The Challenge of Small Town Ministry

It can be a great privilege and delight to be called to minister and serve within the context of a church in a small town or village. It's very possible that one may find that there are limited resources, at least comparatively speaking. Facilities may be old and declining  with a scarcity of dollars with which to repair or add to the church-building resource.

When the church and town are close enough to more urban centres for their to be commuters, they may be too tired for meetings through the week, upon their return home each evenings so they will not want to serve in the governance or activities of the church that meet then.

There may be limitations of community resources and services of one kind or another. One may find that the church has a 'bad history' and in rural areas, that sticks. Gossip travels quickly and church family feuds last longer.  The church and the pastor's house is very much a glass-house and the family may suffer from 'over-visibility.' 

It may be that sports or other recreational events and activities have taken over the life of the town, especially with those who have lost or seldom had connections with a local faith community.

The families of both church and community may be very much inter-woven and this can result in embarrassing results from inadvertent comments or actions. (The inter-connections can also work very positively too, as relational interaction and communication help to spread the good things that are happening and as the good news of the Gospel is lived and shared.

Many students leave the community and thus also the church programs, ministry and influence, upon completion of high school. The community may offer few job opportunities. This results often in the overall aging of communities and with major 'holes' and missing demographics of youth and young families.  Some people leave to get out of town - to get away. A few come back hoping to rediscover what they have left, and perhaps even to embrace once more what they have found to be missing in their life, in values, lifestyle and general 'way of life.' 

 The church may have several or a remaining few ruling families who are entrenched and powerful there due, perhaps to history and tradition, to being powerful personalities, or being influential through their wealth and distribution or with-holding of it, as for them ministry situations and opinions might dictate. They may expect things to be done in their way, which is of course 'the right way' in their opinion. They may be 'provincial' in that they have not seen more of the world than the confines of their own land, town and general area. They may be suspicious of any who might usurp their place and influence and whether consciously or not, they may seek to 'freeze out' newcomers and/or try to 'neutralize' any suggestions for change or 'betterment' that the newcomer may bring. To use a metaphor-like example from old England, when the Squire and the Parson got along, ministry did also, apace; when they did not see eye to eye, it was not the Squire who moved, but the Pastor who would have to. 

But it is not just true of those who wield power and influence in the church and community. Many people will be wondering if the new pastor has come to love them or to seek to change them. Will he/she come to judge the old and suggest an embracing of new, albeit at present, foreign (even strange and unwanted) ways of doing ministry in the church and community.

Small town ways and attitudes suggest that folk may be suspicious of newcomers, of those who are 'from away.' It may take several years, decades even, for the 'newcomer' to feel that they have equal footing, that they belong and that their voice and actions are respected rather than tolerated; that they are even welcome.

There may be the appearance and even the wording of needing or wanting change 'if this church is to survive, to grow, to move into even more fruitful ministry in this day. The new pastor may find, however, that in fact very little change is wanted or will be tolerated. It may even seem bizarre to discover that some would rather that this church die than that any new or significant changes be introduced and attempted. It will take time, trust - many years and lots of coffee, riding combines, relational interactions of integrity and mutual appreciation, before the shared ministry can and will happen. Many pastors leave before they see the fruits of such trust and relationship. They may leave just before fruitful times can break forth.

With all of the above, however, it is true to say that rural living and rural church ministry can be some of the most fruitful and effective ministry-locales and enabling of Kingdom work today. It can be a place of learning and discovery, of patience and endurance, of learning the natural and supernatural rhythms of the Eternal, where also Kingdom signs and realities can be set up and lived into.

Change Carefully

We must be careful in our love/or hate of the Church (a lover's quarrel?) and see to it that we love the brothers and sisters, whatever may be their faults - and not take on the task of accusing the brothers, which the Evil One has taken on as his primary task. We may critique and seek to correct - to protest and to reform, but we must do it very gently, very carefully.

When thinking about the old and the new, and of attitudes within the emergent community, with whose frustration and critique with regard to the established church, I often tend to agree, I think of the following needful corrective and warning of Paul Johnson, in his book, 'The Recovery of Freedom.' "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."

Doing Church

 

We know how to ‘do church’ but we have not yet learned, perhaps, how to ‘do mission’ – here at home, here in our own contexts with our own neighbours and realities. 

We know about running churches, about ‘church work’ – but we have forgotten what it means to be the People of God on mission.

We know how to ‘run our churches,’ perhaps, but in some cases we’ve run them into the ground, run out of stream, run out of creativity and fresh ideas - run out of people (or run people out). We know how to run our churches; do we know how to be missionaries? - for indeed we must discover or rediscover the missional impulse and enterprise for which Christ called and calls His Church.  

There is a difference between ‘church work’ and the work of the church which, in the latter, has to do with what happens when the Holy Spirit flows in and through us. When that happens – we can’t get enough of ministry. Oh, we get tired, yes – but it’s different somehow – not as exhausting as trying to do church work.  
A lot of things we use to take for granted and do as a matter of course, in ‘normal’ church life and ministry, now seems no longer to be effective, to be working. Faster, further, harder, more of the same doesn’t seem to ‘cut it.’ (We remember the definition of insanity - of doing the same thing(s) over and over while, somehow, expecting different outcomes and results.)

What Kind of Church is Needed?

Before ever I want to invite my neighbor to church, I want my local church to be a place that helps me be missional in the everyday contexts and contours of my life, with my neighbour, in my neighbourhood – where I work and where I work out.

And what if, in addition, as a Christian father, husband, neighbor, I was responsible somehow to help raise the sense of community  (through just plain neighbourliness)? And given the privilege of helping my neighbour find his or her destiny (or sense of true fulfillment and purpose in being alive) – with compelling reason to get up each morning.

What kind of church might help me do that? What kind of denomination would help that church be that kind of church?

Incredible Privilege

We have been called into the almost incredible privilege of being God’s agents of grace, love and mercy, His servants of reconciliation, peace and hope? 

We are called to get in on the blessing. We are called to obedience and to live out and to share with others what God is doing in our lives, in and through us. As we overflow with that and intentionally and sacrificially share our lives so that others ‘get in on the blessing’ then we will get a ‘kick-back’ so to speak. 

We will get blessing all over us when we join in God’s plans and purposes and in his desire that the whole world (at least those who will have Him) will be set right through us, weak vessels and conduits as we are.

If We Are Not Missional

‘If we are not missional, our churches will die? I think that’s true. We will simply miss out, set aside as not able to discern and appreciate and live out God’s purpose in and through our lives. Jesus will simply remove the candlesticks where the flames have gone out. They are no longer doing their job, each in their small corner.

Church and Commodity

We have bought into the culture of commodity and production. We have been seduced by ‘empire’ around us. We claim Jesus to be Lord but we listen to other lords who through media and model and manatras have seduced us into living life their way, the way of the world, which is not the alternative, upsidedown culture of the Christ. Walmart or McDonalds – we go because we have needs and wants.

But what would happen if you were a church that said to those who gathered and walked and worked together – ‘It’s not about you, it’s not firstly about your needs, let alone wants. Even concerns, needs, wants with regard to our family – all of that might be met, as a by-product of our seeking another way, a more bilblical way, a missional way of following Jesus, of being church in our times.

Seek first the Kingdom; get in on God’s missional agenda – and all these things will be added to you (at least the things we truly need – God knows).

Loss of Missional Understanding

Are we in danger or have we actually missed the point of why the Church exits, why were called out and into? C. S. Lewis once observed "there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God, to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it."

What are we to do when a local church has been reduced to a remnant of faithful, albeit disheartened people, especially compared to days of former strength and glory?  Surely, it has now got to do something radical (but what?) - for mere survival (if it is to survive). And can it possibly thrive once more – perchance to rediscover its missional identity - each congregant becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus, and the entire church joining with Him in what He is doing – globally where and when possible, in the life of the particular community and communities all around it.

Churches in an UnChurched Culture

Canada was once a 'churched' culture. It no longer is that. When it was thus (in Church- and King/Queen- and Country-culture), most people went to church (meaning they attended local church buildings, entered church programs and joined in the community life and ministry of such congregations). Pastors and churches simply announced the time of their 'services,' opened their doors and people came in to receive what was offered and to give and share the gifts, resources, vision and love of Christ that held them together as a 'colony of Heaven.'

When I was a boy, even unbelieving neighbours did not cut their lawns nor run their tractors on a Sunday. Before Sunday sports and wide-open shopping, that was a day when a Christian or Christendom consensus dictated much of how life was lived in Canadian communities. There was at least a respect and then grudging tolerance for the culture of Christendom. It was not worth going against the majority view even of other non-practicing Christians that Sunday was to be considered a special day, a ‘day of rest’ - the Sabbath. Certain things were not to be done on that day out of respect for Christians, if not out of love for God.

When people gathered, we had pastors and teachers to help lead and shape their individual and collective life and witness – much of it lived in the context of the gathering in the church building and the inherent Christian nurture and witness programs carried out in that primary context.

That day is gone.

You Won?

Who wrecked our church, our denomination, our plans? Why are we challenging what and how – we believe and do? Why don’t people come and get committed to what we believe and do? Why isn’t all we do working anymore? Why do people not come to our church, get committed, enter our programs, end up running them?

To whom do we ‘throw the torch’ of ministry? Will we close down this church after all these ears? How will we survive? Will we die before we get this figured out? We opposed all those new worship songs, because how else will young people learn theology other than through singing the good old hymns?  Now, it’s: "Where did they all go?"

Well, you won; you froze them out. How can a church do local mission when we can’t even keep our own kids? We’ve lost several generations now.

Reason for Discouragement

What are we to do when a local church has been reduced to a remnant of faithful, albeit disheartened people, especially compared to days of former strength and glory?

Surely, it has now got to do something radical (but what?) - for mere survival (if it is to survive). And can it possibly thrive once more – perchance to rediscover its missional identity - each congregant becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus, and the entire church joining with Him in what He is doing – globally where and when possible, in the life of the particular community and communities all around it.

In her book, 'Small Wonder,' Barbara Kingsolver writes -The closest my heart has come to breaking lately was on the day my little girl arrived home from school and ran to me, her face tense with expectation, asking, "Are they still having that war in Afghanistan?"

I suppose there are a lot of things that may break our heart. The passing of a loved one, the absence of a friend, the hopes and fears that turn into dashed dreams and the reality finally happening: something we had greatly feared actually happens.

"As if," she continues, "the world were such a place that in one afternoon. while kindergartners were working hard to master the letter I, it would decide to lay down its arms..."

Said her daughter: "If people are just going to keep doing that, I wish I'd never been born."

Kingsolver writes that she "sat on the floor and held her tightly to keep my own spirit from draining through the soles of my feet . . ."

And she continues: "It used to be, on many days, that I could close my eyes and sense myself to be perfectly happy. I have wondered lately if that feeling will ever come back. It's a worthy thing to wonder, but maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe . . . the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, 'twixt two extremes of passion - joy and grief,' as Shakespeare put it."

One tries to keep balanced, or get balanced, tries to keep keeping on, to make sense when there's little sense - only mystery and more mystery, beyond any possible explanation; and when there is mostly silence when one tries to pray, or when one hopes a voice may respond to one's attempts at meaningful - even simple, basic conversation.