July 26, 2024 -- Mark Boyer
I spent the first 16 years of my professional life in education, with God calling me into ministry when I was 38 years old. A few years have passed. Let’s just say that if I were still teaching, I’d be beyond teaching my early students’ kids and almost to their grandkids. My subject area as an educator was music. I was a band director. It is a unique position in education, with far more administrative responsibilities and nontraditional methods than other subjects. Much like pastoring a church, you are working with a large group of people who are all coming to you at different levels of growth, and all require personal attention, right where they are at. It’s like a one-room schoolhouse for music. Some kids are just being recruited and barely know which end to blow through, while others have dedicated their young lives to the skill and are on their way to making a career of it. No matter what though, I was responsible for helping them grow to maturity, musical maturity. With such a diverse group of people to work with all at once, that growth required a highly systematic approach. In the case of a school band, the systematic approach that a director assembled was called the “program”.
Each program was different from school to school, and knowing the culture of the school or the community you were in was key to building a program that could ultimately be successful. For the large suburban and urban environments, the approach was often less personal, but highly tuned for optimal results in a short amount of time. It needed to run like a complex machine. A large school may have many directors, each taking a segment of the population and specializing in what they do. In rural schools, like the two I worked in, it was sometimes just me. I would have the same kids from recruiting to graduation, often working with a child daily for up to 8 or 9 years at a time. Someone who walked into the lead role in a mammoth suburban school might have a greater ability to launch his/her program as desired immediately. Expectations were different and attrition usually could be overcome. To the director of a small rural school, every little change, no matter how seemingly small, could sink the ship almost immediately. To the new director of a rural school, running the “last guy’s program” for the first full year or more was usually necessary, and expected. The age-old adage, “Slow and steady wins the race” is never truer than in rural environments. In rural ministry, little is different from my point of view.
It is common wisdom for those who have been in ministry for a while that you need to take your time when making changes. But how much time? When is it okay to run and when is it best to tip-toe? Just like with schools, you need to know your church and you need to know your community’s culture. To a transient suburban or urban community, change is usually “the culture”. It is expected, accepted, and often even valued. To most rural communities, change is slow and is often something to be cautious of. Don’t mistake that as a statement of judgement on my rural brothers and sisters though. Many times, that caution is wise. It keeps us from running off the cliff with everyone else, abandoning truth in the pursuit of change for change’s sake, finding relevance in the sliding scale of what is trending today. Sometimes that caution is deeply unwise though too and hinders our potential for personal spiritual growth, and for reaching the lost. Transient/Change culture and Steady/Caution culture both have their places, and both have their benefits and downfalls. Knowing your culture as a pastor is the point, never as a people pleaser, but as a wise leader. Galatians 1:10 is always pertinent.
In rural ministry, I probably annoyingly repeat myself too often in saying that “it needs to be about the process, not the product”. Why? Inside the process are the PEOPLE, and PEOPLE are who we are supposed to be reaching and growing to Christlikeness. You may have well-intended plans for starting a valuable ministry program or making a theologically sound change in the church’s culture, but if you bulldoze over the people in the process, you’ll likely have nothing left to generate that product in the end; or the ones that are left will have such a jaded view that you’ll be doing damage control more than ministry. You’ll likely be looking back at the ‘good ole days’ that didn’t seem so good when you were in them, but you now miss.
How slow is too slow in rural ministry? You might sometimes be surprised at how slow. I would even say, you WILL be surprised at how slow. Rather than thinking in terms of “how fast can I go to make the changes I believe will benefit this church”, I would suggest flipping your thinking and asking yourself “HOW SLOW CAN YOU GO?” There may be a deeply damaging theological misunderstanding that you didn’t catch while candidating, but now must be addressed immediately, for the sake of biblical authority and future health of the church. However, barring that mostly uncommon situation, the general rule of thumb needs to be to err on the side of “how slow can you go” with nearly everything.
Don’t let the pace frustrate you. Just as our personal sanctification process is life-long, and full of ‘renewing our minds’ moments, we have a long road ahead of us in faithfully and obediently leading the church with our fellow elders. You might think you are supposed to get to step 10 of a plan in five years but in reality, you might spend a lifetime and only be 5 steps into that plan. Don’t let the pace frustrate you but know and remember the goal.
Just as you need to know your church or community culture to determine pace, you also need to know God’s view of what success is. What is the goal? What is the intended product? There is tremendous joy and peace in the process…. in the people…. if you have properly set your expectations on a truly biblical set of goals. How do we as church leaders measure success? You need to answer this question properly before you consider any changes, regardless of pace. The disturbing thing is that failing might look on the outside like success to some, if they have the wrong goals. I regularly buy up used copies of Kent and Barbara Hughes’ book “Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome” and give them away to pastors when I meet them. I simply cannot state how biblically sound and mindset-shifting that book is. Go buy a copy... or ask me for one! Breaking down our misunderstandings about what our church culture tells us success in ministry looks like will change your outlook on your hopes and dreams for the church and it will change your congregation’s views on what is truly important, especially if you demonstrate clearly and teach the biblical truths within that book. Understanding how to liberate ministry from the success syndrome will also likely change your willingness to consider “how slow can you go”.
There may be times when you have to run and do it quickly. I’m not suggesting that the answer to everything in rural ministry is “go slower”. More times than not though, you are going to have to hold back the reigns of even your best intentions and say “how slow can I go” as I pursue properly leading this church toward biblical success.
Mark Boyer is slowly serving as the Pastor at The Christian Gospel Fellowship (TCGF) in Iola, PA, a community of about 150 people, bordering the small town of Millville (975 people) in Columbia County, PA. It’s the kind of place where the people love God first, and a good hunting story second.
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