Megachurch Pastor Defines Significance in Small-Town America

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Friday, October 13, 2006

Megachurches may be on the rise but a new book highlights the significance of the majority of Americans who don't attend a several-thousand member church with a well-known pastor.

Jim Graff, pastor of Faith Family Church in Victoria, Texas, was conditioned to believe "bigger was always better" like most of corporate and even ministerial America. But he found that 80 percent of American churches have less than 200 people in them.

He estimated that percentage to be 90 million Americans which would constitute the 13th largest country in the world. "What will happen in our country if they (small churches) lose heart?" he asked.

Graff's church in Victoria is currently at 4,000 members and his brother-in-law is Joel Osteen, who leads one of the largest and fastest growing megachurches in the nation. And a milestone Hartford Seminary study found a growing number of megachurches with at least 1,200 existing today.

Yet among the 3,141 counties in America, 88 percent of them have a population of under 150,000 people, according to a study done by Graff in his book A Significant Life. Plus studies have indicated that less than 2 percent of Americans attend megachurches. His heart gravitated toward small-town America and its churches.

"On a larger scale, my heart turned to overlooked people in America and around the world," Graff wrote in his book.

"The Hartford report talked about 1,210 [mega]churches or 4.7 million people roughly attending them; 4.7 million is a drop in the bucket of national church attendance," he told The Christian Post.

Graff started up the Significant Church Network to figure out how to strengthen churches in small counties. Conferences began a year ago with about 400 people participating so far. The network is soon to include youth, childrens and ladies ministries to help them with ideas and encouraging those laboring in small-county America.

He released his book this year accounting how he was led to discover the significance of small-town America and offering inspiration to churches serving the overlooked areas.

"The book is about the fact that God predestines our life," he said. "The book takes a person by the hand and helps them explore their potential and then to own their potential that God has placed within them."

In a foreword to the book, Osteen writes: "Jim helps us move beyond a bigger-is-always-better mind-set and discover the soul satisfaction that can only come from living out of our true identities as image-bearers of God."

While Osteen and Graff are good friends and Osteen's father, John, had served as Graff's mentor, neither they nor their megachurch necessarily had a direct influence on Graff's expanded vision and mission for the smaller churches, he said.

"When I was in my 30s, I felt like God redefined what really mattered, what his call was in my life," said Graff. "And he redefined that it was to be about smaller communities."