“You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but If You Try Sometimes…” – Part Two: Some Thoughts on the Assets and Liabilities of Small-Church Spirituality (Part One Examined the Parallel Issues in Small-Town Medicine)

In part one, we explored some of the issues affecting the quality and availability of healthcare in low density population areas like the Intermountain Area of northern California. These include the following: (1) An inattention to detail that can result in patients receiving less than, other than, or simply none of the care they require to be restored to physical health. (2) The attraction of lower-priced alternatives to shopping locally for pharmacy services, leaving communities without the availability of occasionally necessary medications like antibiotics and other temporary symptom-relief measures. (3) The tendency of healthcare staff members to see patients more as a commodity that provides employees with job security, rather than being at least paying customers with distinct needs for quality service. (4) An amazing dedication displayed by individuals within the system whose thoughtfulness, creativity, persistence, and awareness of the human personhood of their patients manages to bring about the right results in the midst of an untrustworthy, and sometimes dangerously dysfunctional system.

As I suggested earlier, each of these traits finds a parallel in small-church spirituality, and I find a strong correlation to both the assets and liabilities they represent. Here are some thoughts about that.

The Lone-Ranger’s Ministry: Small-Church Spirituality and an Insufficient Focus

I am not the only solo pastor who sees the irony in being asked to devote twenty percent of our time to each of the six to ten elements of our position descriptions. Neither am I alone in feeling very alone when just one or two of the elements require our attention for a majority of the 168 hours we are allotted in a given week. The frequent result that costs us what little of that schedule would otherwise allow restful sleep is this: in our best-managed weeks, there are far many more details in need of attention than there is attention available to devote to them. Unless, of course, some of those essential details are effectively delegated. Ironically, it is by allowing others to participate in ministry responsibilities that provides greater growth and health in the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-16) But just as misfiled medical records can be deadly, local congregations, extended families, and individual human persons find their spiritual health declining for no other reason than they are missing certain basic elements necessary to barely sustaining, much less strengthening them.

One-Stop Shopping: Small-Church Spirituality and Mesmerizing Mega-Churches

For some, it is the occasional trek to a larger community and the larger churches to be found there. I cannot deny that there are several worship bands that perform far more professionally than any available in our remote rural area. The focus of a multi-staff church’s “teaching pastor” whose primary job description is to prepare and present sermons will almost always provide more polished preaching than the jack-of-all-trades general practitioner filling all pastoral roles in a small rural congregation. The economy of scale in larger religious organizations means that there are enough potential attendees to justify narrow, niche-marketed ministries to those with characteristics or affinities that guarantee that everyone else in their gatherings will be very much like them (and thus very likely to like them). But just as shopping elsewhere for routine medical services threatens to leave patients without the immediate and personalized care they will almost certainly require, a similar pattern befalls those in smaller churches and communities who find themselves in sudden need. Mega-Church pastors seldom make housecalls and hospital visits, even within the immediate neighborhood of their church’s location. Ministry to the bereaved, the substance-abuser, the traumatized, or even the recently engaged is most often requested of the pastors serving churches that are closest geographically, but who are not at all close relationally to those they have never seen in a Sunday morning pew. (And this viewpoint ignores entirely the impossibility of one-on-one ministry with pastors known only through their broadcast personality.)

Budding Beginners and Experienced Elders: Small-Church Spirituality and the Horrors of Hirelings

It is not, of course, only those in the pews (or not) whose habits are devastating to small churches. Those called to pastor in rural parishes, especially, tend to fall into two categories. First, chronologically speaking, are those with wet ink on their diplomas, degrees, licenses, or ordination papers. Denominations with insufficient multi-staff church positions for the newest, freshest, most inexperienced ministers use a variety of disparaging terms for both these pastors and the congregations they serve. Likewise, most of those younger pastors have heard not only the disparaging terms, but the pattern expected of them, if they are to survive long in the ranks of professional career pastors. But at the other end of the longevity spectrum, there are many pastors who have served for decades without retirement plans, sufficient wages to build-up savings accounts, or even the equity of home ownership as they have moved from parsonage to parsonage, or been consigned to a rotations of rentals by their lack of employment stability. Those well beyond retirement age can sometimes rely on their wisdom and experience to make up for a lack of energy, or a perceived lack of relevance to “today’s young families.” But both the “whippersnappers and fogeys” who fill many rural pulpits share one critical characteristic that dooms their congregations to constant recycling through the pastoral-search process. The shared trait is this: they will be moving on soon. Those in their first pastorate will soon be lured away to the next rung on the corporate career ladder. Those with decades of experience will soon be called home to Jesus, or at least away from effective ministry by some combination of infirmity, illness, or injury. In either case, and too many others in between, the focus is not on serving the congregation and community, but on the ongoing development of the minister, the growing needs of their family, the enticements of the next available opportunities, or their desire to comfortably finish their final chapter.

Exceptions to the Rule: Small-Church Spirituality and the Idealism of Interconnected Individuals

In part one, we celebrated individuals within the healthcare system who looked beyond their official job descriptions, their personal inconvenience, and “reasonably competent service” in order to focus on the needs of patients. Here, I want to acknowledge that my preference for small-church spirituality is based on similar observations. Where there are not seminary-trained specialists in narrow fields of ministry to specifically-segregated groups of consumers, there is a greater reliance on other resources. Among these, the Holy Spirit is most trustworthy. But a broader scripture knowledge is also in evidence, and quite helpful among those seeking what Jesus would have them to do…when there is not a staff member already assigned to the responsibilities in that area. Third, beyond the work of the Holy Spirit and the trustworthiness of scripture, there is the interrelated workings of members within the body of Christ that is necessitated by the utter lack of paid professionals on-scene in most circumstances. Last in this list, for several reasons, but still of great importance to the health and strength of small churches, especially in remote, rural, low density population areas, is the willingness of committed shepherds to stand firm and stay put, doing whatever is necessary to overcome the dangers and damage that accrues from the horrible rotation of hirelings that has destroyed not only individual congregations (the list of extinct churches in our area continues to grow) but devastated the testimony of the gospel.

So, to those members of the body of Christ who choose to attend, participate, and serve in the local communities to which God has called them, and to those pastors who resist the temptations to build careers rather than congregations: May God bless you by allowing you to see an effective fellowship in which every good thing in each of us is shared fully with all of us. (Philemon 6)

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but If You Try Sometimes…” – Part One: Some Thoughts on the Assets and Liabilities of Small-Town Medicine (Part Two Examines the Parallels to Small-Church Spirituality)

The allure is undeniable: larger communities with larger healthcare systems certainly appear to operate in a more professional and business-like manner than elsewhere. Likewise, the apparent benefits of churches with memberships larger than the entire population of the Fall River Valley seem unquestionable, at least for those who can afford the time and gas money to go where the band is more talented, the preacher is more polished, and the coffee bar better stocked. But while there are liabilities inherent in both small-town medicine and small-church spirituality, certain assets in each suggest that there may be important reasons to “shop local” for both your physical and spiritual care. The parallels I see in small-church spirituality will follow in part two. For now, here are my thoughts in support of patronizing the resources available in small-town medicine.

A Geographic Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Time-Space Continuum

My wife and I work full-time. We also volunteer for a number of organizations (including our employers). We choose to invest in our community in a variety of ways, some of which take us to some of the more remote residences tucked away here in the mountains of northern California. As one result, our busy schedule and our commitment to “shop local” leads us to seek most of our routine health-care here in the communities of our low density population area. Amidst the 1200 square miles of The Intermountain Area, there are three clinics, spaced evenly apart along the highway that runs through the communities of Bieber, Fall River Mills, and Burney. There are even two pharmacies from which to choose, although these are less than a mile from each other at the southwestern end of the area in Burney. At times there has been a third, more centrally located in Fall River Mills very near the area’s only hospital. Sadly, those attracted by the “convenience” and “low-low-prices” of mail-order drug suppliers overlook a number of factors. Not only is there the inconvenience of a long drive to pick up their occasional antibiotics or other urgently-needed medications, but there are also the dangers inherent in circumventing our local pharmacists’ ability to compare multiple prescriptions for potential interactions.

A Sociological Snapshot: Rural Medicine and Being Our Brothers’ Keeper

These are the kinds of cost-benefit decisions we face in our community. What the British would say is “penny-wise and pound-foolish” translates here to more directly “biting the hand that heals you.” The declining availability of quality assets in our local community are not always a matter of mere convenience. Most in our area cannot afford the luxurious options enjoyed by wealthier community members. Certain leaders have noted that the presence of a hospital matters more to their property values than their healthcare decisions. (“People won’t move here if there isn’t a hospital. But if you can afford to move here, you can afford get your healthcare in Redding.”) One hospital board member has offered that he sees the facilities existing only for a very short list of urgently necessary services. The time and expense of pursuing care elsewhere, though, is nearly impossible for many who are less-mobile than our more affluent retirees. Whether due to time-consuming work schedules or the limitations of insufficient gas-money (or both), the majority of our residents in the Intermountain Area are dependent upon quality healthcare being provided through the single chain of clinics, the only hospital, or the two pharmacies located within just one mile of each other.

An Anthropological Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Consequences of Inattention to Detail

Thankfully, so far, the quality of healthcare available is still amazingly high, especially when compared with the relatively low quantity of our private-pay population who choose to support them. Unfortunately, though, the strain is beginning to show. The internal matters of staffing and scheduling, no doubt, inflict great difficulties upon the dedicated individuals and teams who make possible the practice of medicine in our midst. My perspective here, however, is from that of the patient—the one who depends upon available medical assistance, accurate diagnosis, and accessible treatments, including the appropriate medications. Some recent experiences have highlighted distinct deficiencies in the system.

Twice now, in our immediate family, prescriptions have been written on the wrong forms, and once by personnel not legally permitted to do so. The most recent episode was compounded by neither local pharmacy having enough of the given medications available to fill two of three prescriptions. Further hindering the process of getting a sick patient to their home (half an hour away), the pharmacy that had a partial amount to fill one of the prescriptions had none of the patient’s information on file. Worse, in another half hour of computer and phone contacts, they eventually determined that they would be unsuccessful in securing payment from the patient’s insurance. Of course, then, the insurance company balked at reimbursing the full retail price that was paid “out-of-pocket.” But there seemed to be no alternative. After two trips to the clinic (having returned to get the properly formatted prescription), two to the first pharmacy (which found the prescription to be incorrectly written), and two to the second pharmacy (after confirming with the patient that they had no other insurance documentation with them), it was nearing closing time for all of the above. If there had not been a credit card handy, we may have failed to get the medications considered “essential” to the patient’s recovery.

These are not uncommon obstacles to our community’s pursuit of healthcare. Other patients have been hindered from health by even greater difficulties resulting from insufficient inventories. Some are dissuaded from seeking care by the confusing double-billing practice of both locally invoicing and simultaneously outsourcing the same charges to our hospital’s “not a collections-agency.” On occasion, overworked hospital personnel have failed to appreciate how easily patients overhear the staff’s crude and cruel comments about their diagnoses and treatments. And then, there are those times when it seems that other distractions take priority over the delivery of healthcare by the employees of our healthcare system. For example, one night, seeking to have blood drawn by the lab at the local hospital (as my physician had directed), I waited over an hour while my fever continued to rise (101.1 to 102.7) because the receptionist was unwilling to call the on-call laboratory tech. Only after an intervention by the health clinic’s on-call nurse were the doctor’s orders followed. To be fair, in defense of the receptionist’s otherwise inexcusable procrastination, there seemed to be ample reason for her anxiety, given the lab tech’s mood when eventually arriving to tend to a paying customer’s needs.

A Moral Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Blessings of Personal Investment

And then, there’s Melissa, the Pharmacy Tech (labelled thus so as to differentiate her, as we did in our fan mail to the pharmacy’s corporate offices, from Melissa the cashier, who I’m sure is perfectly wonderful as well). After our first trip to the first pharmacy, trying to get the right medication for the correct prescription on the wrong form, we were back for our second visit to the clinic, to get the prescription corrected. Even before I arrived at the front desk of the clinic, Melissa was there beside me. After we had left the pharmacy, the pharmacist had pointed out to her that whether we had the prescription on the correct form or not…they didn’t have the medication in stock. So, Melissa called the clinic to intercept us, except that the receptionist was momentarily away from the desk, so the voice-mail kicked in, telling Melissa that the clinic was closed for the day. Because her car was parked in the opposite direction, she decided it was safer to simply run to the clinic, so that we did not find the closed, and return to Fall River Mills in despair.

And this is where Katelyn comes in. Granted, she was away from the desk momentarily. But I believe she’s not the one responsible for the wrong voice-mail message being loaded. In any case, she and Melissa consulted and confirmed that the medication that was available had already been tried and found ineffective. They then phoned the other pharmacy, sharing the phone to confirm that the competitor to Melissa’s employer had at least a partial supply for the patient’s need. But the partial supply would “use up” the full prescription, so yet a third prescription for the same medication needed to be written…and it was, thanks to Katelyn’s willingness to contact another healthcare professional with the credentials to make it happen.

To clarify my pessimistic perceptions for you: there can be a tendency to ignore our mutual responsibilities for one another, whether divided into the categories of staff and patients, or divided into those who must rely on local providers and those who can afford to seek healthcare elsewhere (which ironically includes some of those who accept the obligation to maintain the local resources for others). Those who seek their own convenience, sometimes to the point of refusing to inconvenience themselves for the sake of others, put the health and well-being of patients (“paying customers”) in jeopardy.

Despite my pessimism that suggests that dwindling attention will result in resources dwindling even further, my flickering hope is occasionally fanned into a few ember-fed sparks. It is not just Melissa and Katelyn, though they certainly served that purpose most recently. But there are still more than a mere handful who recognize the priorities of patients as the core commodity that will either sustain our healthcare system, or allow it to implode once it is hollowed by a continued decline in attention to the needs of those patients.

Which will it be? As promised, the same question applies to small-church spirituality as well, and we will turn to that application in the next post.

Tenuous Tenure—Part Four: Finding Your Traction in the Pastor-Parish Rotisserie

http://findingtractionfilm.com/

This post continues thoughts that began in “Tenuous Tenure—Part One: The Dangers and Damage of the Pastor-Parish Rotisserie.” This post examines the third of three stages of ministry that occur in the development of a pastor’s relationship to a congregation, and to the development of new churches within the community in which they are planted. Those pastors and new churches who survive the first stage, “Putting Out Fires,” do so largely because they have learned an important skill that is based on an important shift in perspective: “Spinning the Plates.” Those who manage to supply sufficient spin and survive their fifth anniversary as a pastor, or their tenth anniversary as a new congregation, do so largely because they have developed the disciplines necessary to “Finding Your Traction.”

External Causes for Wheel-Spinning: Feeding Off of Fragile Fellowships

When successful, the transition into this third stage results in “Finding Your Traction.” Where unsuccessful, the ministry of a parish pastor or the continued congregating of a newly-established ecclesiastical franchise begins to resemble any mighty American muscle car immobilized by mud and simply “Spinning Your Wheels.”

But in the usual responsibilities of a pastor toward their congregation, or of a church-plant toward the community whose needs they decided were unmet by previously existing congregations, the wheel-spinning is often a result of smaller, solo-pastorate congregations becoming “feeder-churches.” Some of us trained during the early days of the church-growth movement were actually encouraged to ensure that our churches became the ministries feeding off of the results of ministries in these smaller churches.

It's a long road, and it leads through rough territory.

In hopes of provoking prayerful consideration by friends who know no other paradigm than the past thirty years of “bigger-is-better” ecclesiology, I dare to call this phenomenon the church-growth movement’s multi-staff metastasis. This spreading cancer routinely drains actively-involved Christians from their engagement as devoted disciples in a local body of Christ, collecting them into a cesspool of spectators gathered for pious performances in emporiums of religious goods and services. There, the swelling ranks of paid professionals evaluate and report their success by estimating the crowd of “average Christians” attending their events and programs.

In this way, disciples once devoted to one another in their mutual service in the communities to which Christ calls them can sometimes barely remember how they once seemed satisfied in “such a small, unsuccessful church.” Meanwhile, the spectacle presented by “high quality professionals” distracts them from regretting their new role as mere donors. The sycophantic symbiosis of mutual self-congratulation lets attendees admire their “ministers” who, in turn, attend to whatever the attendees most admire. Those on stage serve those who gather; those who gather serve those who perform. And those outside the happy pairing of actors and audience (that would be, in my estimation, the community to which Christ calls us in service, and often even the Christ that calls us as well), enter the equation less and less often.

Count the blessings of smooth roads, and keep running...

Internal Causes for Wheel-Spinning: The Failures of Feeder Churches

This third stage of ministry development requires similar skills of pastors within the congregations they serve, and recently-planted churches within the communities they serve. When either has overcome the firefighting (see the “Putting Out Fires” post) and plate-spinning (see the “Spinning the Plates” post), the relative stability of wheel-spinning may actually be attractive. Though the scenery never changes because there is no forward progress being made, the engine still makes a lovely sound, and the passengers are never jarred by bumps in the road. And yet, the tenuous balance between patience and boredom is rarely sustainable, even where there seems to be an unlimited supply of fuel (a consistent influx of new residence to the church’s service area, for example) to keep the wheels whirling.

Finding your traction means first overcoming the frustrations and fatigue of realizing the absence of active servants who were once among your beloved fellow-believers, but having departed (silently, for the most part) for greener, and passive pastures. Finding your traction means developing a pattern of preparing new participants to fill the vacancies voided by what will always seem like disloyal defectors. And finding your traction means evaluating success by the actual ministry being accomplished in the communities to which Christ has called us, rather than in the stability of a particular roster of Christian servants. Few and rare are those who refuse to be seduced by the simpler, easier, more exciting, or less time-consuming options offered elsewhere.

...and on into the night.

Where We Go to Find Our Traction

Remember that we are considering congregations that have reached their tenth anniversary, and pastors who have served more than five years in their current position. Only those who have surpassed the firefighting and plate-spinning stages have built the equity necessary to accommodate a more definitive approach to proclaiming “this is who we are.” And that is where the traction is to be found, whether it is a congregation that has become established, or whether it is an individual Christian servant who has become incorporated into the congregation being pastored.

A strong sense of vision and mission in service to Christ and others will not eliminate sheep-stealing poachers from offering a more comfortable Christian experience to even those who strongly support the current purposes being served by a given congregation. But the statement “this is who we are” assumes that the loyalty of members within a local body of Christ transcends the tasks and structures of particular ministry activities. The congregation’s vision and mission evolves together as certain needs are met and other needs arise. The consistent focus on Christ’s calling to serve together in His purposes also sustains the movement forward, despite the addition and subtraction of individual members of the body. New gifts and talents expand the congregation’s abilities; what appear to be losses may serve to refine and refocus the congregation’s areas of service.

What Lies Ahead

Are there further stages of ministry for pastors and recently-planted congregations? Probably so. But while my tenure at The Glenburn Community Church has allowed me to recognize where I go in finding my traction here, my two experiences in church-planting ended with the dissolving of each congregation before their tenth anniversary. (Again, I have seen some reach the third stage in their ministries sooner or later than the averages. But both of those in which I served failed due to the fatigue of their primary plate-spinners.)

Is there a fourth stage of ministry beyond what appears to me to be the ultimate maturity of this third stage? Yes, I believe there is. For congregations, perhaps the fourth stage involves the eventual evolution beyond being led by their founding pastor. For pastors, it may involve the eventual adjustments and accommodations to injury, illness, or infirmity, where mere delegation (to and with those who share in developing and implementing vision and mission) must give way to the outcomes of true discipleship. There comes a day when one’s calling shifts to passing the torch either as a consultant, or decedent.

As a Death Pastor, I will suggest that the transition is preferable when you decide to pass the torch while you can still be available as a consultant.