The Small Church Shepherd: Distinctives of Rural Ministry

For twenty years I served as a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church near Madison, Indiana. Hebron Baptist Church was about to celebrate its 150th anniversary when I first arrived as pastor. For many of those years it was a thriving, rural church, and some of long-time members could remember a time when they would open the windows in the sanctuary so overflow crowds could sit outside on blankets and participate in the worship service and hear the sermon. Unfortunately, those days were long past, and when I arrived in 1981 the church was in serious trouble. After my arrival a few members confided that they were about ready to close their doors but decided to try one more time to keep the church open. The problems they had were not uncommon for many small, rural churches. Read more