Distinctives of Rural Ministry
Dennis Bickers
For twenty years I served as a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church near Madison, Indiana. Hebron Baptist Church was about to celebrate its 150th anniversary when I first arrived as pastor. For many of those years it was a thriving, rural church, and some of long-time members could remember a time when they would open the windows in the sanctuary so overflow crowds could sit outside on blankets and participate in the worship service and hear the sermon. Unfortunately, those days were long past, and when I arrived in 1981 the church was in serious trouble. After my arrival a few members confided that they were about ready to close their doors but decided to try one more time to keep the church open. The problems they had were not uncommon for many small, rural churches.
Some Challenges of Small Rural Churches
Revolving Door Pastorates
Like many of the smaller churches in our area, Hebron had been served for many years by a series of student pastors from a seminary an hour's drive away. For several years the average pastoral tenure was one year! Since that was the average that meant that some had stayed less than that, sometimes as little as six months. A few brave souls remained two or three years until they completed their Master's work, but these were few and far between. This led to some of the other problems that will be addressed below, but this continues to be a problem for many smaller churches.
Research done by Patricia Chang for Pulpit and Pew found that there are sufficient numbers of clergy in most denominations but few of them are willing to serve in smaller congregations.[i] Financial issues are certainly part of the reason for this, but other factors come into play as well. Seminary trained pastors often feel they cannot make the best use of their gifts and calling in a smaller church. Many persons going to seminary today come from larger, suburban churches and wish to return to those types of churches when they leave seminary. Some do not like living in rural communities. As a judicatory minister one of my responsibilities is to assist the churches in our Region with pastoral searches, and every year it seems a pastor decides to seek ministry elsewhere because the pastor and/or spouse simply do not like living in a rural environment.
Whatever the reason, the results are the same. Churches with revolving-door pastorates lack leadership and any sense of a long-range plan for ministry. Such churches spend much of their time searching for new pastors and little time doing ministry.
Poor Self-Esteem
Many rural, smaller churches struggle with esteem issues. This is especially true if they once were much larger churches. Long-time members remember when the church was packed most Sundays and enjoyed an active ministry. Now, as they look at declining attendance, facilities in need of repairs, an aging congregation, they wonder why it seems God has abandoned them.
I had been pastor at Hebron for about six months and was sitting in a Sunday school class. A question was asked, and one of our deacons began his answer by saying, "Well, Dennis will soon be leaving us for a better church…." I never heard the rest of his answer. I was shocked! I had only been there six months and they were already expecting me to announce my resignation any time. And where was I going? To a better church. I went to this church with no pastoral experience and no education beyond high school, and they didn't feel they were a good enough church to keep me longer than six months. A poor self-esteem was a big problem in that church when I went there, and it impacted every decision they made.
A church with a poor self-esteem is one that sees little future for the church. Most suggestions to do new things will be rejected for a lack of resources or some other reason, but the real reason is the members do not believe they are capable of doing anything more than surviving, and they wonder how much longer that can continue. Until that esteem can be raised such a church will struggle to attempt anything new.
Limited Resources
I have found that small, rural churches are often great at "poor-mouthing" as we call it in our part of the country. As mentioned above, new ideas are often rejected for a lack of resources. What I have found is that in most smaller, rural churches the problem is not a lack of money but a lack of vision and/or a lack of good stewardship training. It always amazes me how a church that can barely pay its bills each month can suddenly find $5,000.00 to replace a furnace that goes out in January.
That is not to say that small, rural churches do not have fewer resources than larger churches, and by resources I'm referring to more than just money. I have often found a small group in such churches worn out trying to serve on numerous committees and boards while also teaching a class, singing in the choir, and holding two or three other offices in the church. When I work with such churches I urge them to reduce their activities to one or two they can do with excellence and build their ministries around those activities. Most smaller church can accomplish much more by doing less, and doing it with excellence.
Strengths of Smaller Rural Churches
They Offer Community
Small churches are often called family churches for good reason. They function much more like a family than an organization. While this can be a problem in some churches, it is also a strength of many of the smaller, rural churches. We currently live in a time when many people are very lonely. Few people know many, if any, of their neighbors, and many of them are seeking some sense of community. Larger churches have to manufacture community through small groups, but smaller churches offer such community automatically.
It should be noted that some smaller churches need to work on community, and in particular how they treat their guests. In my current ministry I am often in a different church nearly every week, and I have found some who need to learn about hospitality. I often hear small church leaders brag that they are the friendliest church in town, and they are…to one another, but not always to outsiders. I like to remind people that one does not join a small church; you have to be adopted into the family. This includes the pastor as well. Some smaller churches are very slow with the adoption process. I've recently been invited to lead hospitality workshops for a few churches that recognized they needed help in that area.
Generally speaking, however, community is one of the strengths of smaller, rural churches. Those churches that do a good job of providing a sense of community will be churches that will experience growth.
They Provide People with an Opportunity to Serve
In a larger church it is possible for a new member to wait for years before being able to serve in any significant position within the church. That will not happen in most small, rural churches. I often joke in my small church workshops that we'll work a good Baptist to death! We'll keep piling on tasks until they finally cry out, "No more!"
Churches often complain that people are reluctant to become members even if they are faithful attenders. Other organizations have the same problem, and it is a reflection of our time. Although people often do not care about being a member of an organization, they are interested in being involved in activities in which they believe makes a difference. I find that smaller churches often have an advantage over larger churches in their willingness to allow people to become involved.
They Communicate Quickly
Like many rural churches, Hebron had a prayer chain. If there was a death, an accident, or serious illness in the church, that information quickly was passed throughout the congregation. Because I was bivocational it was not my responsibility to start the prayer chain. In fact, my name was about half-way down the list. Often, the congregation was already providing ministry before I got home and learned of the need. I was often amazed, and pleased, at how quickly a church dinner and meals could be prepared for a family who had lost a loved one. This was certainly a strength of our church, and it will be for any small, rural church that develops a good communication system.
They Share Common Experiences
Our congregation was made up primarily of blue collar workers, farmers, and retired people. When I began as pastor only one person in the church had a college education. Sharing common experiences proved to be a strength in several ways. Because I had lived in the same county in which our church was located all my life and was raised on a farm I had an immediate connection with church members that pastors coming from a suburban background would not have. Shortly after arriving as pastor I visited one of the patriarchs of the church. When I arrived at his house I found he was working in the barn. I went to the barn, sat down on a bucket, and had my visit there. As I got ready to leave he said, "You know, you might do all right here." He said that because I was comfortable in his world, and I was comfortable there because that had been my world for much of my life.
It was also a strength because we knew the people we would be most likely to attract. Churches tend to attract people most like them, so we knew the demographics of our target audience. We didn't try to change who we were to reach new people; we simply sought out people who were most like us. This was also a way we were able to more easily offer community to our guests.
They Are More Interested in People than Programs or Performances
I often joked to our congregation that if anyone wanted to join our choir they didn't have to worry about passing an audition. We may not have hit every note just right, but we had few complaints. In the smaller church, people are more important than programs or performances. We are family, and most families don't criticize other members of the family for doing their best. I've seen my share of song leaders in smaller churches that really shouldn't be allowed to lead congregational singing, but no one in the congregation seemed to mind. What mattered to the members of those churches is that when the church had a fire a few years ago, he or she was there to help clean up and may have donated a refrigerator to replace the one that was destroyed in the fire.
Summary
Ministry in rural churches offer some significant challenges, but each of them can be overcome in time. One thing I continually stress in workshops is one of the biggest needs for smaller, rural churches are pastors who will remain with them for an extended period of time. The difficulties found in many of these churches did not occur overnight, and they won't be resolved overnight. These churches need patient, loving pastors who are more committed to seeing them become healthier than they are in climbing some denominational ladder. A pastor who begins his or her ministry in a rural church committed to loving the people that worship there can, in time, earn the right to introduce transformational change that will not only impact the church but have an impact on the community as well.
Along with those challenges, small, rural churches also offer some real advantages over ministry in other types of churches. I benefitted from each of the advantages listed above in the church I served, and I saw how each of them attracted unchurched people in our community. I enjoyed a wonderful twenty years of pastoral ministry in that little rural church and wouldn't have wanted to serve anywhere else.
[i] Patricia M. Y. Change, "Assessing the Clergy Supply in the 21st Century," Pulpit and Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership, 2004, http://www.pulpitandpew.duke.edu/chang/html. Accessed June 10, 2006.
Dennis Bickers currently serves as an Area Resource Minister with the American Baptist Churches of Indiana and Kentucky. He is the author of several books that address aspects of bivocational and small church ministry. He has a new book scheduled for release March 1, 2012 titled The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision. More information about the subject of this article can be found in his book The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues.