Rural Pastors
It was a great blessing to me to minister to a fine group of small town and country pastors at Oak Hills Christian College the last couple of days.
I thought Hayward was remote and small, but compared some of the churches these guys pastor, I live in a bustling metropolis! Why, we're such a big city, we even have three stop lights, a McDonalds and a Wal Mart.
Some of these pastors have to drive two hours to go shopping in a big town like ours. One of the fellows lives in a village with a population of 3.
All he has to do is win one more to Jesus -- and the whole town will be converted! Now, that's a community influence beyond anything Willow Creek has ever seen!
Somehow, in American evangelical culture, pastoral "success" is defined as: building a megachurch.
Now, I am, indeed, thankful for the great megachurches in our land. They inspire me to think bigger and broader. We have learned much from trails they've blazed.
However, "building a megachurch" is NOT the definition of "success." That kind of thinking is counterproductive for pastors in small communities. If you buy into that perspective, all small town and rural pastors are "failures by default."
Nothing could be further from the truth!
True Success is obedience to God's call and the Great Commandment. . . period.
Love God.
Love your people.
Love your whole community.
Love lost people.
That's a real success story!
I thought Hayward was remote and small, but compared some of the churches these guys pastor, I live in a bustling metropolis! Why, we're such a big city, we even have three stop lights, a McDonalds and a Wal Mart.
Some of these pastors have to drive two hours to go shopping in a big town like ours. One of the fellows lives in a village with a population of 3.
All he has to do is win one more to Jesus -- and the whole town will be converted! Now, that's a community influence beyond anything Willow Creek has ever seen!
Somehow, in American evangelical culture, pastoral "success" is defined as: building a megachurch.
Now, I am, indeed, thankful for the great megachurches in our land. They inspire me to think bigger and broader. We have learned much from trails they've blazed.
However, "building a megachurch" is NOT the definition of "success." That kind of thinking is counterproductive for pastors in small communities. If you buy into that perspective, all small town and rural pastors are "failures by default."
Nothing could be further from the truth!
True Success is obedience to God's call and the Great Commandment. . . period.
Love God.
Love your people.
Love your whole community.
Love lost people.
That's a real success story!
Hey Mark, it's Bill from Lansing. I think that just loving people is a good thing but is it truly the only thing a church (of any size) is called to (I know, I just ended this sentence with a preposition)? Jesus did a lot of stuff with and for His followers including loving them, but He also multiplied Himself into them which included teaching and discipline. They, in turn, multiplied themselves into other people and so on… I am a pastor of a small church in a mid-sized town in the Mid-West. I know that it is hard to determine growth from a butts-in-the-pew perspective. I totally agree that we can’t compare any church to other churches especially churches in big towns to churches in small towns, but we can measure effective growth. I would like to know what some of the other small church pastors are doing to measure the growth of their churches.
ReplyDeleteBill,
ReplyDeleteGood point. I think loving God means that I will be praying a lot and living according to His Word.
Loving my people means that I will help them grow in faith. Loving my community means that I will deploy our people to meet the needs. Loving lost people means that I will do everything I can to bring the love of Jesus to them.
The biggest mistake any small church can make is to try to copy/duplicate a large church. I have seen this happen time and time again. The pastor and controlling leaders get so caught up in trying to be 'big' that they forget to love the lost, even those within their own church walls and community. Do these pastors/leaders ever stop to think that people in rural communities love small, even churches?
ReplyDeleteMark:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the timely reminder - I needed it today!
Dean