This week's featured resource, Strengthening Small Churches, includes an interview with John Koessler, who is chair and professor of pastoral studies at Moody Bible Institute. He previously spent nine years pastoring a small church in central Illinois. Below is an excerpt from that interview.

What are two or three defining characteristics of the healthy small church in the 21st century?

One mark of a healthy church is a biblical sense of mission. It's particularly important for the small church to get its marching orders from Scripture, and not from the culture, particularly since the culture seems to focus on the large church. The Bible describes the church as a community of the Word, a community that worships, a community that demonstrates mutual concern and ministry, and a community that bears witness to the surrounding world.

A second mark of health would be a biblically informed sense of realism, because I think there are too many small churches laboring under the burden of false expectations. ...