Our family has acquired a few cows over the years that sometimes prove to be more work than the benefit they produce. They do provide a source of interest for me more than my wife, Nadine, or anyone else in our family. They may fit into the description of an old rancher who said, “The cows didn’t make any money last year, but we had the use of them.” We’ve had the use of the cows with a few small benefits along the way and I enjoy the season of calving and most of the time required to care for them. An added benefit comes from cattle work with my grandkids as I watch them learn and grow in their skills. Our oldest grandson recently decided he wants a particular blue roan calf so we made a deal yesterday so he can work for me to pay for the calf. We set a price on the calf, determined his wages and developed a chart where he can put down the hours he works, allowing him to see his progress. Even at 10 years old, his work makes a real difference and genuine help to me even for an hour or the whole day.

I have observed that many people don’t allow children to work with them because they see the slower pace of a child as a bother rather a blessing. It certainly takes more time to work with a small child and when they attempt to help, they create more work. However, the joy of watching them and having them learn with me outweighs the extra work and responsibility. They really begin to make a significant contribution between six and eight years of age and by the age of ten they often accomplish as much as an adult, especially when handling cattle. If I did not allow them to contribute at the early age when they create extra work, I could not enjoy watching them succeed when they reach the age of 10 or soon 15, or 20.

With our grown children I get to reflect on their years of growing up and becoming hard working and faithful adults. In visiting with a son who will soon turn 30 he observed, “I realize now that you and mom did not just work to raise kids, you were raising adults.” A little girl of three recently watched as I walked and prayed through the pews on Sunday morning before church while her mother prepared for the worship team. She began to walk with me and then reached up and took my hand, so we walked through the pews and prayed together. Small times like this become learning experiences about prayer and spiritual formation even at three years of age.

Small and often overlooked formative times serve to build foundations for further growth and development. We can quickly lose the impulse for the young or those new to the faith who desire to join us in our work. If we miss these moments of connection when they slow us down a bit, we will never enjoy watching their growth and maturation. Often, we unintentionally diminish the impulse in the early stages not realizing we set a pattern that affects the next years of service. I have observed the adults who do not allow a child of three or eight or ten to work with them discover they cannot convince the teen of 15 or 18 to work with them. If we fail to capture the impulse at the early age, we discourage the life of productivity over the years to come. We benefit from remembering that we are developing people who will one day succeed us in our journey.

A key to developing those who would serve with us in the many roles of ministry requires us to give opportunity for others to grow with the first impulse.  Many churches struggle to find leaders to fill key roles in the church but may have discouraged the early impulse when God brings those leaders across their path. Leaders don’t look like leaders when we first encounter them. The temptation to see them like the four-year-old who creates more work, causes us to miss the fact that they soon will become the strong person who may someday lead a great program or even succeed us in ministry.

We may describe the process of raising and developing those who will fill the next tier of leadership roles in any organization, as bench strength. Most churches and ministries have not developed bench strength, where the leaders for tomorrow have meaningful roles today, preparing them to serve. This failure comes with a high price when they never engaged or trained to serve those who could fill key roles in the church or other organization. The saying that pastors and churches often make, “We don’t have enough leaders in this church,” may describe lack of engagement and captured energy of those who God has placed in our path.

I have watched this in many professions and especially in churches. We may lose the next generation of leaders in agriculture or the next wave of pastoral leaders for rural ministry if we fail to connect today. We must face the challenging truth, capture the impulse at the early stages today or lose the connection for a lifetime.

I look forward to several dozen hours of partnership with a grandson as he works to pay for a calf. We will mow the yard, haul branches, work cattle, build fence and do some construction. We will have a great time each day, but more importantly he will gain skills to use for the rest of his life and make a valuable contribution to his world. God will bring leaders to your world if you will empower them to accomplish God’s call for their lives.  It may require more work today, but they have potential to contribute great things for the kingdom of God. If we engage and mobilize the leaders God brings today and He will bring leaders in the future.

The post Multiplication Begins With Us appeared first on Rural Advancement.

By Paul D. Maunu

What factors led rural pastors from a season of plateau or decline to turnaround; producing church growth? Answering the question, what factors led rural pastors from a season of plateau or decline to turnaround; producing church growth, compelled this research.  Spiritual fervency, productive relationships, and community outreach represented the key to turnaround.  This thesis sections include; research methodology, literature review, findings and analysis, theological reflections, and application.  The research methodology concerning rural church turnaround; focused on the context of the study, research methodology, and obtaining results from the rural context.  The literature review included biblical expression, rural ministry challenges, and valuing rural ministry.  The empirical research portion addressed findings and analysis from ten interviews of pastors leading turnaround, detailing expected findings, key components, and contributing factors.  Expected findings considered programs, leadership factors, pulpit ministry, and other challenges.

The key components identified include spiritual fervency, productive relationships, and community outreach.  Spiritual fervency examined prayer, spiritual encounters, and personal refreshment.  Productive relationships included intentional investment, peer friendship, and relationships among church leaders.  Community outreach investigated mentality shift, servanthood, and catalytic ideas.  These factors provided the commonalities and framework for turnaround in the ten churches studied.  Theological reflections on Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis, and Orthopathos in the rural setting assisted in the reflection and consideration.  Applications from the research addressed the following: establishing the call to rural, pursuing spiritual growth, initiating outreach, and establishing relationships.  The methodology, literature review, findings and analysis, theological reflections, and application form the major sections of the thesis.

The challenges of life and pastoral leadership can lead ministers to feeling or getting stuck.  Moving beyond the challenges of ministry when in plateau or decline seemed an important issue to consider.  When a church encounters a season of no growth, discouragement can impact the pastor, leadership, and church members.  A church that loses people can move towards despair; leading other members to consider leaving, placing pressure on pastoral leadership to ‘righting the ship.’  Neil Anderson and Charles Mylander in Setting Your Church Free said, “Your leaders may ache over good people who have chosen to go to other churches and left the burdens of ministry to an overworked few.”[1]  Seasons of plateau and decline tend to impact many within the church, yet the minister tends to carry the weight of the burden during these seasons.  Ministers may experience defeat resulting in leaving the church and at times the ministry.  Pursuing the accounts of ministers that overcame the factors that hinder progress in the rural setting formed the framework for this research.  The narrative of pastors that battled through the discouraging times provided a paradigm for others to consider; extending hope to the pastor struggling to establish turnaround.  This research set out to discover pathways of optimism for the health of pastors and strength for churches in rural America.

Small church health proved more complicated to assess than the first appearance would indicate.  Glenn Daman, pastor, author and rural ministry specialist, referenced material that indicated that the small church often rates as the healthiest church.[1]  This concept seemed hard to understand or believe, because the factors that seemed the strongest indicators of success often connect growth in numbers and the health of church finances.  When churches fail to grow this presents a significant burden to overcome.  Whether voiced or not, the question, ‘what is the matter with us’ tends to add pressure. The burden often lies heaviest on the pastoral leadership.

Pastoral breakthrough provided a key component for the research.  Author Peter Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality discussed “the dark night of the soul” or what he termed ‘the Wall’ when he said, “For many, going back in order to go forward thrusts us up against the Wall.  Others are brought to it by circumstances and crises beyond our control.”[1]  Finding and documenting cases of moving beyond significant challenges to places of victory marked the research.  These pastoral interviews developed out of contact with various leaders who connected me with pastors that fit the criteria of this research.  Often it took numerous attempts to uncover pastors willing to participate with experiences that matched the desired framework.  The interviews occurred through phone calls to document the key components of their church turnaround.

The research criteria necessitated experiences uncovered that included turnaround from a state of plateau or decline.  This element can provide hope and encouragement to the pastor engaging in the battle to overcome the season of challenge.  This research may stir the belief that growth can happen through the difficult seasons of ministry.  The rural context often tends to get overlooked when celebrating the stories of success.  Uncovering accounts that demonstrated the plausibility for ministry turnaround offered value.  The situations discovered in this research varied in many ways; the challenges inherent in the church and local community dynamics presented unique obstacles to turnaround.  This material does not provide a one size fits all approach.  Principles came forth offering ideas to consider and apply to multiple rural ministry situations.  After the interview process concluded, the categorization and analysis of the data took place.  These commonalities offered breakthroughs and insights suggesting hope for struggling rural churches.

Separating the rural pastor from the rural church appeared difficult due to the close connection that often exists in the small communities.  The rural pastor does not represent the church in all ways yet in many aspects there seems little distinction.  This research will refer to the minister at times and the church at times.  Many rural settings where the pastor represents the only paid staff made conclusive distinctions challenging.  The church and pastor remain associated in significant ways and tend to provide a single narrative for the pastors and churches referenced.  The plateau or decline and turnaround, though differing in elements from pastor to church, will retain a link in the research.  Church dynamics and pastoral ministry provides factors to consider as a whole and dividing them would represent more investigation than this research provides.

The ability to implement change might serve as the most vital component of moving from plateau and decline to turnaround.  Dr. Henry Cloud in Necessary Endings reflected upon identifying the source of the energy for change; “If you have energy without intelligence, it will be wasted and not go toward a direction or a path.  But likewise, intelligence or a plan without energy is not going anywhere at all.  Even the best-laid plans will stagnate without a force driving them.”[2]  The discovery of what motivated change proved foundational.  The change factors may vary according to circumstance within the church, community, and minister’s personal life.  The pastors surveyed found pathways to lead their churches from plateau or decline to growth.  Some components that produced turnaround proved similar while other aspects tended to fit individual situations.

This thesis details methods used to study rural church turnaround, focusing on the context of the study, research methodology, and obtaining results from the rural context.  The literature review includes biblical expression, rural ministry challenges, and valuing rural ministry.  The main portion of this thesis addresses findings and analysis from the ten interviews of pastors leading turnaround, detailing; expected findings, key components, and contributing factors.  The key components include spiritual fervency, productive relationships, and community outreach which form the quintessential elements from the research.  These factors provide the framework for turnaround.  Theological reflections on Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis, and Orthopathos in the rural setting garnered exploration.  Applications from the research address; establishing the call to the rural context, pursuing spiritual growth, initiating outreach, and establishing relationships.  The methodology, literature review, findings and analysis, theological reflections, and application provide the framework for this thesis structure.

[1] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to be Spiritually Mature While Remaining Emotionally Immature (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 117.

[2] Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Business, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2010), 112.

[1] Glenn Daman interview with Paul Maunu, January 22, 2020.

[1] Neil T. Anderson and Charles Mylander, Setting Your Church Free: A Biblical Plan for Corporate Conflict Resolution (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2005), 154-155.

The post Church Turnaround in Rural America appeared first on Rural Advancement.

By Hope Danzl

When young pastor, Paul Richardson, arrived at Licking Assembly of God at age 24, he said yes to God’s call giving his first years of ministry to serve a small town. Now, at age 34, Licking, Missouri has seen what can happen when a dedicated pastor gives his life to the call of God and passes this dedication to future leaders.

When Richardson moved to Licking ten years ago, the congregation averaged only 20 people, yet this young leader saw a desperate need for a vibrant, Pentecostal church in the community. Richardson believed God’s grace and his youthful energy could advance the church and reach the community.

Helping this intimate congregation of 20 people overcome obstacles required more than a strategy. It called for diligent and willing leadership that would “pour out” dedicated ministry, despite the small size of the community, the congregation and the challenges that would come.

Richardson commonly heard from people around him that Licking was too small of a location for such a young pastor. Their comments of concern resounded in his head—could he really make more impact and do bigger things at a bigger church? Despite his certainty of God’s call, Richardson asked himself multiple times, “Am I truly willing to pour out the best years of my life in one, little town with a population of 1,300?”

Over the last ten years, Richardson has continued to face this question, yet God has continued to remind him why he daily lays down his life to say yes to the call. As a result of God’s faithfulness and Richardson‘s dedication, the church has grown from 20 to 160 members. Licking Assembly and Richardson keep maintaining a mindset of “we can and we should grow,” rather than simply having a survival mindset.

Opportunities to spread Christ’s hope expanded as Licking AG experienced numerical growth. Partnership with the local community and Rural Compassion, facilitated hope and encouragement for the church, the community, and this rural pastor. This vital encouragement strengthened Richardson when he was tempted to “do all, be all” or to fall into the role of a “jack of all trades.”

Many pastors find themselves encumbered taking on the routine responsibilities of the whole church, but Richardson intentionally gave others the opportunity to minister. When individuals, couples, and families come to him in need of practical, or spiritual assistance he often directed them to resources that provided them with better solutions than what Richardson could offer.

“Pastors often embrace a savior complex that says they need to do it all. Yes, we must work hard and go above and beyond. Sometimes the answer is, ‘I’m not the best solution, but let me connect you with someone in the church or community who is.’”

When pastors take on the role of a director of resources, they increase their ability to dedicate more time to pastoral leadership. For Pastor Paul, raising up local leaders became a time investment that sent four individuals out from the church to lead ministry in other places over the last eight years.

When raising people for ministry, Richardson looks for a willingness and eagerness to serve, character founded in integrity, and a disposition of readiness to become “poured out” for Jesus. It’s easy to get sucked into the allure of ministry, of standing on a platform and receiving acknowledgement for one’s hard work, but Richardson asked potential ministers in his church questions such as:

• Are you willing, and even eager, to serve without recognition?
• Can you be faithful wherever the Lord places you and find contentment there?
• Are you able to find your contentment rooted in Jesus alone?

“If you’re not willing to be ‘poured out’ where you are, you won’t be willing to be ‘poured out’ where you’re going.”

God often rewards faithfulness in small things with opportunities to serve in greater things. Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10 NIV). Richardson’s strategy of training leaders to be content in the “unseen” areas of ministry became foundational to developing impact in the “seen” areas of ministry.

During intentional training periods, Richardson provides his disciples access to the nuts and bolts of pastoral work. He also gives them a view into the everyday world of pastoring a church. He invites young leaders to share in the problems he faces and to experience the process of debating how to make the right decision for forward movement, without the responsibility resting on their shoulders.

Richardson adopted a philosophy of loosely holding onto these young leaders. He says, “Jesus gave ‘the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers’ to the church (Eph. 4:11), expecting the Lord would direct them.” Realizing God gives the gift of each disciple for a season that does not last forever, Richardson rejoices when the Lord moves them somewhere else to bless others.

As a mentor to these future pastors, he accepts the responsibility to discover ways to strengthen each one in areas of weakness. Richardson encourages spiritual and practical disciplines. His mentoring gives opportunities to develop new strengths, so that when leading their own churches in the future, they will already have experience and discipline in their lives.

Richardson wished that he had realized ten years ago that being a rural pastor is a call not a drive. A calling roots pastors in the place God has asked them to serve even when the drive dies out and desires to chase something different arise. If pastors understand that God called them to a place, they can find their identity “in Christ,” rather than relying on the drive of personal motivation. Richardson’s grounding during the hard and frustrating days reaffirmed his faith in his calling that God asked him to minister in this place and to this people.

What can happen when pastors pour out the best of their lives in a small town? The decade of faithful ministry Richardson gave to Licking, Missouri created kingdom impact beyond the limits of this small community. Four pastoral leaders have launched into ministry in other rural churches. God called all believers to give every year, as the the best of their life. Indeed, Christ requires nothing less of every believer (Mark 8:34). For Richardson, the answer to the question, “Will you pour yourself out?” is, and will continue to be a responding “yes.”

If you are interested with connecting with Pastor Paul Richardson and Licking Assembly of God in Licking, Missouri, you can visit their website at https://lickingag.com/.

Reflective Engagement:

1. How much of Your life would you be willing to lay down if the LORD asked for all of you?
2. What does it mean for you to “pour yourself out?”
3. Is your assignment a calling or a drive?
4. Who are you discipling?
5. Are you giving them an example of faithfulness in the little things?

• Are they willing, and even eager, to serve without recognition?
• Can they be faithful wherever the Lord places them and find contentment there?
• Are they able to find their contentment rooted in Jesus alone?

6. Have you discovered ways to strengthen them in areas of weakness by encouraging spiritual and practical disciplines so they can lead their own church?

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