. I've read it at least three times and have run out of room in the margins because I keep scribbling notes. Read it. It's good.

[Brian Weisz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like the story construct. I would rather McIntosh had written a non-fiction book.

However, there is a lot of good detail in here. You just have to work to extract it. If you can do that, and consider carefully what he has to say, you'll come away with many fresh insights.