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)
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