Small town church ministry – part 2

Small town Church ministry has many unique characteristics.  Members of a small town church are often related to each other or have grown up all of their lives together.  This makes things interesting in board meetings or business meetings when family and personal issues begin to seep in.

The small church, or country church, will have some unique scheduling challenges.  For example: if your church is above the Mason-Dixon line than you will probably have low attendance any time there is even a chance of snow.  This may change in the northern most states where snow is a way of life, but in the Mid-Atlantic states in particular, snow means you must run to the store to stock up on milk and bread and you must stay away from church.

The small church will have little to know staff other than the Pastor, and often the Pastor is only part time.  This means the Pastor must be prepared to wear many, many hats.  The opportunity here is to look as these other roles as areas of service and not to continually complain about “all the work you have to do” to the congregation.  The community in a small community is usually filled with blue collar, hard working individuals.  Wearing many hats gives you the opportunity to come along side and gain respect from your congregation.

There will be many ministry obstacles, and we will look at them in Part 3.

Small town church ministry – Part 1

All too often young ministerial students are looking to minister in large suburban ministries and shy away from the small town, small church opportunity.  We are going to take a 5 part look at the advantages and disadvantages of the small town and small church ministry.

 

The small church ministry if full of opportunities.  There are a vast amount of churches in need of pastors in the rural areas of America.  These churches will offer great family atmospheres, a wide range of ministry experiences, control over your entire schedule, vast opportunities to grow and try new programs, and the opportunity to be found ‘faithful’.

The small church ministry will be full of obstacles and challenges as well.  There will be a family or a deacon that feels they ‘own’ the church and will let you know that.  These churches may have location challenges, financial challenges, facility challenges, staff challenges, age demographic extremes, etc.

MEET THE ‘PULPIT GENIUS’ WHO HAS HAD A REVOLUTIONARY IMPACT ON CHRISTIAN PREACHING

Dr. Fred Craddock’s story is an intriguing one. The preacher’s childhood, which was characterized by poverty, an alcoholic father and other personal hurdles hurdles, actually helped to mold him into one of the most influential preachers of our time.

Unlike other well-known preachers, Craddock, who has been described as a “pulpit genius,” was never intent on building a mega-brand. In fact, the preacher doesn’t have an e-mail address, doesn’t use a computer and would never dream of taking to Facebook or Twitter to spread his messages.

Craddock’s sole focus has been on teaching through storytelling. He has traveled the world, instructed at Emory University and inspired a generation of preachers. While he may not be a household name, Newsweek Magazine ranked him among the most influential pastors in America. Known for his unique story-telling, the preacher has provided a very different, less stale methodology for Christian pastors to partake in across the globe.

Watch Craddock talk about what goes into a good

His father, Fred Craddock Sr., was a complicated figure who likely played a substantial role in his son’s decision to go into the ministry. The elder Craddock loved to tell stories, which had a major impact on his son. CNN reports:

His son and namesake, Fred Jr., was one of his most devoted fans. Father and son developed a storytelling ritual. At the end of the day, the elder Craddock would return to his home in the small town of Humboldt, Tennessee, roll a Bull Durham cigarette by the fireplace and say to no one in particular, “Boy, I never hope to see what I saw today.”

 

The younger Craddock would sit with the other children in his family and listen anxiously to the stories. It had become a family tradition.

 

But as time went on, his father’s alcoholism took a toll. The family was poor, living with very little. In the end, though his mother’s faith stayed strong, Craddock’s father refused to go to church. It was this dynamic, which never corrected itself, that had a deep impact on the preacher’s pathway in life.

This path, which he believes was set early on, has an intriguing story behind it. Craddock’s inevitable entrance into full-time ministry, some believe, resulted from a miracle that had occurred years before. When Craddock was 8-months-old, he was gravely ill.

On a winter night in 1928, his mother, Ethel, was so distraught over her son’s diphtheria, an infectious disease that leads to blockages in the lungs, that she fled to the family’s barn to pray.

The baby could barely breathe and doctors couldn’t do much to help him. So, she prayed, ”Dear God, if you will let him live, I will pray every day that he will serve you as a minister.”

She fell asleep in the barn and awoke on the hay the next morning. She ran to the house to find, to her surprise, that her son would be okay. The infection had left him and so she held on to her pledge to God, not telling her son about it until he turned 17. The secret was withheld, because she didn’t want her son to enter the ministry with the wrong motivations.

Below, hear Craddock discuss the fact that his mother withheld her desire for him to enter the ministry until his teen years:

After entering college, he decided to see a counselor to ensure that his calling to the ministry was genuine. Unfortunately, he was given some troubling advice. Upon hearing about his childhood and his father’s troubles, the counselor said, “I think I‘m clear why you’re in the ministry: to redeem your father.” His hope — that he was entering the ministry for the right reasons — was dashed.

These words hit Craddock hard — so hard that he left the ministry and began taking on odd jobs. “It crushed me. I didn’t have a Plan B in my life. I was kicking the can down the road every night, trying to figure it out,” he explains.

But one day he found himself reading the book of Philippians in the Bible. As he read about Paul’s plight, he realized that the motivation to reach souls for Christ didn’t really matter. In the end, he recognized that what mattered most was that Jesus’ name was being proclaimed. So, whether his motivation was to redeem his father or to save others’ souls, it didn’t necessarily matter.

He decided to jump back into ministry, so he returned to school and he began preaching at rural churches. What came to follow was a Craddock-inspired revolution regarding the way in which pastors preach the gospel to their followers.

After getting back into the ministry, Craddock noticed that people were much more responsive to his informal talks than they were to his very structured sermons. So, he started to experiment. Rather than placing his sermon into a solid structure, he bagan to model his talk like extended conversation. In this latter form, the listener would be challenged to give meaning to the sermon. CNN has more:

Craddock never took to preachers who tried to bulldoze people into converting. He had seen plenty of preachers try to goad his father back to church. And his mother, by withholding the story of his near-death experience, had taught him that people’s faith decisions must be genuine, not coerced.

So Craddock became a preacher who didn’t preach. He once said that a “yes” is no good unless a “no” is possible.

Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, one of Craddock’s students, describes his peaching style as follows:

“He assumes from the start that we are capable of attending to the text, handling some scholarship, dealing with open-ended stories, and drawing our own conclusions. He does not tell us what he is going to tell us, and then tell us what he told us. He sits down before we are ready. He lets us chew our own food.”

Today, Craddock is 83-years-old. He gave his last official sermon in October, as he is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. His impact on preaching, though, has revolutionized the way in which pastors communicate. His background, which certainly had its challenges, helped to make this impact and its associated results possible.

WORSHIP WARS: IS THE WORST FIGHT IN YOUR CHURCH OVER THE STYLE OF MUSIC?

from Billy Hallowell – posted on theBlaze November 27, 2011

There’s a war brewing inside of U.S. churches. While some congregants prefer the beat-bopping sounds of electric guitars, drums and fast-paced tunes, others seek a more traditional worship experience. The divide, which often hinges upon age and personal music taste, only seems to be intensifying — especially as churches seek to modernize and attract younger audiences.

According to the USA Today, nearly 50 percent of Protestant churches are now reporting that they use electric guitars or drums during worship. This proportion has grown from 35 percent back in 2000, according to a 2010 Faith Communities Today study of 14,000 congregations across America.

While this may seem like a silly argument, there are many who feel passionately that music should be kept traditional, with a focus upon worshiping God and not engaging in the frills of percussion and guitar strumming. On the flip side, others claim that it’s necessary to change with the times. The beats and guitar jingles, they say, simply come with the territory of modernization.

But Rick Muchow, the pastor of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, says, “The Bible does not have an official soundtrack…There are all different kinds of churches for different kinds of people. We don’t worship music, we worship God.”

This essentially means that there’s no right way to worship the Almighty through music. Some churches, though, recognizing the sensitivity inherent in churchgoers’ prerogatives, have begun to host “themed” services.

Saddleback, for instance, runs services that focus upon various genres of music. According to Muchow, his church offers gospel, rock, alternative and traditional services. Depending on one’s age and musical taste, these options would offer a more copacetic worship experience.

Map of Church attendance

 

PASTORS UNITE AGAINST IRS TAX CODE RESTRICTIONS ON POLITICAL SPEECH IN THE PULPIT

by Billy Hallowell – from The Blaze Sept 24, 2011

Are American pastors free to share their political views from the pulpit? The answer to this question is complex. While some issues can certainly be discussed, there are also government-sanctioned limitations on partisan preaching (especially if churches expect to keep their tax-exempt status).

A regulation added to the IRS code back in 1954 has muddied the waters for pastors, creating a scenario in which some leaders are too fearful of federal consequences to exercise their right to free speech from the pulpit.

With pastors unsure of just how far they can take their partisan comments about specific candidates, some religious leaders find themselves purposefully avoiding the subject — a result that has potentially led to a decline in church education on issues of great social and political importance.

As faith influences an individual’s take on social and political issues, one wonders why religious leaders face restrictions on speech that is so intertwined with personal religious beliefs.

The fear and uncertainty that some faith leaders experience is driven by the aforementioned ban on political campaign activity that was instituted on both charities and churches, alike, nearly 60 years ago. It was back in 1954 that Congress approved of what has become known as the “Johnson Amendment.” The provision, which still stands today, explicitly prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations (churches and charities) from engaging in campaign activity.

Rather than declining in prevalence over time, this regulation has been strengthened. The last change was made to it back in 1987, when the amendment’s language was tightened to clarify that the restrictions should also cover statements and stances that stand against candidates (previously it was interpreted to only stand for statements that supported specific candidates). The IRS describes a 501(c)(3) as a group:

“which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

Since religious leaders — be they liberal or conservative — are legally restricted in recommending or railing against specific political candidates, silence, for some, has likely been the response. This has created an environment under which some leaders feel that they cannot remain true to their personal beliefs and convictions.

The Speak Up campaign (launched by the Alliance Defense Fund) addresses this important issue, while working to “protect and promote” the rights of American churches. In addition to making faith leaders aware of their constitutional right to free speech, the movement encourages pastors to stop self-censoring and to start making their political voices heard.

To combat these restrictions, which critics believe severely impede the free speech of pastors and faith leaders, alike, the ADF also launched the Pulpit Initiative and Pulpit Freedom Sunday back in 2008. The project, designed to restore pastors’ rights to speak openly about any and all issues addressed in the Bible, described the historical restrictions on faith leaders as follows:

Historically, churches have emphatically, and with great passion, spoken Scriptural truth from the pulpit about government and culture. Historians have stated that America owes its independence in great degree to the moral force of the pulpit. [...]

All that changed in 1954 with the passage of the “Johnson amendment” which restricted the right of churches and pastors to speak Scriptural truth about candidates for office.

The Pulpit Initiative is urging pastors to come together to challenge this free speech-altering restriction. And proponents of the movement aren’t shy. While they don’t want to turn churches into political mechanisms, they do want to see the Johnson Amendment declared unconstitutional. In their view, the IRS should have no right to censor what a pastor preaches about, be it political or not. The Speak Up web site has more:

ADF is actively seeking to represent churches or pastors who are under investigation by the IRS for violating the Johnson Amendment by preaching biblical Truth in a way that expresses support for – or opposition to – political candidates. ADF represents all of its clients free of charge.

But in addition to legal help, pastors can also join in on Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual event the coalition has launched to encourage pastors to preach sermons that to examine candidates’ stances. Aside from exploring candidate opinion, churches are encouraged to look at what Scripture says about each issue. Then, they will make specific recommendations about whether or not the congregation should vote for or against specific candidates.

Following the event, each pastor lets the IRS know about his or her sermon. The hope is that making the government aware of the code violation will spark an audit. Then, the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment can be hashed out once and for all.

In 2008, only 33 pastors participated; this expanded to 80 faith leaders in 2009 and then nearly 100 in 2010. With the movement rapidly growing, even more leaders are poised to take part in this year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday on October 2, 2011.

 

IS AMERICA’S RELIGIOUS HEALTH ON THE DECLINE? by Billy Hallowell

Considering charges of increased secularism, it’s appropriate to ask: Is religion slowly dying in America?

As time goes on, research continues to trickle out surrounding how faith is faring in contemporary society. Now, a new study seems to indicate that the nation’s religious health is on the decline.

On Saturday, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research released a report entitled, “A Decade of Change in American Congregations.” In total, 11,077 Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations (120 denominations) were included in the research.

The study, which was written by David A. Roozen and which covers the past decade, found that, from 2000 until 2010, there were steep drops in both financial health and attendance at weekly church services.

When it comes to finances, 30 percent of survey participants claimed that their churches were in excellent fiscal health in 2000. But this proportion dropped to 14 percent in 2010. One bright side, though, was that 10 percent of the congregations represented in the study reported that their economic situation had begun to turn around at the time of the survey.

There were also fewer people attending churches (another potential cause of revenue decline). Interestingly, this pattern occurred across denominations. According to Roozen:

“Overall, median weekend worship attendance of your typical congregation dropped from 130 to 108 during the decade, according to the FACT surveys.”

While these findings were certainly negative in nature, it is intriguing to note that congregations have increasingly been adopting more innovative worship and new media technologies to spread their messages. In fact, 41 percent of congregations that were surveyed reported using Facebook to reach out to their communities. The use of technology and innovation yielded positive results for houses of worships. CNN has more:

In the measured decade, churches, temples and synagogues told surveyors that congregations that were innovative and contemporary showed the highest amount of “high spiritual vitality.”

Forty-seven percent of congregations that said their worship experience was “innovative and contemporary” reported high spiritual vitality, versus 17% that said their congregations were “neither innovative nor contemporary.”

This data comes after a previous study by the American Sociological Association, which indicates that working-class Americans are abandoning church faster than their more educated counterparts.

Research on faith and religion in America continues to offer an intriguing look into emerging patterns, while assisting in the sociological understanding of the impact religion has on peoples’ everyday lives.

from THE Blaze September 21, 2011

AMERICAN ATHEIST LEADER CALLS FOR THE ‘ERADICATION’ OF ‘FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS’

American Atheists, a non-profit that claims to protect the rights of atheists and to ensure the “absolute separation of government and religion,” always seems to find itself in the middle of controversy.

As if the most recent Ground Zero cross lawsuit the group launched isn’t enough to inspire widespread angst, an explosive new blog post on the organization’s web site advocating for the “eradication” of fundamental Christians (and Islamists) is certain to make waves.

In the post, Al Stefanelli, American Atheists’ Georgia State Director, makes a bizarre connection between radical Muslims and Christians. In speaking about “fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines,“ Stefanelli says that both are ”dangerous, damaging and disingenuous.” Throughout the blog post, he continues to create ties between these two groups, but declines to truly define them.

Aside from making this comparison, he goes on to write that “most of these people” (again referring to both fundamentalist Christians and Islamists) “lack the maturity and intelligence” to act in “a socially acceptable manner.” Many of these adherents, he believes, are “sociopaths,” “psychopaths” or simply “delusional.”

Certainly some would agree that Islamic extremists (and perhaps fringe Christian believers) are sociopaths or psychopaths, but Stefanelli’s comments are so vague it’s impossible to discern who the targets of his rage truly are. Without a clear definition of who, exactly, he’s referring to, one’s mind runs wild with wonderment.

After all, the problem of radical Christianity is – in the views of many – a non-factor here in America (“radical” here essentially means “violent” or “dangerous”). So, who are these villains that Stefanelli is so frustrated by? Radical Islam is certainly a fear in many places across the globe, but the way he speaks about it one would assume it’s knocking on his front door. In one of the most bizarre portion of his text, he writes:

The fact is that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are not interested in coexisting or getting along.  They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.

They want us to die.

He then claims that radical interpretations of the Bible and the Koran require that believers “kill the infidel,” but he provides no evidence that Christians here in America are seeking to do anything along those lines.

He encourages “mainstream believers” within both faiths to be “intolerant of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam.” Based on his writings it seems Stefanelli also takes issue with atheists and non-believers who are content accepting the beliefs of those he finds so unintellectual and radical.

It doesn’t take long for Stefanelli to take aim at conservative media and political leaders (including Glenn Beck), either. He writes:

The atheist community gets angry when we read about the antics of idiotic, ignorant and imbicillic [spelling his] politicians and celebrities like Palin, Bachmann, Beck, Limbaugh, Pawlenty and Santorum. We post our thoughts on our social networks and our blogs and try to expose these creeps for exactly what they are.  Most of the GOP, just about all of the Tea Party movement and even some Democrats and Independents should be ashamed of themselves for going out in public wearing the equivalent of an intellectual diaper.  We criticize them for their rejection of science in favor of their fairy tales and write our letters and support our advocate organizations when our legal rights are abrogated.

He quickly turned up the volatility, continuing:

But the underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam does not operate in the legal system. They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated.

Considering his group’s involvement in fighting Christians and conservatives on a variety of issues, one wonders what, exactly, he means by “eradicated.” Also, the fact that he laments believers refusal to cower to lawsuits and the like seems to show that his beliefs are rooted in a stance against a more general, non-radical American Christianity.

American Atheists most recently launched a legal complaint against a steel cross that was found at Ground Zero following the September 11 attacks (here’s a post Stefanelli wrote on the matter). According to the group (the same organization that coordinated July 4 plane banners in cities across the nation), the cross’ inclusion in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum constitutes an “impermissible mingling of church and state.”

ARE MORE AMERICANS NOW ‘MIXING AND MATCHING’ TO FORM THEIR OWN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES?

Perhaps America really is becoming a cookie-cutter society. In his book, “Futurecast,” faith and religion expert George Barna claims that more Americans than ever are crafting their own religious experiences.

“We are a designer society,” he explains. “We want everything customized to our personal needs — our clothing, our food, our education.” Apparently, Americans now also want to have their religions tailored to their wants and needs. In his book, Barna tracks changes among U.S. Christians (the focus of this particular literature) from 1991 until 2011.

Back in 2009, Barna was already discussing the mix-and-match nature of some Americans’ religious beliefs. The following comes from The Barna Group web site:

“Consequently, more and more people are engaged in hybrid faiths, mixing elements from different historical eras and divergent theological perspectives,” Barna stated. “In some ways, we are creating the ultimate ecumenical movement, where nothing is deemed right or wrong, and all ideas, beliefs and practices are assigned equal validity. Everyone is invited to join the dialogue, enjoy the ride, and feel connected to a far-reaching community of believers. Screening or critiquing what that community believes is deemed rude and inappropriate. Pragmatism and relativism, rather than any sort of absolutism, has gained momentum.”

While almost all of the indicators in the surveys Barna most recently analyzed showed religious beliefs and behaviors decreasing (a trend that meshes with the increase in atheism, albeit a small one, the nation has experience), there were two indicators that showed intriguing increases.

First, more people claim that they’ve accepted Jesus Christ as their savior and that they expect to go to heaven. Additionally, the proportion of people saying they haven’t been to church in the past six months outside of special occasions like weddings or funerals increased (24 percent back in 1991 as opposed to 37 percent today).

The first increase will empower believers, but the second will probably scare churches and pastors, alike. But Barna claims that it’s these people — the church leaders — who may actually be responsible for this decrease in church attendance.

“People say, ‘I believe in God. I believe the Bible is a good book. And then I believe whatever I want,’” he said. But these same people find themselves bored in church. He continues, “They look at church and wonder, ‘Jesus died for this?’”

As time goes on these people, though they believe in the Bible and in Christ, apparently don’t find the need to be tied down to a congregation or a denomination. Thus, Barna says that every subgroup in America – regardless of race, age, gender and region – is experiencing a disconnect when it comes to religious cohesion.

But beyond a lack of cohesion, there also appears to be a mix-and-match mentality taking form. In fact, some are even questioning if a “god” is needed at all in religion. As Cathy Lynn Grossmanwrites:

And it’s not only Christians sampling hopscotch spirituality. The Jewish magazine Moment has an “Ask the Rabbis” feature that consults 14 variations of Judaism, “and there are many,” said editor and publisher Nadine Epstein.

“The September edition of Moment asks ‘Can there be Judaism without God?’ And most say yes. It’s incredibly exciting. We live in an era where you pick and choose the part of the religion that makes sense to you. And you can connect through culture and history in a meaningful way without necessarily religiously practicing,” Epstein said.

In 2009, the Associated Press reported on a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study that indicated similar findings as well as a major growth in the number of Americans who reported having a religious of mystical experience:

Though the U.S. is an overwhelmingly Christian country, significant minorities say they hold beliefs of the sort found at Buddhist temples or New Age bookstores. Twenty-four percent of those surveyed overall and 22 percent of Christians say they believe in reincarnation, the idea that people will be reborn in this world again and again.

As for the significant numbers who visit more than one place of worship, it’s not just an occasional visit while on vacation or for special events like weddings and funerals.

It will be interesting to see how this trend along with the increase in non-believers plays out. In the end, though Americans may be blending their own religious traditions, there’s no telling exactly how this will take shape. Still, the concept, itself, is a fascinating one.

(h/t RNS, via Washington Post)

Jeremiah

In Jeremiah chapter 11 – God reveals that there is a conspiracy against him.  His former home town and extended family are angry with his prophecy and are conspiring against him.  Jeremiah cries out to God for judgement and justice.  God speaks at the conclusion of the chapter promising judgement, but only in His time.  Jeremiah begins chapter 12 by complaining about the ‘unfairness’ of the seeming prosperity of the wicked and difficulties of the righteous.  God reveals to Jeremiah that the difficulty he is currently facing is nothing compared to the problems that are coming.  God compared his current difficulties to ‘footmen’ but revealed that the problems that were coming were ‘horsemen’ and ‘floods’ in comparison.  Instead of patting Jeremiah on the head and saying “its okay”,  God told Jeremiah that if he couldn’t handle the minor difficulties now; how was he going to face real problems that were to come!  Wow, what a reminder for all of us.