The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary–Volume 8, Spring 2021

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Volume 8 n Spring 2021 Welcome..............................................................................................................Dr. Michael Spradlin and The Journal Committee Biblical Counseling and Beyond: Ministering Scripture in Rural Settings....................John Babler The Centrality of Expository Preaching to Pastoral Ministry......................................Lee Brand, Jr. Modern Cultural Shifts in Rural America and Their Impact on the Church..................Jeff Clark The Product of Jesus’ First Miracle Considered Practically, Exegetically, and Theologically...................................................................................................Wayne Cornett From Death to Life: Reflections on Rural Church Revitalization.................................Danny Davis

2095 Appling Road n Cordova, TN 38016 901.751.8453 n MABTS.edu MidAmericaJournal.com

Volume 8 n Spring 2021

B AP T I S T TH E OL O G IC A L S E MI N A R Y

Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

M id-A mer icA

Advancing Technology for the Advancement of Church Ministry.................................Kenneth R. Lewis From the Cross to the Crescent: Conversion Experiences of Young Professing Christians to Islam................................................................................................Tom Marshall Pastoral Leadership in Rural Church Revitalization...................................................David Shepherd Five Ways for Rural Ministry to Look Ahead.............................................................Stephen Witmer Book Reviews

Published annually by Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Cordova, Tennessee, Michael R. Spradlin, President.

Journal Committee Brad Roderick, PhD Terry Brown Van McLain, PhD Steve Miller, PhD Jere Phillips, PhD The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary is published each spring under the guidance of the journal committee of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

Correspondence concerning articles and editorial policy should be addressed to the editor, Brad Roderick. Comments concerning book reviews should be directed to the book review editor, Terry Brown. Manuscripts for consideration should be sent to the editor. Writers are expected not to question or contradict the doctrinal statement of the Seminary.

The publication of comments, opinions, or advertising herein does not necessarily suggest agreement or endorsement by Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, the editorial staff, or the Trustees of the Seminary.

The subscription rate for the print edition of the Journal is $10.00 per year. The rate is for mailing to domestic addresses. The Seminary does not mail The Journal internationally, but makes it available worldwide through its online edition. The online edition is available free of cost at www.midamericajournal.com. Address all subscription correspondence to: Journal Committee, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 2350, Cordova, TN 38088. © 2021 Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary ISSN: 2334-5748 “Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary is a school whose primary purpose is to provide undergraduate and graduate theological training for effective service in church-related and missions vocations through its main campus and designated branch campuses. Other levels of training are also offered.”

Table of Contents 1 Welcome Dr. Michael Spradlin and The Journal Committee 3 Biblical Counseling and Beyond: Ministering Scripture in Rural Settings John Babler 13 The Centrality of Expository Preaching to Pastoral Ministry Lee Brand, Jr. 29 Modern Cultural Shifts in Rural America and Their Impact on the Church Jeff Clark 41 The Product of Jesus' First Miracle Considered Practically, Exegetically, and Theologically Wayne Cornett 51 From Death to Life: Reflections on Rural Church Revitalization Danny W. Davis 63 Advancing Technology for the Advancement of Church Ministry Kenneth R. Lewis 77 From the Cross to the Crescent: Conversion Experiences of Young Professing Christians to Islam Tom Marshall 91 Pastoral Leadership in Rural Church Revitalization David Shepherd 103 Five Ways for Rural Ministry to Look Ahead Stephen Witmer 115 Book Reviews

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Welcome Dr. Michael Spradlin and The Journal Committee

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elcome to the The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

Our mission here at Mid-America is to train the called to reach the world.

In classrooms and through publications like this one, Mid-America continues to push forward with scholarly research which can be practically applied to advance the Gospel. In the following articles, you will find insightful writing that will challenge you to rethink methods and reignite your zeal for the call. I pray this will be true of each reader as we pursue together scholarship on fire and faithfulness to our ministry calls until He comes.

Sincerely, Dr. Michael Spradlin President, MABTS In last year’s edition we focused on the revitalization of urban ministry. This year is in some ways a part two to that volume. Our focus is on revitalization of rural ministry.

We are blessed to have authors this year who have been used by the Father to impact rural communities across America and around the globe. We are sure you will find some practical tips for your own ministry as you read the valuable contributions they have prepared on topics as wide ranging as church revitalization, the use of technology and biblical counseling in the rural setting.

In addition, we have some insightful work on other topics, including an analysis of the growth of Islam and the value of expository preaching. We pray that your ministry will be blessed and the kingdom will be advanced as together we continue in all things to keep Christ preeminent.

The Journal Committee:

Brad Roderick, Editor Terry Brown, Book Review Editor Van McLain

Steve Miller Jere Phillips

NOTE: The individual writers are responsible for the contents of each article and review.

Neither the seminary nor the committee necessarily endorse the contents.

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Biblical Counseling and Beyond: Ministering Scripture in Rural Settings John Babler, PhD Dr. Babler serves as chairman and professor of the Biblical Counseling Department at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. In 2020, he retired as a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching for twenty-eight years and began his service at Mid-America. Dr. Babler has published three books on biblical counseling, authored journal and blog articles, and contributed to other works as well. Dr. Babler and his wife Marilee were married in 1984 and are blessed with eleven children and twelve grandchildren.

Introduction My wife and I were born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and have spent most of our married lives in Fort Worth, Texas. The smallest city we have lived in had a population of approximately one hundred thousand. I may not have had any experience living in a rural setting, but God blessed my wife and me with a son who loves large animals. We have had the privilege to raise and show twenty-seven Texas Longhorn and two Maine-Anjou cattle and six horses through the years. Through this family activity, we have developed close friendships with many who lived in rural communities and observed many more during numerous cattle and horse shows in which we participated.

I came to respect the work ethic and the salt-of-the-earth winsomeness of these rural families. I also began to be burdened for them from a ministry perspective. I saw the closeness and community common among those in rural areas. I realized that frequently young ministers considered pastorates in rural areas a stepping-stone to a better, or at least bigger, church. Rural communities are often tight-knit, and it may take a long time for outsiders to be accepted. The key and foundation of the Christian life are relationships.1 Unfortunately, the short tenure of many pastors hinders the development of close relationships in rural settings. The intentional ministering of God’s Word, or biblical counseling, can help pastors and other Christians develop God-honoring relationships.

The thesis presented in this article is that the field of biblical counseling provides foundational principles and methods that can help develop ministry relationships and honor God in rural settings. The fact that people are often hesitant to see themselves as counselors will be addressed first, followed by a basic overview The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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of biblical counseling. Foundational biblical counseling and ways to minister beyond counseling will wrap up the article.

But, I Am Not a Counselor When most of us hear the word counselor, we think of someone who has an advanced degree and sits in an office providing a mysterious concoction of listening and help. Most Christians do not perceive themselves to be counselors. If you are a pastor, you probably have been taught that if someone comes to you for counseling, you should defer and refer to the professional. If you are a layperson and someone seeks your counsel, you are likely somewhat intimidated and hesitant to help due to a perceived lack of training or competence.

If you are a parent, you are a teacher. Sometimes I watch one of my children’s behavior and wonder, “Where in the world did he learn to do or say that?” As I consider this question, I am sometimes reminded of my behavior and example, and I realize they learned it from me. I was a teacher even though I did not want to be, and I taught something I did not want to teach. Similarly, we are all counselors, whether or not we recognize it or want to be. People come to us for counsel, and we provide it even though we might not consider it counseling. Our natural response to someone who comes seeking informal counsel is to share common sense advice or advice based on our experience. When we do this, we miss an opportunity to share God’s Word.

In prophesying the coming of Jesus, Isaiah said, “His name will be called Wonderful Counselor” (Isa. 9:6, NASB). Jesus, indeed, was and is the ultimate counselor. Scripture teaches that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ (Col. 2:3) and that He was uneducated from the world’s perspective. The Jews were astonished and asked about Jesus, “How has this Man become learned having never been educated?” (John 7:15). Seminary graduates or not, we can all be competent to counsel.

Born-again, transformed believers in Christ (John 3:3, Eph. 2:1–10) who have the Holy Spirit living within them (1 Cor. 3:16) ministering God’s living and active Word (Heb. 4:12) are God’s answer to help a hurting and struggling world.

The significance of this statement is great. I was trained in the secular behavioral sciences and was a professionally licensed counselor in the past. I can tell you there is nothing in all the world’s counseling wisdom that can prepare anyone to counsel as competently and successfully as a transformed believer in Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who ministers God’s Word.

Since you are already a counselor, it is essential to strive to become an effective biblical counselor intentionally. It starts with reading Scripture with an eye towards application. As you read the Bible, prayerfully consider how what you read could be used to help others in your particular setting. Many of the illustrations and stories in the Bible revolve around rural scenes and are particularly applicable 4

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to ministry in rural settings today. In addition to illustrations and stories, you will see verses that directly speak to situations that people around you are dealing with or might encounter. Once you find a verse or passage that would or could be helpful in your ministry, develop a way to access it later. I make a list of these verses on the blank pages in the back of my Bible. I have found that as one commits to ministering God’s Word and becoming a genuinely biblical counselor, God provides frequent opportunities to minister His Word.

What Is Biblical Counseling?

In simple terms, biblical counseling is ministering Scripture to those who face struggles in life or who desire wisdom or God’s direction. In essence, it is intense discipleship. It encompasses the Biblical idea of “one-anothering” and soul care.2 Using God’s Word to help others is not a new concept. Throughout the pages of Scripture, the phrase, “It is written” is found referring to God’s Word.3 There are also examples throughout the church's history of the utilization of Scripture by pastors and others to provide encouragement and admonition to members of the flock.4 Despite this history, in the early twentieth century, the church began to turn more and more to the world for answers to counseling problems.

In the midst of a therapeutic culture where counseling had become a formal, professional discipline (well actually, many disciplines—psychiatry, psychology, social work, marriage, and family counseling, etc.), Jay Adams is credited with "rediscovering" biblical counseling. He is considered "the founder of the biblical counseling movement in the twentieth century."5 In his book Competent to Counsel, first published in 1970, Adams utilized the term nouthetic (transliterated from the Greek New Testament word that is most frequently translated “admonish”) to describe biblical counseling.6 Adams states, “Nouthetic counseling is, in short, confrontation with the principles and practices of the Scriptures.”7 It includes three essential elements: (1) the assumption of a real problem in the counselee’s life that needs to be solved, (2) the conviction that problems are solved through verbal means in the form of personal conference and discussion rooted in the Word of God, and (3) a motivation rooted in love and genuine concern for the counselee’s welfare that leads ultimately to the glory of God.8 After the publication of Competent to Counsel, the field of nouthetic counseling began to develop. As the field grew, Adams wrote many more books and was joined by numerous other authors. The National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (now known as The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors) was formed to provide certification for biblical counselors. Many Christians have been influenced by Jay Adams and those who came after him to confront, encourage, help, comfort, and love people struggling with the challenges of life, both serious and comparatively minor. The field has grown and become influential in assisting people to become effective counselors.9 The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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Competent to Counsel provided a biblical argument that one could be competent to counsel because he or she is a Christian and used God’s Word as the foundation and content of counseling. Counseling competence is not dependent on a particular degree or license or specific specialty. Christians in rural settings, where there is often limited access to counseling services and a hesitancy to seek formal counseling, have an excellent opportunity to serve others by ministering God’s Word.

During the growth of the field of biblical counseling, many definitions have developed. I believe the following effectively defines biblical counseling: Biblical Counseling is a ministry of the local church whereby transformed Believers in Christ (John. 3:3–8) who are indwelled, empowered, and led by the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:26) minister the living and active Word of God (He. 4:12) to others with the goals of evangelizing the lost and teaching the saved (Mt. 28:18– 20). Biblical Counseling is based on the conviction that the Bible is sufficient for the counseling task and superior to anything the world has to offer (2 Ti. 3:16–17, He. 4:12, 2 Pe. 1:3–4, Ps. 119, Jas. 4:4). Biblical counselors realize the significance of sin (Ro. 3:23, 6:23) and after self-confrontation (Mt. 7:5) lovingly confront those who are in sin (Lk. 17:3–4) and call them to repentance (2 Ti. 2:24–26). Biblical counselors also realize that in a fallen world people can face significant crises that are not a direct result of their own personal sin (Job 1–2).

Biblical counselors purposefully and patiently walk with, serve, love, encourage and help people in these cases (1 Th. 5:14) and also call upon others in the body to assist based on their gifts and roles (1 Cor. 12).

Biblical Counseling can be informal (accomplished over coffee, in the hallways of the church, and in the work-place and community) and formal (accomplished through scheduled appointments in an office setting). All Christians should be taught to minister God’s Word and encouraged to boldly do so in the official ministries of the church and as they are living life. Biblical counselors are motivated by the compassion of Christ (Mt. 9:36, 2 Cor. 5:14–15) and by obeying His commands (Jn. 14:21) seek to be salt and light in such a way that others see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven (Mt. 5:16).10 Please note first that biblical counseling is a ministry of the local church. No matter the church’s size or how rural the setting, when God’s people work together as part of the body to use Scripture to help other believers and share the Gospel with the lost, biblical counseling has occurred. Also note that, by this definition, biblical counseling is not limited to formal settings where appointments are made but opens up the possibility of counseling biblically to all believers. Based on this definition,

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the author has developed an approach entitled foundational biblical counseling that will be helpful as you begin to counsel with Scripture.

Foundational Biblical Counseling Foundations are essential in life, as well as in buildings. In Matthew 7, Jesus tells a familiar story comparing a house built on a foundation of rock to a house built on a foundation of sand: Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall (Matthew 7:24– 27).

The house built on the rock represents a person who has heard the words of Jesus and acts on or does them. The house built on the sand represents one who has heard but does not act upon or do the words of Jesus. The passage points out that the storms of life came upon both lives, but the house built on the firm foundation of obedience and responsiveness to the Word weathered those storms well and continued to stand. It is an excellent reminder to us and for us to share with our counselees that even when we are obeying and doing the words of Christ, storms will come to our lives.

In biblical counseling, we focus a significant part of our time on helping people confront, repent, and live in forgiveness from their sin. This passage can be of great benefit in reminding them of the importance of obedience. Some who seek counsel may be victims and come due to issues beyond their control and responsibility. Sometimes the sins of others, disasters, or traumas and illnesses might have impacted the counselee or a friend or family member. In these cases, this passage can be used as a reassurance and a reminder that storms do impact everyone and as a springboard to teach them of God’s love and care for them.

When I first meet with counselees, I listen and assess their situation and provide hope by assuring them that God’s Word has the answers to the issues with which they are struggling. We then study the Matthew 7 passage, and I emphasize the significance of having a solid foundation for our lives. I continue to use the twohouse illustration and tell them that, based on what they have described to me, if we considered their life as a house that it does indeed have some problems. They could consider it like having holes in the roof, plumbing leaks, and maybe some walls that are falling down—significant issues that need to be repaired. I also tell The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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them that if we were to address those problems without repairing the foundation first, the problems would soon come back. I have found counselees very open to this illustration and enthusiastic about working on the foundation as well as the issues for which they came to get help.

The foundation for the Christian life, and what I believe should be the foundation for our counsel, is found in what Jesus said was most important. In an ongoing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders presented in Matthew 22, Jesus revealed what is most important for life in response to a lawyer’s question: One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:35–40).

There are many significant truths in this short passage that can be beneficial to those whom we counsel. The first one is that the most important thing for Christians is to love God. Jesus said this is the great and foremost commandment.

God desires to be first place in our life. Most all counselees come to us with their life out of order. Sometimes it is very obvious, as when there is blatant sin that has become first place in their life. It is easy for them to see and hopefully confess that God has not had first place in these cases. Sometimes it may be a little harder for them to see that their life is out of order, as when their desire for a good thing that honors the Lord becomes more important than the Lord Himself. For example, you could have a counselee committed to reconciliation in marriage while the spouse is divorce-minded. In that case, he can become so focused on achieving reconciliation that it becomes more important to him than his relationship with God. As we consider this passage with those that we counsel, it is important to remind them that of all the things God could have said were most important, that which eclipsed them all was that we are to love him. While Scripture challenges us to serve Him, obey Him, study His Word, and be holy—among other things—the most important thing is our relationship with Him. It is easy for Christians to devolve this all-important relationship with the holy, righteous, loving God into a series of tasks. Many Christians prioritize tasks such as Bible study, prayer, and church involvement and then, after completing those tasks, live their lives with little or no consideration of God. Challenging counselees to love God and have Him first in their lives and providing suggestions regarding how to do this dramatically benefits those we counsel.

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Jesus specifies, “the Lord, your God.” The love that Jesus prescribes requires a personal relationship: we are not to love our father’s God, or our mother’s God, or our pastor’s God, but our God. Not only did Jesus teach that God is to be first place in our lives, but that we are to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind. As we consider the challenge to love God, we do not find any step-by-step instructions in the pages of Scripture or a checklist to rate our performance. There are many examples in the Bible of God’s teachings about love, of individuals who love God, and about God’s love for us that can be beneficial for our counselees. We should use these passages as we teach or remind counselees of the fundamentals of who God is and how to develop and grow in a relationship with Him. As I teach this to my counselees, I encourage them to think of their regular Bible reading as spending time with the Lord and relish the opportunity to be with Him and hear what He has to say through His Word. In addition to whatever biblical homework I assign them related to the specific issues with which they are struggling, I assign them daily Bible reading and encourage them to think of that time in Scripture as spending time with the Lord rather than a task. I also take the opportunity to teach them the importance of encountering the whole counsel of God on a regular basis and how a consistent Bible reading program allows them to encounter all of God’s inspired Word.

The importance of spending time helping counselees understand the how and why of having God first in their life cannot be overstated. I strongly encourage you to utilize the suggestions above and develop your own ways of teaching counselees how to love God. Closely related, both conceptually and contextually, to the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and for Him to be first place in our life, is Jesus' commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. The vast majority of people who come to us for counseling are also struggling with this command. As biblical counselors, we can be used of God as part of a process that can bring about heart change. These two commands of Jesus indicate that the ultimate heart problem that people deal with is self-centeredness or self-idolatry. The biblical solution for selfcenteredness is found in this foundational passage. If we focus on loving God and loving others, we are not focused on loving ourselves, which we do naturally (Eph. 5:29). “On these two commandments depend the whole of the law and prophets” (Matt. 22:40). If we love God first and then love others, our lives reflect the whole of Scripture.

When I introduce the biblical mandate to love our neighbor to my counselees, I remind them that, contrary to what our culture says, biblical love is not primarily emotional but is active and volitional. I teach counselees Jesus' example of love for his disciples, shown in John chapter 13. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet is a wellknown passage, but some are not aware that His washing their feet was an example of his love for them. In verse one, we read Jesus “loved His disciples to the end.”

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In verses 34–35, He says, “Even as I have loved you, you also love one another.”

Sandwiched between these verses on love is Jesus' example of washing the disciples’ feet (John 13:1–15). After he washed their feet, Jesus summarized his actions and challenged his disciples by saying, “…‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you’” (John 13:12–15).

The passage makes it clear that Jesus knew he would soon be betrayed to death on the cross, and even with that knowledge, his focus was not on himself but instead on loving His disciples. He showed His love by serving them. We can teach our counselees that, even in the midst of conflict, they can follow the Great Commandment mandate to love their neighbor by looking for and taking advantage of opportunities to serve them.

After teaching this passage and helping counselees understand that we can follow this example of Jesus' love, I teach them to look for opportunities to serve others and, in so doing, love them. Even if a conflict with another is not an issue for the counselee, the illustration of Jesus loving His disciples is very beneficial for Christian living. Homework should be developed and assigned to help the counselee put into practice their new understanding of putting others in front of themselves and second to God. If conflict with another is an issue for the counselee, then homework assignments should be assigned for them to love by serving the one with whom they are in conflict. I often have counselees look for three opportunities to love through serving the one with whom they are in conflict and then carry them out during the next week. Some counselees will struggle with such an assignment due to the hurt or pain the other has caused in his or her life. Shared with compassion and love, the story of the unjust slave in Matthew 18:21–35 can be helpful with these counselees.

No matter how significant the sin against them was, it pales in comparison to their sin against God. His undeserved forgiveness of our sins provides a foundation for our forgiveness of others. He gives the grace to forgive and escape the bondage of unforgiveness and bitterness.

The greatest commandment provides a very clear and simple foundation for the Christian life in general and counseling in particular. Teaching it to our counselees will serve them well, not only through the counseling process but in their Christian life after graduation from counseling. During the counseling process, some counselees who start out great have setbacks and struggles after several counseling sessions. One of the benefits of emphasizing the greatest commandment as a foundation for counseling is that it provides a straightforward, clear way to remind them of the foundational importance of keeping God first in their lives, then neighbors second. I have found that upon asking those who have setbacks during counseling what their walk or relationship with the Lord looks like, they say “Not 10

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that good.” Sometimes, they will remember the greatest commandment on their own. If not, I can mention it and remind them of its significance and call them back to prioritizing God and others.11 Simply put, the motivation for ministry is to bring glory and honor to the name of Christ (1 Cor. 10:31, Col. 3:23), to be salt and light in a dark and tasteless world (Matt. 5:13–16), and to consider others as more important than ourselves (Phil. 2:3–4). Having the right motivations is vital since sometimes speaking the truth in love is difficult and does not meet the person’s perceived or stated need.

However, our goal for those we minister to is that they bring glory and honor to Christ’s name. Sometimes the obedience God requires of the one we are ministering to seems to be the opposite of what they (or we) might consider “helping.”

Remembering the goal is that they glorify and honor God helps if we have to speak hard truths. We can rest in the assurance that as those we minister to honor God, even in the hard things, they are genuinely helped.

Beyond Biblical Counseling A foundational conviction of biblical counseling is that the Bible is sufficient for counseling. In One Ministry of the Word, Mark Mann emphasizes that all ministry should be a ministry of the Word.12 The Bible is not just sufficient for the counseling task but for all of ministry. In rural settings, there is often a hesitance to seek out counsel. That does not mean that people in those settings are not struggling with serious challenges. In such settings, we need to take the counseling to them.

We need to prayerfully look for ways to serve others, come alongside them, and walk with them through life.

Through a comprehensive ministry of the Word, God provides His church with opportunities to make an eternal impact on those to whom we minister. The ultimate goal for the lost to whom we minster is that they come to know Christ.

Unless one has a relationship with God, it is impossible for them to bring glory and honor to the name of Christ (Read Rom. 8:6–8 and 1 Cor. 2:14). I have often heard it said in social work circles that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. On a mission trip in the Philippines, I heard the rest of the story: if you introduce him to the Creator of fish, he may be fed for eternity. As we extend the principles of biblical counseling to all of ministry, we may sometimes teach people to fish, sometimes give them fish, but all the time, we are trying to introduce them to the Creator of fish. The ultimate goal for those who already know Christ is discipleship that they, as well as we, become more like Christ.

As you seek to implement truly biblical ministry, make sure that it is biblical, relational, comprehensive, and practical. Ministry should be biblical, in that it is based on a belief that the Bible is sufficient for ministry and accomplished with a desire to minister God’s Word whenever possible, and relational, as it is based The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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on the great commandment to love God and love others. Ministry should be comprehensive as we recognize that it often happens outside the counseling room and our comfort zone. We must focus not just on the soul but also on the physical issues people face.

Finally, ministering the Word must be practical, avoiding the temptation to “dispense” Scripture verses and truly focusing on helping people as they struggle.

Sometimes helping someone get the milking done or the crop harvested or the animal to the vet while appropriately and lovingly sharing God’s Word is just what we need to do. Sometimes sitting up all night with someone who is struggling with a crisis is what God requires. As we look for opportunities to be in relationships with those around us and follow the example of Jesus and the teaching of the Bible, others are blessed and served; and we grow and honor our Lord as we speak the truth in Love (Eph. 4:15).

MINISTER THE WORD!

NOTES

1. Matthew 22:36–40.

2. 2 Corinthians 1:3–5; Dale Johnson, “The Sufficiency & Authority of Scripture to Diagnose & Cure the Soul” Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (blog), October 18, 2019, https://biblicalcounseling.com/the-sufficiency-authority-of-scripture-to-diagnoseand-cure-the-soul/.

3. Some examples are Deuteronomy 5:1–ff, Joshua 8:31, Ezra 6:18, Matthew 4:1–11, Romans 1:17, and 1 Corinthians 1:19.

4. For one example, see Theodore Tappert, ed. and trans., Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (Auckland, NZ: Muriwai Books, 2018).

5. Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling: The Doctrinal Foundations of Counseling Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 32.

6. Jay E. Adams, Competent to Counsel (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970).

7. Adams, 51.

8. Adams, 44–50.

9. For more information about the history of the field of Biblical Counseling, see David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement, Context and History, (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2010), or Heath Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement Since Adams, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).

10. John Babler and Nicolas Ellen, ed., Counseling by the Book, Revised and Expanded Edition (Fort Worth, TX: CTW, 2019), 15.

11. The above section is adapted from Babler and Ellen, 171–180.

12. Mark Mann, One Ministry of the Word (Stanley, NC: Timeless Texts, 2005).

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The Centrality of Expository Preaching to Pastoral Ministry Lee Brand, Jr., PhD Dr. Lee Brand Jr. is the vice president and dean of the Seminary at MidAmerica as well as chairman and professor of the Practical Theology Department. He received his undergraduate degree at Mississippi State and his MDiv and then PhD in Practical Theology at MABTS. He pastored a church for seventeen years in Starkville, Mississippi before coming to Mid-America. Dr. Brand has been married to his wife Tiffany since 2003 and they have five wonderful children.

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od’s Word is filled with precious promises to His people. Old and New Testament saints drew strength from the proclamation of these promises and enjoyed renewal from their realization. The Lord spoke through Jeremiah and gave one such promise. The prophet declared the coming day when the Lord would send Israel a different type of leader. He heralded, “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer. 3:15, NASB). The shepherds spoken of in the previous passage were national leaders who would guide the people in the right direction.

God engrained the shepherd image into His people to the point that Old Testament kings carried a shepherd’s staff. Often biblical writers described the Lord as a shepherd. Consider Psalm 23 and Peter’s declaration of Christ as the Great Shepherd of the sheep in 1 Peter 5:4.

God calls leaders of His churches and gives them the responsibility of shepherding His people. Individuals serving as pastors juggle many responsibilities.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the call to pastoral ministry, identify the central responsibility of pastoral ministry, and consider expository preaching as the best approach to fulfilling that foremost responsibility.

The Call to the Shepherding Ministry Believers enjoy countless expressions of His grace. Christians are graced with the call to salvation and the hope of eternity. Along with the call to salvation, there is a call to service. God calls people into a particular area of service.

The Old Testament is replete with examples of God’s call upon people. He called Noah to serve as the builder and captain of the Ark (Gen. 6:13–14). God The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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summoned Abraham to serve Him as the father of many nations (Gen. 12:1–3). He invited Moses to be the deliverer of Israel from Egypt and said, “Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exod. 3:10). Jehovah gave specific calls to numerous biblical characters in the Old Testament (Josh. 1:1–2; Judg. 3:9, 15, 31; 4:4; 6:11–16; 10:1–2, 3; 11:1; 12:8, 11, 13; 13:24; 1 Sam. 3:1–14).

An examination of the New Testament unveils evidence of the Lord’s vocational call upon individuals. In the early stages of his earthy ministry, Jesus called men unto himself. Matthew 4:18–22 says, Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets; and He called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. Jesus similarly called Matthew, the tax collector, to redemption and a life of carrying the gospel to the lost world (Matt. 9:9).

The Meaning of the Call The examples mentioned above illustrate the reality that God called people to serve him in unique ways. Though this is true, an essential inquiry to this writing is to determine the meaning of the call. Derek J. Prime and Alistair Begg treated this concept and defined call as “the unmistakable conviction an individual possesses that God wants him to do a specific task.”1 Previously cited passages coupled with this definition show the call as a personal experience between the Lord and the individual. All biblical examples of the call to service are individualistic, but those illustrations are not exclusively subjective. The Lord afforded external criteria to authenticate the called individuals.

In the case of the prophets, true and false prophets were distinguished by specific, external, objective criteria. Did their messages prove true, or did the things they prophesied happen? The accuracy of their prophecies gave God’s people a standard by which to measure the accuracy of their prophetic message and the authenticity of their prophetic calling.

Similarly, the New Testament call to apostleship contained elements of individual subjectivity and corporate objectivity. God’s work in Paul’s life reflects this truth. Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. God changed Paul’s heart and called him to the work of missions and apostleship. When the Corinthians challenged Paul’s apostleship, he referred to the pure gospel of his preaching (2 Cor. 14

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3:4–5). This pure gospel served as the standard whereby Paul and all other apostles should be scrutinized.

The believer who feels called to pastor needs to possess internal convictions and meet the objective standards of Scripture. Both elements are vital to perseverance in ministry. Jere Phillips noted the importance of the inner convictions of the call.

He explained: Ministry demands a vigorous combination of skills like few other vocations. It requires the kind of long hours doctors and lawyers experience but without the corresponding compensation. Conflict is sure; pay is paltry; and every person in the congregation is your employer. Sounds like a dream job to me. Ministry is one job in which you will be miserable if you do not have THE CALL.”2 Internal conviction serves as an undeniable aspect of the call to Christian service.

This subjective, personal aspect of God’s call can lead to challenges within the local church. Church members may argue that no person can tell another person what God has called them to do. Some believers take the intimate, private nature of God’s call as an opportunity to mistakenly enter ministry roles they may not be biblically qualified to fill. This attitude is incongruent with the teachings of Scripture.

The call to pastoral ministry shows the error of the completely individualistic view of God’s call. Attention now shifts to consider the call to pastoral ministry. A person’s call to pastoral ministry carries subjective, internal elements. The work of God to call a person unfolds between the Lord and the individual. His activity in this area is mysterious and deeply personal. However, there are objective standards outlined in Scripture for men who feel the internal, personal call to pastoral ministry.

The Lord set two spiritual offices within local churches, the pastor and deacons. He further gave qualifications to be met by anyone who would fill either of these local church offices. In Paul’s writing to Timothy and Titus, he offered these young pastors a set of standards for men who would shepherd God’s people (1 Tim. 3:1–16 and Titus 1:6–9).

The Responsibilities of the Call Men called into pastoral service undertake a life of tremendous responsibility.

The apostle Peter wrote to the leaders of the church of the diaspora. He penned, “Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness” (1 Peter 5:1–2).

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Jere Phillips delineated four specific responsibilities that flowed from the command to shepherd.3 He identified the shepherd’s responsibility to know the flock, lead the flock, protect the flock, and feed the flock. The following sections offer a treatment of these shepherding activities.

Know the Flock Phillips posited Jesus as the perfect example of a shepherd.4 In the text of John 10, Jesus mentioned each of these shepherding activities. He said of Himself, ‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). The Lord described his shepherding ministry as one where He knows the sheep. The term know as used by Jesus carries the idea of intimate, robust, and full knowledge.5 The Lord’s knowledge differs from that of any other shepherd because He is God in the flesh. Christ’s words evidence the importance of having an intimate understanding of the members of the flock. Effective pastoral care and leadership necessitate personal knowledge of the sheep. Different sheep require different levels of attention and possess different dietary needs. The shepherd’s understanding of the sheep proves most vital as it informs the way he leads and the sheep follow.

Lead the Flock Jesus also said, “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. ‘To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out’” (John 10:2–3). Consider the end of John 10:27, where Jesus spoke of his people following Him. The sheep following the shepherd and the shepherd leading the sheep serves as another vital function of pastoral ministry.

Sheep develop a deep loyalty to their shepherd and most often listen only to the familiar voice of the shepherd.6 The leading/following dynamic between the shepherd and the sheep illustrates the importance of the shepherd knowing the sheep. He must connect with them to lead them effectively.

Protect the Flock The Lord offered a third component of the shepherding responsibility.

He spoke of laying down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Jesus continued by juxtaposing Himself as the good shepherd and the hired hand. Far from sacrificially dying to protect the sheep, the hired hand abandons the sheep and leaves them as prey for the wolf. The Lord’s example puts Himself between the sheep and the impending danger. He died protecting the flock.

In the same way, pastors who would emulate Jesus place the well-being of their flock before their own well-being. The pastor serves not to protect the congregation from literal wolves but spiritual wolves who would destroy the sheep through false teaching and heretical doctrine.

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Feed the Flock The fourth responsibility considered in this section is the pastor’s obligation to feed the flock. In John 10:9, Jesus says, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9). The pastor bears the responsibility of nourishing God’s people.

Washington Gladden explained in The Christian Pastor and the Working Church, “Christ said that the one supreme purpose of his mission to the world was that he might bear witness to the truth; and the same must always be the high calling of the servant of Christ.” His admonition to bear witness to the truth offers a different perspective on the pastor’s responsibility to feed the flock. God set the diet for His people in His Word. Pastors are responsible for bringing people before God’s Word and offering it for nourishment for the soul.

The Central Element of the Shepherding Ministry One should consider the shepherding illustration in its fullness and determine the major purpose for the role. Knowing, leading, and protecting the flock relate to the shepherd’s foremost responsibility of feeding God’s people. Whenever the shepherd performs any task related to the sheep, that task is secondary to the primary mission of feeding the sheep. The author progresses by explaining the relationship between these tasks.

First, the shepherd knowing the sheep provides him the best platform from which to lead the sheep. Knowing the sheep fosters trust between him and the flock.

That trust is essential in the shepherding dynamic. He leads the sheep to bring them to food and water. The better the shepherd knows the sheep, the better he can set the preaching diet for the flock.

Shepherds lead sheep from feeding ground to feeding ground. They also lead the sheep to water. He leads the sheep to keep them on the richest feeding ground.

Shepherds do not lead the sheep for mere exercise. Their leadership directly relates to the feeding of the sheep. In the same way, the pastor’s leadership ties directly to his responsibility to feed God’s people. He leads people to greater understanding and application of God’s Word. Hence, he directs the people to fulfill his feeding responsibility.

As the shepherd leads the sheep toward new pastures, the sheep and the shepherd face unforeseen dangers. It is the shepherd’s responsibility to protect the sheep. In this way, the shepherd’s function as a protector is related to the feeding ministry that he performs.

In the pastoral sense, false teachers pose a great danger to the sheep. Scripture described these erroneous instructors as wolves and dogs (Acts 20:29; Phil. 3:2).

These men are described as such because they pose a spiritual danger to the sheep.

Their teaching threatens to destroy the people in the same way a wolf would kill the sheep. If he does not preach God’s Word, the pastor will leave his flock vulnerable The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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to false teaching. Therefore, even the shepherd’s responsibility to protect the sheep grows from his obligation to feed the sheep.

A Consideration of the Best Feeding Approach Understanding the priority of the feeding ministry, one now considers the best approach to the feeding task. Preaching stands as the chief means of feeding the sheep. Jim Shaddix observed, “With all else it entails, shepherding primarily involves feeding and protecting the sheep. And both of these responsibilities are carried out in the same activities—the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.”7 The pastor has a designated time to set the Word of God before the people and build them up in their faith.

Such a responsibility and opportunity necessitate grappling with the best approach to accomplishing the task. Will the pastor preach textual or topical sermons? Will he preach inductively or deductively? Does pastoral preaching afford the preacher the luxury of a mixed preaching approach since he will have a consistent, weekly opportunity to bring the people before God’s Word?

What Does It Mean to Preach?

Answering the previous questions requires consideration of what it means to preach. Selecting the best approach to preaching requires a solid understanding of the concept. Preaching is the communication of a biblical truth that is founded on Scripture, fueled by the Spirit, and focused on the Savior.

This definition does not exhaust every element and aspect of preaching. It is not intended to plumb the depth of the nuances of preaching as a discipline. This definition does, however, set the parameters in which the pastor’s communication must fall to qualify as preaching.

The Basics of Expository Preaching This author proposes expository preaching as the most biblically faithful preaching method. Several advocates of expository preaching offer unique definitions.8 Though different, each of their descriptions of expository preaching coalesce around three essential elements. The definitions mentioned previously describe expository preaching as being founded on the Scripture, fueled by the Spirit, and focused on the Savior. This portion of the writing treats those similarities.

Founded on the Scripture The first component of preaching is for the message to be founded on the Scriptures. The biblical foundation of the message separates preaching from humanistic lecturing or motivational speaking. The locus of authority in preaching is not the preacher. His ability to communicate gives no credence to his message.

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God’s Word, the medium through which God speaks, is the locus of authority in preaching.9 God spoke, and God speaks. Those are the two authoritative pillars for preaching. He communicates through His Word. Therefore, His Word must undergird our preaching. The Lord declares the authority and effectiveness of His Word. He spoke in Isaiah and said, “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). This single verse illustrates the necessity of founding sermons on God’s Word. The scriptural foundation of the sermon is the only assurance that the Lord’s person and purposes will be shared through preaching.

The preacher can be creative in his delivery, but no space exists for the preacher to create his content and call that preaching. He may construct a good talk or an emotion-stirring monologue; but without God’s Word as its foundation, his message is not a sermon. God’s Word alone is living and powerful. This truth is declared in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any twoedged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hence, the first element of preaching is that the message must be founded on Scripture.

Fueled by the Spirit The second element of preaching is the fueling of the Holy Spirit. Numerous authors treated the work of the Holy Spirit in preaching.10 Not expressly written for preachers, F.B. Meyer’s Christian Living contains his sentiment about the importance of the Holy Spirit to the Christian life. He penned, Nothing can compensate the Church, or the individual Christian, for the lack of the Holy Spirit. What the full stream is to the mill-wheel, that is the Holy Spirit to the church, What the principle of life is to the body, that is the Holy Spirit to the individual. We shall stand powerless and abashed in the presence of our difficulties and our foes, until we learn what He can be, as a mighty tide of love and power in the hearts of His saints.11 The preacher cannot afford to engage in the task of preaching without the empowering of the Holy Spirit, for preaching is a divine task with an eternal weight.

No mere man has the power of himself to shoulder such a heavy burden as to speak for God without the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

Pastors must first be hungry Christians desirous of the Lord’s control in their lives. Andrew Murray explained, “We do not want the Holy Spirit only when we go to preach or when we have some special temptation of the devil to meet—some great

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burden to bear.”12 The Lord’s preachers need His Spirit to fulfill every ministry task, and they certainly need His power and guidance in preaching.

The direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit are not only needed when the message is proclaimed. God’s herald requires that power in the development, as well as the delivery, of the Lord’s message. Spiritual empowerment results from spiritual dependence and consistent participation in spiritual disciplines. Though the preacher cannot force the Lord to move when he preaches, he can live a life of such reliance upon and adoration for the Lord that he sets an inviting atmosphere for the Lord’s movement and blessing.

Living a life that is Christ-honoring and Christ-centered provides the most inviting atmosphere for the Lord’s Spirit to move. Jesus describes the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit and explained how the Holy Spirit functions to bring glory to Him (John 16:14). A life centered on Christ aligns with the purpose of the Holy Spirit to testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. The pastor desirous of preaching messages that change lives needs the fueling of the Holy Spirit.

Focused on the Savior The final element of preaching is that it is focused on the Savior. Jesus is the main character of the Bible. He said plainly of the Scriptures, “It is these that testify of Me” (John 5:39). The Lord left no room for mistaking the primary character of Scripture.

All preaching must be focused on Christ. He is the focal person of Scripture, and Scripture is the foundation of all preaching. Such preaching qualifies as Christocentric preaching, according to Sidney Greidanus.13 Preaching functions to bring the hearers into a confrontation with the God whom they offended, show Christ as the offenders only hope of restitution, and offer the guilty party an opportunity to receive the gracious gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

If the preacher does not focus the sermon on Christ, he risks offering a moralistic discourse that fails to be a sermon. When the pastor simply lifts characters from the pages of Scripture, examines their qualities, and pushes the audience to emulate those positive aspects of the person’s character, he stops short of the Bible’s real purpose. The sacred text exists to reveal Jesus.

Preaching reveals Christ as the one divine answer for the sinfulness of humanity. The message must address the human need for Jesus to be considered a sermon. Albert Mohler wrote, “Preaching is the one means by which the redeemed bear witness to the Son who saves. That message of divine salvation, the unmerited act of God in Christ, is the criterion by which all preaching is to be judged.”14 Based on Mohler’s words, a message that fails to lift Christ as the giver of salvation is not a sermon.

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The Biblical Fidelity of Expository Preaching Numerous approaches to preaching exist. Some preachers qualify as topical preachers while other shepherds preach textual sermons. Still, another group of heralds practices expository preaching. Why does this author set forth expository preaching as the best preaching approach for shepherds of local churches?

Expository preaching maintains fidelity to the biblical text, unlike the other methods. The entirety of the expository message derives from the text of Scripture, whereas the origin of topical preaching may be the preacher, a current event, or any number of sources. Faithful expository preaching begins and ends with the Bible.

The main thought of the expository sermon comes from the Bible. The scriptural text gives rise to the structure and substance of the expository sermon.15 Textual preaching attempts to exalt the Scripture to a greater height than topical preaching. In textual preaching, the topic of the sermon derives from the text, and various observations are made from that text about the specific topic. This approach calls for more diligent study and greater adherence to the biblical text.

However, this method fails to consider the preaching text within the greater context of the chapter, book, testament, and the whole Bible. Textual preaching lends itself to the possibility of preaching contradictory truths or failing to demonstrate the unity of all the Bible and all its teachings.

Expository preaching offers protection against the deficiencies of the topical and textual approaches. In the expository practice, the preacher considers the text in its historical background, literary genre, and greater biblical context. This approach maintains the text as God’s Word. The Bible also provides the locus of authority in expository preaching. The expositor can twist the biblical text when he applies the method poorly. However, proper application of the expository method provides a barrier against topical and textual preaching deficiencies.16 The Benefits of Expository Preaching for the Preacher This treatment of expository preaching as the best approach to pastoral feeding shifts to a consideration of the benefits of this method for the preacher. Pastoral ministry brings its share of demands and deadlines. Gardner Taylor invested several years in pastoral ministry. He spoke of the relentless demands of sermon preparation and termed it the “sweet torture of Sunday morning.”17 The sweet, torturous nature of Sunday morning stems from the need to begin preparation for next Sunday as soon as worship ends this Sunday. This section sets forth three benefits for the pastor, who would discipline himself to practice expository preaching. He is benefitted in the area of stewardship, especially his stewardship of the biblical text, his time, and his pastoral task.

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Stewardship of the Text Some discussion has taken place regarding the biblical nature of expository preaching. Additionally, expository preaching offers the most sufficient treatment of the Scripture. The expositor’s task is to unearth the original message to the original audience from the original author. Then, he communicates that truth to his audience in the sermon.

The pastor will avoid the great danger of falsely identifying what the text is saying to his audience when he invests his time in discovering what that text spoke to the original audience. In this way, he is faithfully managing the biblical text.

God’s Word is a holy thing and should be treated with the greatest of care.

The Apostle Paul evidenced this truth in his words to Timothy. He told his young son, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The Greek term translated accurately handling can mean “to cut straight” in a literal and metaphorical sense as well as carrying the sense of handling the Word of God rightly by applying it to one’s life.18 Just as Paul tasked Timothy to cut God’s Word straight, biblical stewardship of one’s pastoral and preaching ministry necessitates handling God’s Word accurately and gleaning proper interpretations. Expository preaching is the mechanism that best positions the pastor to steward the biblical text in a Christ-honoring way.

Stewardship of Time The expository method also aids the pastor in another aspect of stewardship.

This discipline helps him in stewarding his time. Topical and textual preaching tasks the preacher with identifying the text that speaks to him. He may not arrive at that riveting text until later in the week. In some cases, the preacher discovers the preaching text a few hours or moments before the preaching moment. His delay in identifying a preaching text causes him to squander time that could be spent in fruitful study and proper planning of other tasks. This approach to preaching impedes the pastor’s time management.

The scarcity of time and manifold demands of pastoral ministry constrain the pastor’s time in several ways. One way the pastor can help himself is to prayerfully develop a preaching plan and calendar that employs the expository method for preaching through biblical books. He affords himself the opportunity to best use his time if he disciplines himself in this way.

The pastor who preaches expositorily wastes no time waiting on a subjective feeling to draw him into a text. He is led prayerfully through a specific book of the Bible and preaches the various pericopes of the book as the Holy Spirit led the original author to pen them. This approach allows the pastor to allocate his time to the study of the preaching section for the week. The expository approach to preaching through

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Bible books grants the pastor adequate time to prepare his message and fulfill the other responsibilities of his office.

Stewardship of the Task Expository preaching maximizes the pastor’s ability to steward his primary task. Since the shepherd bears the responsibility of feeding the sheep, this method of preaching affords him the best approach to the text and unveils the timeless truth of the preaching passage. This timeless truth is the richest food for the sheep.

The shepherd who feeds the flock with the exposition, application, illustration, and clarification of biblical truth provides them with a diet that fosters spiritual growth. His exercises in expository preaching build a stronger relationship between him and the flock by giving them the trustworthy Word of God. The Lord’s truth brings the people into the right view of the under-shepherd and the Great Shepherd of the sheep. The pastor’s expository preaching points the people to God who supplies their needs.

Expositional preaching allows the pastor to show his love for the Lord’s Word and fulfill his primary task. By this approach, the pastor fulfills the Lord’s command to “feed my sheep” (John 20:15–17). The pastor who preaches in an expositional fashion demonstrates good stewardship of his task.

The Benefits of Expository Preaching for the People Expository preaching not only benefits the preacher. This approach helps the people. A consistent diet of properly handled biblical truth blesses the Lord’s people in multiple ways. This section contains an analysis of three benefits of expository preaching for God’s people. The feeding ministry built upon expository preaching benefits the people by helping the people establish a biblical foundation, exposing them to the whole counsel of God, and consistently exalting the Savior before the people.

Establishing a Biblical Foundation Biblical exposition blesses the people by setting them on the only proper spiritual foundation. Jesus emphasized the importance of people building their lives on His Word.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall (Matt. 7:24–27).

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The pastor cannot make anyone build their lives on the Lord’s truth, but his expository preaching ministry sets the foundation before the people each time he preaches.

Any approach to preaching that does not rest solely upon the Word of God offers the people an inadequate substitute. God’s people need God’s Word, and expository preaching meets that need. No amount of human intellect or ability can substitute for God’s Word. This truth led Paul to remind the Corinthians of the substance of his preaching, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (2 Cor. 2:1–2). Paul’s confidence in preaching rested in the adequacy of Christ and His sacrifice.

The person and work of Christ offer the only firm foundation for life and eternity. The pastor gives his people the best foundation when he preaches Christ in a way that handles Scripture responsibly. That method is the expositional approach to preaching.

Exposes Believers to the Whole Counsel of God Along with establishing their lives on the right foundation, expository preaching exposes believers to the whole counsel of God. This phrase encompasses the entirety of Christian faith contained from Genesis to Revelation. Expository preaching through books of the Bible forces the pastor to deal with biblical truths, issues, and subjects that may be uncomfortable and unwelcomed. No matter how unpleasant a particular truth may be, expository preaching removes the luxury of avoiding specific passages. The systematic expositional presentation of biblical material causes the preacher and the people to grow as they prayerfully navigate challenging sections of Scripture. At the same time, he takes the people on the journey.

Such an approach presents the truth of the sovereign God. Faithful exposition forces believers to wrestle with biblical material that runs contrary to current trends.

This method forces God’s people to examine all areas of their life through the lens of the Bible. Believers who receive expositional Bible preaching benefit from a balanced diet of the Word of God. Expository preaching places a food source before the sheep that meets all their needs. As the preacher navigates books of the Bible expositorily, he brings a sufficient diet of biblical material for the younger believer while offering deep, challenging content to stretch the seasoned believer. He concurrently pushes back the biblical illiteracy of God’s people. Derek Thomas attested to this reality, “In an age of relative biblical illiteracy in many parts of the world, the need to preach the whole Bible, rather than serendipitously picking a text from here and there, is all the more urgent.”19 24

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Believers reared on expository preaching are stabilized in their faith and are less likely to be swept away by false teaching. They have an affiliation with the truth, much like a bank teller has experience with real monetary notes versus counterfeits.

Exposing believers to the whole counsel of God through expository preaching fosters this type of familiarity with God’s truth.

Exalts the Savior The final benefit of expository preaching mentioned here is that it exalts the Savior. Much biblical material exists expressing a high view of God’s Word.

The psalmist described God’s judgments and wrote, “They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” (Psa. 19:10). Jesus exclaimed the supremacy and permanence of God’s Word. “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished,” declares the Lord in Matthew 5:18.

To preach expositorily is to treat God’s Word with the greatest value. This discipline aids the pastor and congregation in exalting what Christ exalts. Believers exalt Christ as they lift what He lifts and love what He loves. Expository preaching centers every sermon on Jesus Christ and stands Him before His people. This practice demonstrates Christ’s supremacy in every preaching moment. The action further engrains in believers the importance of exalting Christ, not only in preaching but in every matter of life. In the same way that the preacher is to exalt the Savior in every preaching moment, all believers are to lift Christ in every moment and activity of life. Expository preaching illustrates the Pauline mandate to do all things for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

The exaltation of Christ dominates the expository sermon. Pastors, who preach in an expository manner, show the centrality of Christ to preaching and life.

Believers grow in their understanding of Christ as the unifying theme of Scripture.

They are confronted with their need for Him, are challenged to love Him, and are called to conform to His will through expository preaching. Each of these actions helps believers discipline themselves for the exaltation of Christ.

Conclusion The call to pastoral ministry is an invitation to a life of challenges. The pastoral office provides a front row seat to spiritual warfare and a host of difficulties. This ministry strains the man of God in every imaginable way. His ability to endure such strain necessitates God’s call upon his life.

Pastoral ministry is a multifaceted assignment consisting of knowing, leading, protecting, and feeding the people of God. This author presented his position that the pastor’s feeding responsibility is his primary role. His assignment becomes more

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manageable when he understands all of his work as flowing from the spring of his feeding ministry.

Expository preaching through books of the Bible affords the shepherd the best approach to the biblical text, his specific task, and the management of his time. This method also benefits his people in many ways. Preaching expositionally provides benefits to the sheep. They are given a strong spiritual foundation, introduced to the full teaching of Scripture, and shown how to exalt Christ through the preaching ministry of the pastor who uses the expository method.

This approach to preaching makes much of Scripture and the Savior declared in its pages. An expository preaching ministry does not solve all the pastor’s problems.

However, this approach allows the preacher to streamline his responsibilities and ease a bit of the strain of this weighty task.

NOTES

1. Derek J. Prime and Alistair Begg, On Being a Pastor: Understanding Our Calling and Work (Chicago: Moody, 2004), 18.

2. Jere Phillips, Pastoral Ministry for the Next Generation (Collierville, TN: Innovo Publishing, 2014), 42.

3. Ibid.,75–79.

4. Ibid.

5. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1964), 689, Logos Bible Software.

6. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victory Books, 1989), 331, Logos Bible Software.

7. Jim Shaddix, The Passion Driven Sermon: Changing the Way Pastors Preach and Congregations Listen (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2003), 60.

8. Tony Merida, Faithful Preaching: Declaring Scripture with Responsibility, Passion, and Authenticity (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2009), 6. Merida described preaching and wrote, “Faithful preaching is the responsible, passionate, and authentic declaration of the Christ-exalting Scriptures, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of the Triune God.” Stephen Olford and David Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Academic, 1998), 69. “Expository preaching is the Spirit-empowered explanation and proclamation of the text of God’s Word with due regard to the historical, contextual, grammatical, and doctrinal significance of the given passage, with the specific object of invoking a Christ-transforming response,” observed Olford and Olford. Haddon Robinson Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 5. Robinson defined expository preach as “. . . the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearer.” John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2015), 13. Piper noted, 26

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“… preaching is expository. It deals with the Word of God. True preaching is not the opinions of a mere man. It is the faithful exposition of God’s Word. Preaching is expository exultation.”

9. Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Word: A Practical Theology of Expository Preaching (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 25. Adam wrote, “Without God’s words there can be no ministry of the Word. If God is dumb, we may speak, but we cannot speak God’s words, for there is none to speak. The first great theological foundation of preaching, then, is that God has spoken.”

10. Wayne V. McDill, The Moment of Truth: A Guide to Effective Sermon Delivery (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1999), 11. McDill, highlighting the work of the Holy Spirit in preaching, explained, “The preacher’s hope of overcoming the barriers to his message lies in the ministry of the Holy Spirit to empower his preaching.” Olford and Olford, 214–228. They devoted an entire section of their work to deal with the need for consecration in preaching.

These authors explained consecration as setting the stage for the work of the Holy Spirit in preaching and the preacher. Robinson, 169. Robinson dealt with the preacher’s inability to meet the needs of people without the Lord’s blessing. Addressing the inability of the preacher to feed the soul of men, he explained, “Only Jesus Christ through his Spirit can do that. You must give your sermon to him.” Robert Smith, Doctrine That Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Academic, 2008), 13.

Writing specifically about doctrinal preaching, Smith explained, “Doctrinal preaching is not a mechanical process governed by a human agent; rather, it is an event that happens under the auspices of the Holy Spirit who reveals the doctrinal truths and testifies of the person of Christ.”

11. F. B. Meyer, Christian Living (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1892), 114.

12. Andrew Murray, The Master’s Indwelling (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1983), 19.

13. Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 118–19.

14. Albert Mohler, “A Theology of Preaching,” in The Handbook of Contemporary Preaching, ed. Michael Duduit (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 16.

15. Francis C. Rossow, “Topical Preaching,” Concordia Journal 19, no. 4 (October 1993): 313–322. Rossow gave his polemic on topical preaching. While he offered several benefits of this preaching approach and defended topical preaching as a biblically faithful enterprise, one should notice his tendency to assert the locus of authority as the preacher and not the biblical text. He observed, “Occasionally in textual/pericopal preaching the pastor confronts a text that doesn’t ‘talk to him’ at that particular moment in his life; to use contemporary jargon, he doesn’t ‘vibrate’ toward that text at that time” (316). His words evidence a troubling reality for this author. Is the preacher’s attraction to the text the standard for the text to be preached, or is the text worthy of study and preaching because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit? While the preacher’s feelings about a text may affect his engagement with the text, they should not be the grounds for determining whether or not the text should be preached.

16. Gerald O. Hoenecke, “Topical or Textual Preaching?” Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 66, no. 4 (October 1969), 235–242. Hoenecke gave his reasons for the supremacy of textual preaching over topical preaching, but his defense of textual preaching demonstrates a serious weakness in the approach. Though the preaching text is handled more thoroughly in the textual approach than the topical approach, he fails to set the preaching text within its greater The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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context. Therefore, his approach cuts the preaching text away from its greater context and lends itself to a greater failure of missing the overarching place of the preaching text in the metanarrative of Scripture.

17. Gardner C. Taylor, “The Sweet Torture of Sunday Morning,” Christianity Today, May 19, 2004, https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/leadership-books/preachingworship/ lclead01-12.html.

18. Kittel, Friedrich, and Bromiley, 452–3.

19. Derek Thomas, “6 Advantages of Consecutive Expository Preaching,” Ligonier Blog, Ligonier Ministries, February 15, 2016, https://www.ligonier.org/blog/6-advantagesconsecutive-expository-preaching/#:~:text=6%20Advantages%20of%20Consecutive%20 Expository%20Preaching%201%20Expository,their%20hearers%20read%20their%20 Bibles.%20More%20items...%20.

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Modern Cultural Shifts in Rural America and Their Impact on the Church Jeff Clark, DMin Dr. Jeff Clark has served as the church planter for three churches in Michigan, Florida, and Tennessee, led in denominational work in West Virginia and Montana, served overseas in East Asia, and is currently serving as the leader of the Global Rural Research Project for the International Mission Board and as the rural missiologist for the Rural Matters Institute at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. Jeff and his wife, Melva, have two adult daughters and one son-in-law. All currently live in the Richmond, Virginia area.

Introduction The 2016 presidential election had many ramifications for the entire United States, but specifically for the 19 percent of the population living in rural areas. For the first time in many years, people who live in the flyover areas of the country, the small towns and remote rural areas that make up the countryside between the east coast and the west coast, were brought to the forefront. Suddenly they were seen as kingmakers, or in this particular situation, a president maker.

The results hurled the US media out of their coastal cities and into the heartland to discover who these people were that had voted the way they did and why they had. One liberal writer described the problem with rural America as: Rural Americans don’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears, and they have shown no interest in finding out.

Another problem with rural Christian white Americans is they are racists...

Their white god made them in his image, and everyone else is a less-thanperfect version, flawed and cursed.

For us “coastal elites” who understand evolution, genetics, and science, nothing we say to those in flyover country is going to be listened to because not only

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are we fighting against an anti-education belief system, we are arguing against god.1 On May 26, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Rural America is the New ‘Inner City.” The article asserted that rural America has more poverty-related issues, more drug problems, more health problems, more divorces, and more teen pregnancies than the rest of the US. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs, and medium or small metro areas).2 Adding to the stereotype, J. D. Vance published Hillbilly Elegy in June of 2016. Vance’s coarse and sometimes profane best seller highlighted the plight of Appalachian people both in Appalachia (particularly in Eastern Kentucky) and as they dispersed across the country (particularly in Dayton, Ohio). While this book is an accurate account of J.D.’s family, it is not necessarily a portrait of all rural America or even all rural Appalachia.

The election and the popularity of Vance’s book caused a sudden awareness of “middle America.” People were scrambling to learn about these people living in the heartland of America.

Along with the rising interest among secular groups, the Christian community began to develop an interest in rural ministry as well. Since 2016, several books have been published on rural and small-town ministry such as The Forgotten Church

by Glenn Daman (2018), Small Town Jesus by Donnie Griggs (2016), and A Big Gospel in Small Places by Stephen Witmer (2019) to name a few. While a few rural organizations have existed for many years that focused on rural ministry (Rural Home Missionary Association and Village Missions, for example), several new rural networks and rural training events have arisen lately. The development of Rural Matters Institute at Wheaton College and organizations such as Dirt Roads Network are examples of resources recently developed for rural churches.

The tendency when looking at rural America today is to gravitate toward one of two extremes. One extreme is the Mayberry myth, where rural America is idolized.

Here, life is slower, people are friendlier, and Andy is the sheriff. Rural America is seen as an escape from the hectic world of today with its scenic downtowns, rolling meadows filled with horses, and everyone waving to one another. For current evidence of this myth, notice how many Hallmark movies idealize rural life over city life.

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The other extreme is the media myth, which reports rural America is “where village idiots reside, country bumkins gather, and rednecks tell bigoted jokes.”3 TV shows and movies have promoted this stereotype as well. Shows such as TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which was TLC’s highest-rated show in their history during its first season, and MTV’s Buckwild, which ran for one season and was canceled after two of its cast were arrested and another died, have helped to promote the stereotype of rural America as backward, uneducated, and possibly dangerous.

The truth is that each extreme holds some truth. To gain an accurate picture of rural America today, it is essential to examine three major social influences and their impact on rural America over the last seventy-five years. The three forces, mechanization, mobilization, and media, have shaped rural America over the last two generations and continue to exert great influence on rural communities today.

Mechanization World War II is considered a turning point for rural America. For more than three hundred years before World War II, the family farm was the backbone of the US. Thomas Jefferson described farmers as: “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people.”4 In fact, 83 percent of the population was involved in farming in 1800.5 Family farms required lots of working hours to survive. Thus, it was helpful to have large families to work in the fields. For example, in the 1930s, one farmer could feed four people.6 That meant one farmer could provide enough food for his immediate family. The more children he had, the more he could produce, and the more money he could make.

Starting in the 1930s, tractors became more affordable for the average farmer as manufacturers began to develop machinery designed for the family farm. As WW2 began, the young men who had been providing manual labor on the farm left for war. Increasing need for supplies to feed and clothe these soldiers along with a growing nation caused commodity prices to rise, giving farmers the resources needed to purchase tractors, combines, and other mechanized farm equipment.

Where a farm in the 1930s could only feed four people, today with modern machinery, a farm can produce enough food for 155 people.7 The machinery that allowed the family farm to become more efficient caused fewer family members to be needed to run the farm.

Another example of mechanization and its effect on rural life was the rise of the automobile, both cars and trucks. Along with the growth in the manufacturing of farm machinery, the end of WW2 saw a sharp increase in the number of automobiles produced. Cars went from simple designs, such as the Ford Model A, before the war to sleek, comfortable cars that could travel great distances after the war. Farmers previously isolated in rural areas could now drive into town to shop,

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eat, and go to the movies. Their sons and daughters could now live in a nearby city and travel out to visit the rural family farm with ease.

Let me provide a personal example. My dad grew up in the 1940s about eight miles from the nearest town. He went to town once a month with his family where, if he was lucky, he bought a soft drink and went to the movies. Today, he lives on the same farm but makes the trip into town multiple times a day to go to a local gas station, get a cup of coffee, or shop at Walmart to pick up things needed for the farm.

The unintended consequences of the automobile on rural life cannot be overstated. Small mom-and-pop grocery stores that dotted the countryside closed as people could now go into town to large chain stores to buy groceries. Modest community-based schools shuttered as they were consolidated with other rural schools, and their students were bussed to the one large school in town.

In just a few decades, mechanization was able to turn rural life upside down.

The rise of the automobile stretched the boundaries of where one could travel in a day, and isolated communities lost their identity as their store, school, and church closed. As tractors and combines grew bigger, farms also grew bigger, allowing farmers to work more land with fewer people. Thus, farming morphed from family farms into agri-businesses requiring specialized training and machinery.

Urban Migration At the end of WW2, more than three million soldiers returned from the war and were looking for work. These men had grown up on small, labor-intensive family farms across the US found they had been replaced by tractors, combines, and other pieces of machinery. So by the thousands, they began to migrate to the cities to find work.

The tidal wave of migration that started at the end of WW2 continues today.

Young men and women graduate high school, go off to universities, and never return. With no work available on the farm, they go where they have opportunities to make money.

The migration of young people to cities produces a domino effect that impacts almost every part of rural life for those left behind. The first domino is called “brain drain.” The brightest and best leave for the cities. In some communities, college graduates return to family businesses. However, many more potential leaders “go off to college and never come back.” Please note, this is not to disparage those who choose to remain in rural areas to pursue their vocation. Intelligent, articulate, and capable leaders remained in many places. However, urban migration reduces the pool of intelligent, articulate, and capable leaders from rural communities.

The second domino is the closing of stores, hospitals, and professional services in rural America. It is almost impossible to go into a small town in rural America today and not see shuttered buildings that once housed schools, banks, lawyers’ offices, and doctors’ offices. Because many of these businesses moved into 32

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larger towns with the advent of the automobile, a lack of job opportunities exists for people who specialized in these fields, resulting in many smaller towns and villages becoming nothing more than ghost towns.

As businesses close in rural areas and jobs become scarce, the third domino of poverty falls. The doctor’s office that left also took with it the jobs for a nurse, secretary, billing manager, and janitor. Low-paying jobs are all that remain, keeping most workers in these small towns below the poverty level.

The last domino to fall as a result of urban migration is the rise in social issues, including drug and alcohol abuse, spouse and child abuse, teen pregnancy, and suicide. Rural America leads the country in the percentage of people dealing with each of these issues. The saddest part is most rural areas are ill-equipped to deal with these increased social issues. Most do not have counselors or treatment facilities. Often these services are too far away to make them feasible for many living in rural areas. Also, rural communities offer no privacy, and the stigma of going to counseling or treatment centers can be overwhelming to deal with in a community where everyone knows everyone’s business.

Media The third major influence in rural America has been the rise of media over the last seventy-five years. Prior to the 1940s, people in many rural areas lived in isolation. For example, people living in the heart of Appalachia moved into the hills and hollows over a period of time, starting in the mid-1700s to around 1850. They lived isolated and unaffected by the outside world for more than one hundred years.

The few that visited the area were introduced to a culture and language that harkened back to the 1800s. For multiple generations, this area maintained a different culture and language from the rest of the US. Starting with the advent of the radio, remote rural areas, such as Appalachia, the farming areas of the Midwest, rural fishing communities on the coasts, and Cajun country in Louisiana, were all introduced to the larger world. By the 1940s, many in these rural areas had radios in their houses to keep up with the war, hear the price of grain and livestock, and listen to Amos and Andy as well as other radio shows.

Another significant media influence was the rise of movie theatres. People in rural America could now drive into town and watch the same movie as people in New York City. They also watched newsreels showing the battles of WW2 and the Korean War. By watching films and newsreels, rural people could keep up with the latest fashions in New York and Los Angeles.

By the end of the 1950s, TV began to make inroads into rural areas. People could watch Walter Cronkite and see the Vietnam War from their own homes. TV shows and advertisements let people know the latest fads and helped rural teenagers connect with what their urban counterparts were doing. By the 1980s, the satellite The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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dish allowed rural people to choose from hundreds of channels, and the world came flooding into their homes via the magic of television.

Finally, the advent of the internet meant rural people could not only watch but also interact with people literally around the world. The internet brought great amounts of information not available before. By googling, it was now possible to find thousands of websites with information concerning a given subject.8 The impact of media cannot be overestimated in rural areas. Communities that were previously isolated from the rest of the world are now open to the influences, both good and bad, of the world at large. The flood of information has resulted in a loss of identity for many rural cultures. The language, mores, and defining characteristics of many rural, isolated communities are eroding as the influence of media has homogenized the world. Farmers living in remote villages in Nebraska, coal miners in Eastern Kentucky, and fishermen off the coast of Alaska can talk with one another in real-time. And they can watch almost anything they want on demand. Much of their machinery now uses the internet to be more effective in production. As the world moves toward one global community, isolated, rural communities are losing their local identities.

The influence of media also means major influencers in rural communities have changed. In previous generations, the local pastor, doctor, and teachers were the major influencers in the community. Now, media personalities like Ellen DeGeneres or Dr. Phil are heralded as sources of wisdom and information.

With the influence of media comes many good things for rural communities, such as more knowledge for farming, fishing, coal mining, and other rural work; knowledge of what is going on in the world; and better materials for local teachers, doctors, and business owners, etc. But, many negative things for rural areas also have resulted from the rise of media, such as loss of community; increased addictions to harmful internet activities such as pornography and gambling; and distractions that waste time.

Effects on the Rural Church The results of these three major social issues on rural life cannot be overestimated. Their effects can specifically be felt by rural churches. Each issue has reshaped the local church context in ways that make pre-war churches unfamiliar to rural church members today. The little country church of the first half of the 20th century is long gone, and a new era has arisen as a result of mechanization, urban migration, and media.

Mechanization As described earlier, mechanization’s impact on farming practices has been tremendous over the last seventy-five years. Farmers have been able to be more productive than ever before. However, mechanization’s impact on rural churches 34

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has been devastating. As mechanization increased on the farm, so did mobility. The rise of automobiles on the farm meant that rural people could travel further for shopping and entertainment, but also for worship. They were no longer limited to the local general store or the nearest church. They could now go into town to get what they needed, both physically and spiritually.

Increased mobility has led to the rise of the “Walmart” church. Just as Walmart moved into small towns and subsumed small businesses in rural areas, larger, well-funded churches with professionally trained staffs in nearby towns have drawn members and leaders from rural, community church members who can now travel into town for worship.

In today’s world, it is seldom that you find someone who does not pass at least one church on their way to the church of their choice. Personally, my wife and I pass four churches on our way to the church we attend. Before WW2, people went to church based on geography. They could only go as far as they could walk or ride in a wagon. After the war and with the increased mobility provided by mechanization, people began to go to church based on affinity.

The observation above is not a criticism of larger “in-town” churches. It is merely a description of the realities of rural church life over the last seventy-five years. Mechanization and the resulting mobilization have provided people in rural areas more choices than ever before. The rural church today simply cannot expect that people in the immediate community will come to their church just because it is in the community. To survive the effects of increased mobility, the rural church must focus on its assets rather than comparing itself to churches in town.

Urban Migration The effects of urban migration on rural churches have been devastating as well. When people leave rural areas in search of “greener pastures” in the city, they leave behind small churches that struggle just to stay open, with limited leadership and without the financial resources needed to thrive in their communities.

With dwindling pools of leadership and physical resources drying up, many small, rural churches get caught in a slow death spiral. The decline begins with eliminating ministries due to limited budgets. Ministries to youth and children are often the first ones cut. As fewer people are reached due to ministries being reduced, fewer resources remain. Families with children, and money, go into town where the church has opportunities for the entire family.

The next step is to lower the pastor’s salary since many tithing families have moved to bigger churches, which causes the pastor to search for a place to serve where proper support can be found. The search for a bi-vocational pastor begins, which means the pastor has less time to invest in the struggling church, resulting in even more people defecting to the larger, in town churches with well-trained and well-paid staff.

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Finally, the church dwindles to just a few faithful older members that can remember what the church used to be like before everyone left. With the migration complete, many rural churches remain open due only to the faithfulness of a few older members, and when they pass away, the churches will more than likely close.

Media Media has had perhaps the most profound impact on rural churches in the last seventy-five years. Rural people can now go online and see large churches with highly trained musicians and skilled pastors preach polished sermons. As a result, many in rural areas seek these more “professional” church services in nearby larger towns. After all, churches in town have things for the children and teens, maintain beautiful facilities, and have pastors dedicated solely to preaching the word.

Historically, rural churches valued pastors over preachers. They could overlook mediocre sermons if they were “pastored” well. Loving and caring for the flock from birth to the grave was the primary task of the rural pastor. However, with the rise of media, the emphasis on “good preaching” has increased. It is now common for a dedicated church member to listen to multiple sermons throughout the week on Christian radio, TV, or the internet. While they realize their pastor is no Charles Stanley, listening to these sermons throughout the week from pastors of big churches raises their standards as to what they expect each Sunday in their own little churches.

Media as entertainment has severely affected rural churches as well.

Before WW2, the church was the primary source for community, support, and entertainment. The church was the place in the community for people to catch up with each other, share their lives, and to sing and worship together. Now, people can get many of their needs for community, support, and entertainment met online.

The church is no longer the news center or the social connector for people in rural communities. People now have access to 24-hour news and entertainment and can communicate with family members around the world with the tap of a few keys.

The compound effects of mechanization, migration, and media on rural churches have been profound. The rural church that was once the center of the community has been increasingly marginalized as people travel further to go to the church of their choice, move away for higher education and careers, and seek to be entertained by different media outlets.

Rural areas are filled with small, struggling churches and a great number of people who claim to be Christian, but few who actually attend church on a weekly basis. For example, in Kentucky, a primarily rural state in the “Bible belt,” 75 percent of the state’s residents believe in God, and 63 percent believe religion is important in their lives. However, only 39 percent attend church on a weekly basis.9 Furthermore, rural counties in states such as Colorado, North Dakota, Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, and Mississippi are among the least churched counties in the US.10 In an unverified 36

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statement, Appalachian Mountain Ministry states that they work in a part of the US where less than 2 percent of the population has a personal relationship with Christ.11 Glen Damon summarizes the situation in his book, The Forgotten Church, “Rural America is rapidly becoming a spiritual wasteland, where churches are being closed because they are overlooked and cast aside by the larger church community as a place deemed too insignificant or unworthy of our attention.�12 Simply put, rural America is not the religious center of the nation it once was.

Conclusion Rural churches in North America have undergone significant changes since the end of WW2 in 1945. Yet through all the turmoil of monumental shifts in lifestyle and culture, many rural churches have survived and are still being a light to their world in many forgotten places.

Rural churches face issues such as declining membership, lack of leadership and finances, and increasing social issues such as drug use, poverty, suicide, and teen pregnancy. It seems these rural churches remain in a permanent precarious state where demise seems imminent. However, many churches have remained on the edge of extinction for decades now, hanging on through the toughest situations.

With this in mind, a great need exists to see rural America as a mission field in need of new church starts and church revitalizations. God-called pastors still need to be trained to serve in existing rural churches, working together with urban churches to fulfill God’s desire to saturate the entire US, and beyond, with the Gospel.

Currently, a reawakening to the needs of rural America can be seen across the US, especially since the 2016 election. Awareness of America and the plight of people living in the countryside have come to the forefront. And, while many issues still plague small-town America and impact rural churches, hope still abounds as God continues to work in these areas.

Postscript As I write this article, I am in my office under lockdown because of the COVID-19 crisis.13 Since I am writing on the current state of the rural church and the major influences on the rural church over the last seventy-five years, it would be remiss of me not to mention the effects of COVID-19.

My problem in writing at this time concerning COVID-19 is that no one knows the full impact this will have on rural America. All I can do is hazard a few guesses as to what all of this means for the future of the church in rural America.

Primarily, it seems as we return to meeting in person, churches will not be the same. Some will return and shake hands, hug, and sing with great gusto.

However, many may not return for a season, if ever. For those that eventually return, they will not want to shake hands or hug. Social distancing is likely going to be a part of our culture for the foreseeable future. Rural churches will need to The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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continue to do online ministries to keep up with people reticent to return to their church facilities, be diligent in sanitizing their facilities, and seek ways to maintain lines of communication with those that do not return. It means that rural churches will have to work on how to develop and maintain community in a world wary of closeness, physically and relationally.

On a more positive note, this crisis has taught churches how to better keep up with their constituents and improve their use of media. As pastors, deacons, elders, and small group leaders have maintained regular contact with church members; these members will desire this kind of continued contact in the future. The result is churches that feel closer than ever at six feet apart!

I am not a prophet or a son of a prophet, and I make no attempt to predict the future. What I can say with great confidence is that God’s church will come through the COVID-19 crisis and continue to be a witness in rural America.

NOTES

1. Forsetti’s Justice, AlterNet, “An Insider Says That White Rural Christian America has a ‘Dark, Racist Underbelly,” Raw story, February 19, 2020, https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/ an-insider-says-that-white-rural-christian-america-has-a-dark-racist-underbelly/.

2. Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg, “Rural America is the New ‘Inner City,’” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-the-new-innercity-1495817008.

3. Robert Wuthnow, Small-Town America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 129.

4. Thomas Jefferson, “Query XIX: The Present State of Manufactures, Commerce, Interior and Exterior Trade?” in Notes on the State of Virginia, (London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1787).

5. "Percentage of American Labor Force in Agriculture" Agriculture, Digital History, accessed May 26, 2020, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook. cfm?smtID=11&psid=3837.

6. Frederick Kirschenmann, “How Many Farmers Will We ‘Need?’” AgDM Newsletter, January 2001, https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/others/KirJan01.htm.

7. Rachel Bertone, “Farm Facts: The United States Farmer,” Farm Flavor, February 22, 2012, https://www.farmflavor.com/at-home/cooking/farm-facts-the-united-states-farmer/.

8. An argument can be made that the internet is more than just media, it could be seen as a possible fourth influence. The internet affects rural America in the way rural people shop, interact with others, learn, and communicate. It is more than just a media source.

(This concept comes from conversations with Dallas Powell, a church planting catalyst in Nebraska.) For the scope of this paper, historical issues that have impacted rural America, the decision was made to wait to add the internet as a separate influence due to its relatively new, albeit significant, on rural communities and churches.

9. “Adults in Kentucky,” Pew Research Center Religion & Public Life, accessed May 26, 2020, https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/kentucky/.

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10. Ed Stetzer, “America’s Hidden Mission Field: Why We Need Rural Churches,” The Exchange with Ed Stetzer (blog), Christianity Today, October 27, 2018, https://www. christianitytoday.com/ edstetzer/2018/october/americas-hidden-mission-field-why-weneed-rural-churches.html.

11. “Looking for Missions? Make Appalachia Your Mission Field,” Appalachian Mountain Ministry, accessed May 26, 2020, https://appalachianmountainministry.org/the-importanceof-the-church-getting-involved/ (site discontinued).

12. Glenn Daman, The Forgotten Church (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2018), 16.

13. I am writing the initial draft of this article on May 21, 2020. Several states are just now opening back up for business while the state where I currently live, Virginia, is remaining under lockdown at this time.

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The Product of Jesus' First Miracle Considered Practically, Exegetically, and Theologically Wayne Cornett, PhD Dr. Wayne Cornett serves as associate dean of graduate programs and assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Memphis, TN. He has contributed eleven articles in The Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. He is married to Elizabeth and they have three daughters, Kirsten, Alyssa, and Maddux.

T

he purpose of Jesus' first miracle is clearly stated and should not be missed: to reveal His glory, thus generating faith (John 2:11, see also 20:31). While the focus should be on the purpose of the miracle, and John’s reporting of it, one is not out of bounds by noticing the practical implications the product of the miracle has upon the Christian debate concerning the recreational use of alcohol.

Proponents of moderate drinking appeal to this passage as justification for their position that the abuse, not the use, of alcohol is the sin. Kenneth Gentry, Jr. said, “The ultimate issue in the debate should be,—‘What saith the Lord?’ Or to put it in contemporary parlance, we might ask,—‘What would Jesus do?’ And we have seen that he would make wine and drink it (John 2:1–11; Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34).”1 This is a reasonable appeal; if Jesus produced alcoholic wine, then unquestionably drinking alcohol in moderation is not sinful.

For this reason, those that are convinced that drinking alcohol is sinful adamantly oppose this interpretation. If the product of the miracle was not an intoxicating substance, however, the moderation position is still not put to ruin.

Nevertheless, an exegetical and theological examination into the precise nature of the product of this miracle is warranted.

Exegetical Considerations The Meaning of Oinos Every major English translation calls the product of Jesus' first miracle “wine” in John 2:9. For many laypeople, this settles the debate; after all, wine is wine, and it is as simple as that. Or is it? In the Greek text, the product of Jesus' first miracle is oinos. If oinos only refers to fermented juice, then the exegetical work is complete The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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concerning the alcohol issue. That oinos can refer to fermented juice is not disputed.

The debate concerns if it only means fermented juice. Some, like Gentry, maintain that oinos was always fermented. On the other hand, some commentators recognize a semantic range of meaning for the word. Concerning this passage, Köstenberger noted, “In the Greco-roman world, and presumably, in Palestine of Jesus' day, three kinds of wine were used,” only one of which was fermented.2 Gerald L. Borchert claims that purposing that the oinos was nonintoxicating juice is “to twist the Greek language … because such an argument cannot be sustained from Greek.”3 Yet, several texts exist where oinos, “wine,” unequivocally means fresh-squeezed juice from the grape. A papyrus dated AD 137 records that someone was paid his wages with “fresh wine [oinon] from the vat.”4 Fresh-squeezed juice, not fermented, is found in the vat. Papias, in reference to the millennium, says, “Vines will grow each with … ten thousand clusters on each twig, and ten thousand grapes in each cluster, and each grape, when crushed, will yield twenty-five jars of wine [oinos].”5 Athenaeus said, “At the time of festivals, he [Drimacus the General] went about and took wine from the field [ek ton agron oinon] and such animals for victims as were in good condition.”6 Aptly put by Richard Lees and Dawson Burns, “No one, we suppose, can carry prejudice so far as to impose upon himself the belief that fermented and bottled wine was thus ‘taken from the fields.’”7 The comments of Lees and Burns on Anacreon are also helpful: Anacreon (Ode 49) speaks of the oinos as “offspring of the vine” (gonon ampelou), and as “imprisoned (pcpedecmenori) in fruit upon the branches; and he sings (Ode 51) of the treaders “letting loose the wine,” where the poetical imagery refers not, as some one has said, to the grape-juice as only figuratively wine, but to literal wine, as first imprisoned, and then gaining its freedom; else the whole beauty of the figure disappears.8 Nicander of Colophon speculated the origin of the word oinos, to be a derivative of the name of the man, Oineus, who first squeezed grapes into a cup: “And Oineus first squeezed it out into hollow cups and called it oinos.”9 The accuracy of Nicander’s speculation is irrelevant; the point is that oinos was used to refer to fresh juice.

Contextual Clues Once one has determined that oinos could refer to either fresh or fermented juice, one must determine which is meant in this passage. Concerning context, commentators appeal to three issues: the use of methuo, the time of weddings, and the master of the banquet’s statement that the oinos Jesus produced was the “good” oinos.

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The Meaning of Methuo Some commentators, like Carson, argue that “methysho [well drunk] does not refer to consuming too much liquid, but to inebriation” therefore, the use of oinos in this passage must be fermented juice.10 On the other hand, Albert Barnes noted, “This word does not of necessity mean that they were intoxicated, though it is usually employed in that sense. It may mean when they have drunk sufficient.”11 The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament reflects this. Herbert Preisker observed that methe, methuo, methusos, and methuskomai “are mostly used in a lit[eral] sense … ‘to be drunk.’” The phrase “mostly used” implies occasions where methuo does not mean “drunk.” Preisker further stated that methuskomai “is used with no ethical or religious judgment in Jn. 2:10.”12 The canonical portion of the Septuagint used some form of methuo forty-two times, translating seven different verbs. Most frequently (sixteen times), methuo is employed to translate shakar. Almost always, shakar clearly means intoxicated. One clear exception is in Isaiah 49:26 where shakar means “filled” or “satisfied” since it is connected to must or new wine (Hebrew ‘âsîys, LXX oinon neon). The second most common usage (ten times) of methou in the LXX is for shikkor. In each occurrence, context makes it clear that literal drunkenness is meant.

Another common usage (nine times) of methuo is to translate ravah. This Hebrew word has a range of meaning that often has no implication of intoxication.

In fact, this is reflected by the KJV translations of that word, “abundantly satisfied” (Ps. 36:8; 35:9), “abundantly” (Ps. 65:9, 11) “bathed” (Isa. 34:5), “soaked” (Isa. 34:7), “watereth” (Isa 55:10), and “satiated” (Jer. 31:14, 25; 38:14, 25). Only in Jeremiah 46:10; 26:10 and Lamentations 3:15, which are discussed below, is it translated “drunk.”

The remaining four Hebrew words translated methuo occur only one time each. Intoxication is the clear meaning in Proverbs 4:17 where it is used for shathah.

It is used for revâyâh in Psalm 23:5; 22:5 to describe David’s cup that “overfloweth.”

In Psalm 65:9; 35:9 it is the translation for shuq, which means “to water or overflow.”

The Hebrew word never has a connotation of drunkenness. More of a substitution than a translation, methuo is used in Proverbs 23:31 for râ’âh (“look”), with the apparent connotation of drunkenness. Twice the LXX supplements the Hebrew text with methuo. In Hosea 14:7 it means “satisfied” due to its connection with grain (sitos). In Isaiah 7:20, it appears to have the meaning of overflowing, seeing it is used in reference to the great river.

Three instances where translators have rendered the Hebrew words shaker and ravah (translated with methuo in the LXX) as “drunk” deserve further consideration. In Deuteronomy 32:42 (shaker) and Jeremiah 46:10; 26:10 (ravah), context clearly indicates that “drunk” can only be a fitting translation if it is used metaphorically for “filled” or “satisfied.” Isaiah 34:5 becomes interesting because of its parallelism with the next verse. In verse 5 the Lord’s sword will be “bathed” The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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(ravah) in heaven, while in verse 6 His sword will be “filled” (mala) with blood.

The parallel Hebrew word (mala) never means drunk. Since in all three instances (Deut. 32:42, Jer. 42:10; 22:10, and Isa. 34:5) instruments of war are the subject of methuo, it is reasonable to take the LXX use of methuo in these verses as meaning “filled.” Added to this, ravah clearly has no implication of drunkenness twelve out of the fourteen times that it is used in the Old Testament. The third usage worthy of additional examination is Lamentations 3:15. There parallelism is used once again.

This time ravah is beside another Hebrew word saba for filled that never means drunk.

Excluding John 2, methuo occurs only six times in the New Testament. In Matthew 24:49, Acts 2:15, and 1 Thessalonians 5:7, it is used with the obvious narrow meaning of “drunk.” The proper translation may be “drunk” both in Revelation 17:2 and 17:6, but only as a metaphor for “filled.” Although most commentators take methuo in the narrow sense of “drunk,” in 1 Corinthians 11:21, there are two reasons for translating it “filled.” First, Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ practice implies approval if done at home not in the church. However, Paul commands them in 5:11 not to associate with a drunk. He reiterates this at the end of the verse saying, “with such a one no not eat.” In 6:10 he tells them that drunkards will not “inherit the kingdom of God.” Thus, considering Paul’s view regarding drunkenness, it seems unlikely that he would refrain from rebuking any drunkenness at the supper.

Second, as Godet has noted, methuo “may also be applied to eating, in the sense in which we say to eat his fill.”13 This is seen in the LXX in Hosea 14:7 discussed above.

Furthermore, in this passage methuo appears to be used as an antithesis to hungry (peinao): “one is hungry, and another is methuei.” Full is the opposite of hungry not drunk. That Paul intended methuo as an antithesis to hungry is further revealed by the contrast in the next verse between those who have and those who have not.14 Non-biblical writers also used methuo without the implication of inebriation.

Plato, for example, employed it to describe someone filled with pride.15 Homer used it in reference to a bull’s hide being prepared to be stretched. Obviously, the hide is not drunk from the fat. In this instance, A.T. Murray translated the verb “drenched.”16 Therefore, both “filled” and “drunk” are appropriate translations of methuo.

It does appear that the majority of the time, authors used it in the narrow sense of “drunk.” Nevertheless, it is not a rare case for methuo to mean “satisfied” or “filled.”

Therefore, to insist that methuo always means “drunk” is to commit the exegetical fallacy of “unwarranted restriction of the semantic field.”17 One must turn to the context to determine the meaning of methuo.

The “Good” Oinos Carson asserted that the idea that fresh juice was produced by Jesus “is intrinsically silly as applied to countries whose agricultural tradition is so 44

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committed to viticulture.”18 This, however, is only true if the “good wine” means “stronger wine.” There is ample evidence that the culture was strongly committed to producing and preserving the fruit of the vine. Moreover, evidence suggests that they regarded freshest oinos as the best. Barnes noted: Pliny, Plutarch, and Horace describe wine as “good,” or mention that as “the best wine,” which was harmless or “innocent,” poculo vini “innocentis.” The most useful wine, utilissimum vinum, was that which had little strength; and the most wholesome wine, saluberrimum vinum, was that which had not been adulterated by “ the addition of anything to the ‘must’ or juice.”19 Pliny said, “Wine is rendered old, or feeble in strength, when it is frequently filtered. The strength being thus excluded, the wine neither inflames the brain nor infests the mind and passions, and is much more pleasant to drink.”20 Columella, a Roman agriculturalist, writer, and contemporary of Jesus, speaking of a certain type of grape, said it “makes good wine and it is harmless … because it is considered inactive (iners) in its effect on the nerves, although not dull in taste.”21 Before describing various methods of preserving juice fresh, he said, “We regard as the best wine any which can keep without any preservative, nor should anything at all be mixed with it by which its natural savour would be obscured.”22 Nevertheless, after describing how to keep it sweet with the aid of an additive, he commented, “This wine will be pleasant to the taste and will keep in good state and is wholesome for the body.”23 According to Horace, “The ancients filtered and defecated their must repeatedly before it could have fermented; and thus the faces which nourish the strength of the wine being taken away, they rendered the wine itself more liquid, weaker, lighter and sweeter, and more pleasant to drink.”24 Barnes correctly concluded that “it should not be assumed, therefore, that the ‘good wine’ was ‘stronger’ than the other: it is rather to be presumed that it was milder.”25 Therefore, it seems that interpreting the “good” oinos as stronger is only appropriate in a modern context, not the context of Jesus' day.

The Time of the Wedding William Hendriksen argued that the timing of the wedding, between October and May, ruled out that the oinos served at this wedding could “be anything else but fermented grape-juice.”26 This is based on the assumption that there was no way to keep juice fresh.

However, Columella gives instructions on the preservation of fresh juice for a year by sealing it off and submerging it under cool water for forty days. 27 Similarly, Cato noted, “If you wish to keep grape juice through the whole year, put the grape juice in an amphora, seal the stopper with pitch, and sink in the pond. Take it out after thirty days; it will remain sweet the whole year.”28 Additional methods included The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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boiling the fresh juice down to paste and reconstituting it with water when ready to drink. Columella explained in great length how boiled-down must was used to preserve wine: “Let us be mindful to preserve our wine with boiled-down must of a year old, the soundness of which has been already tested.”29 Since there were ways to preserve grape juice from fermentation, then the time of the wedding does not demand that the oinos be fermented. Further, Hendriksen may also be incorrect in assuming that the grape harvest concluded by October. Pliny mentions grapes that ripen after the frost.30

Theological Considerations Exegetically speaking, neither interpretation can be proven or disproven. Both are possible. Therefore, the final decision of the precise nature of the oinos may be determined by theological considerations. Though some may object by arguing that “theology should not be the determining factor of interpretation,” Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard have not only noted everyone uses theological presuppositions to interpret Scripture, but also that it is necessary to interpret it correctly.31 A belief in the inerrancy of Scripture logically leads to a key rule of evangelical hermeneutics, the analogy of faith.32 If Scripture is in constant harmony, then it cannot contradict itself. Therefore, one must not only consider the immediate context and historical context but also the context of the whole Bible.33 Due to the controversy over the biblical teaching on alcohol consumption in moderation, it is not considered here. What both Christian moderationists and prohibitionists agree on is that Scripture clearly condemns drunkenness (Prov.

23:31; Eph. 5:18) and that Jesus Christ was sinless (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22; Heb. 9:14). Prohibitionists often argue that it would be a sin for Jesus to make intoxicating drink because Scripture forbids drinking such. This article is seeking to determine the nature of the oinos Jesus made without drawing a conclusion on whether Scripture condemns recreational use of intoxicants or permits it in moderation. So the question is, “If drinking intoxicating oinos is permissible in moderation, would Jesus have sinned by making it at the wedding in Cana?”

One of the primary exegetical arguments for the oinos being intoxicating is that the guests are said, or implied, to be intoxicated. Although Carson admits that the degree to which the guests are intoxicated is not stated, he still maintains that “some inebriation was involved.”34 Degrees of intoxication are demonstrated through increasing physical problems, beginning with impaired peripheral vision and progressing to instability, unconsciousness, and even death. While one may first observe signs of intoxication through diminished stability and coordination as alcohol begins to affect the brain’s cerebellum portion, the frontal cortex is the first portion of the brain to be adversely impacted by intoxication. The prefrontal cortex operates as the control center for risk/benefit assessment, judgment, and behavioral inhibition. The effects of alcohol on this portion of the brain are widely 46

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known to result in people engaging in riskier behavior than normal, exercising poor judgment, and behavioral disinhibition. Stephen Topper notes that the disinhibiting effect of alcohol “results in a euphoric feeling of release, further reinforcing [alcohol] drinking.”35 An inebriated person, regardless of degree, has diminished ability to exercise sound judgment. Drunk people frequently do not realize they are drunk. If the people at the wedding were drunk, they are in a diminished capacity to judge if they could handle another drink or not. If Jesus made intoxicating oinos to offer to people who were already drunk, He would have been offering them something that would increase or prolong their drunkenness. Now the question is, “Would such an offer be a sin?”

While guests would still be morally accountable for their decision, both the words of Christ and Paul indicate that setting this temptation before someone would also be a sin. In Matthew 18:6 Jesus teaches that it is worse to “tempt” or “entice” one of His children “to sin” than to be drowned.36 He continues to pronounce a woe on the one that produces such a “temptation to sin” or “enticement” (scandalon).37 The implication is clear: setting something before someone that would lead them to sin is itself a sin. Revelation 2:14 further illustrates this truth. In His rebuke to the church at Pergama, Christ points to the prophet for hire, Balaam. Robert Mounce notes, “It is clear from the context that this reference is not to a body of doctrine, but to Balaam’s activity of advising”38 “Balac to cast a stumblingblock (scandalon) before the children of Israel” (Rev. 2:14). So, teaching another to entice God’s people to sin is sin.

Romans 14 is often brought into view by those that believe intoxicating beverage is permissible in moderation. Those that believe recreational use of intoxicates are not allowed by Scripture maintain that this passage is irrelevant because nonmedicinal use of alcohol is not a matter of conscience. Regardless of whether recreational use of alcohol is a matter of conscience, this passage is of theological significance for the issue at hand. Gentry correctly notes that the teaching of the passage is that “one must not abuse his Christian liberty so as to entice, prompt, or ensnare” another Christian to sin against his conscience.39 On this point both parties would agree. For Paul, knowingly offering meat sacrificed to an idol to a brother in Christ who incorrectly believes eating it is a sin, is a sin itself.

Setting something before another believer that would entice him to sin is sin.

If it is a sin to knowingly inviting a sober-minded believer to participate in nonmoral behavior that was against his conscience, how much more sinful would it be to provide an occasion to enter into or prolong an immoral behavior for a believer in a diminished decision-making capacity? If setting an occasion for God’s people to engage in wicked behavior, teaching another to entice them, or even just enticing them to violate their conscience is a sin when their inhibitions are fully intact, then providing them an opportunity to continue drinking alcohol while disinhibited because they are at some stage of drunkenness certainly must be a sin.

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On the one hand, if the oinos Jesus made must be alcoholic because the people were drunk, then either Jesus set a stumbling block before the drunken guest or drunkenness is acceptable. If Jesus set an enticement before people who were in a diminished capacity to make moral choices, then Jesus sinned. That is a theological proposition which no Christian could accept. If drunkenness is not sinful, then Solomon and Paul have erred, a theological proposition which no inerrantist can accept. On the other hand, if the guests were not drunk, then there is no contextual reason to interpret the oinos Jesus produced as an intoxicant.

Conclusion When it comes to lexical meaning of oinos, the evidence is clear that the product of Jesus' miracle could be either fresh or fermented juice. The historical setting and context of the passage also fail to deliver decisive evidence for either interpretation. Theologically, if Jesus produced intoxicating wine to give to drunken people then we are left with only two choices, either Jesus is a sinner or the Bible contains errors. Since there is ample evidence for Jesus turning water into fresh juice and the alternative is theologically unacceptable, it appears that the product of Jesus' first miracle was fresh juice. This does not mean that moderationists’ position is biblically wrong. It does, however, mean that moderationists should not appeal to this passage to support their case. Both camps must make their case from other Scriptures.

NOTES

1. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., “The Bible and the Question of Alcoholic Beverages,” Criswell Theological Review 5, no. 2 (2008): 49.

2. Andres Köstenberger, John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 93.

3. Gerald L. Borchert, John 1–11, in the New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 157.

4. P. Oxy. IV. 72919; “They paid to the one who had earned his wages pure, fresh wine [oinon] from the vat.”

5. Cited by Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5, 33, 3–4, trans. Edgar J. Goodspeed, The Apostolic Fathers (New York, 1950), 263.

6. Athenaeus, Banquet 6, 89.

7. Frederic Richard Lees and Dawson Burns, The Temperance Bible-Commentary (London, 1894), 198.

8. Lees and Burns, 433.

9. Nicander, Georgica trans. A.S.F.Gow and A.F.Scholfield (1953) frag. 86, accessed 9/1/2020, http://attalus.org/poetry/nicander.html#georgica.

10. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, in The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1991), 169. Carson further asserted that “methysho demonstrates that some inebriation was involved.” Ibid., 174.

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11. Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament, Luke-John (London, 1875), 2:197.

12. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), s.v. methe.

13. Fredric Godet, Commentary on St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. A. Cusin (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1890), 2:144.

14. Bradley B. Blue, “The House Church at Corinth and the Lord’s Supper: Famine, Food Supply, and Present Distress,” Criswell Theological Review, 5, no. 2 (1991): 26–28.

15. Plato, Critias 121a.

16. Homer, Illiad 17, 390, trans. A. T. Murray (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1925), 239.

17. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Facilities, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 57.

18. Carson, 169.

19. Barnes, 197.

20. Pliny, Natural History 23, 24, trans. W. H. S. Jones, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961).

21. Columella, On Agriculture of Trees 3, 2, 2512, 29, trans. E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955).

22. Ibid. 12, 19, 2.

23. Ibid. 13, 28.

24. Horace, Carminum Liber 1, 11, 6, trans. C. E. Bennett, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946).

25. Barnes, 197.

26. William Hendriksen, John, in New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953), 115.

27. Columella 12, 29, 1.

28. Cato, On Agriculture, trans. William Davis Hooper (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 120.

29. Columella 12, 20, 1.

30. Pliny 14,4, 27.

31. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Nashville: Word, 1993), 87.

32. Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, 3rd rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 107.

33. Ibid., 138–139, 205.

34. D. A. Carson, 174.

35. Stephen M. Topper et al. “Alcohol Disinhibition of Behaviors in C. Elegans,” PLoS One 9, no. 3 (2014): e92965, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092965.

36. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker [BDAG], 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 926; Stählin, “σκάνδαλον, σκανδαλίζω,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 352; Richard N. Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 1,006.

37. BDAG, 926.

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38. Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, in New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 97.

39. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Christian and Alcoholic Beverages: A Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 92.

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From Death to Life: Reflections on Rural Church Revitalization Danny W. Davis, EdD Dr. Danny Davis serves as a global missionary to Uganda, East Africa.

His mission is to equip pastors and plant disciple-making churches among rural and remote people. You can learn more about his work at www. davisinafrica.com. He and his wife Sherry have been married for twentynine years and have two adult sons.

Finding My Own Identity as a Pastor I have been in pastoral ministry for nearly three decades and it has led to numerous opportunities to serve God in unique roles and circumstances. I often get asked by rural pastors about various resources to help them lead their churches.

When I make suggestions about podcasts, blogs, or books, I often get pushback from rural pastors. The most common complaint is this, “I want to learn from someone who’s done it—someone who hasn’t always had success!” I get it and, in some ways, agree with them. Some resources are indeed good at showing the victories without revealing the challenges that led there. Therefore, I believe it is crucial for you to understand those events that have shaped my ministry and prepared me to lead a revitalization. Of course, you do not have to have these same experiences to have success. It is simply intended to let you know that God uses every challenging moment to prepare us for His will.

My entrance to pastoral ministry was as an assistant pastor in a small community in northern Kentucky. The senior pastor’s wife was in the early stages of a terminal illness. As such, I was given a wide range of responsibilities to help create space for the senior pastor to care for his ailing wife. Over a two-year period, I learned to preach, do pastoral care, counsel, and contextualize ministry in a smalltown setting. I was also bi-vocational. I learned so much about pastoral ministry in this small-town church and will forever be grateful for having been there. I had a deep desire to study in a formal setting, so my wife and I left to attend Bible college.

In Bible college, I was able to support my wife and myself as an evangelist.

Every Friday for two years, my wife and I would jump in our vehicle and drive a few hours to start weekend revival services. We loved it! People were being saved, and lives transformed. The summer between our first and second year of Bible college was spent preaching in Home Missions churches in British Columbia. We learned the sacrifices pastors made to do the work of God in small and often very remote The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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places. During one revival, the pastor asked us to hold a car wash so that he could give us an offering. We gladly did it. We slept in our car, Sunday school rooms, and in pastors’ homes. There were days between services where we did not have money to buy food, but God always provided. After that summer, we returned to Bible college and discovered all our school fees had been paid for that year.

After Bible college, my wife and I were invited to help plant a daughter church.

Today this would be called a campus, but in those days, the “mother” church started “daughter” churches. I can sum up our experience in this season in two words—total disaster! The sending church did not live up to its promises. My wife experienced two miscarriages. Both of us were working and pouring almost every dollar we earned into the church plant. It was taking its toll on our health and our marriage.

Eventually, we decided it was best to move on, and we did—straight from the fire into the frying pan.

I was asked to become the pastor of a church in a small town in central Kentucky. The town had seen an amazing economic boom when a major car manufacturing plant was built there. The church, however, was seeing a different kind of boom. The pastor had committed adultery, leaving his wife and two small children alone. The congregation was reeling from the pain of moral failure and the reputation it now carried in this small town. But we believed God was calling us there. Looking back on it, we were just trying to be somewhere other than the total disaster mentioned above. But God used us there, and the church began to grow.

New believers were being baptized on a regular basis, and they were being discipled.

Unfortunately, the new growth did not sit well with some of the board members.

One board member felt like he was losing the control he had exercised over the congregation. One Sunday after church, I was called into a board meeting and given a list of topics I was no longer permitted to preach on. I refused to accept the list, and the board asked me to resign. I did. In hindsight, this moment had been coming for several months. There were rumblings I just ignored, and issues I thought would just go away. By taking a passive approach to church discipline, I set myself up for an increasing number of problems. During this time, our first son was born, and we were now expecting our second son. We had just bought a home and now had no income to pay for it. I remember watching my wife sob as she tried to come to terms with what was happening. Her hurting was more painful than anything a board member could have done to me. Yet we both knew God would sustain us, and he did.

A few days after resigning, I was offered a position on staff at a large church in Western Kentucky. It was in this season God put a burden in our hearts for the nation of South Africa. After two years serving on staff, we packed up our little family and moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. We went there to assume the pastorate of a declining church plant. Over the next twelve years, God used us to revitalize that church and plant others from it. We saw more than 450 people come to Christ in the churches we led. I taught at a Bible college, finished my undergraduate work, 52

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and began graduate school. These were wonderful years of learning how to lead in a cross-cultural setting. Africa is and will forever be in our hearts. After more than a decade, we returned to the United States so I could finish grad school and begin doctoral work.

These experiences helped me find my identity as a pastor and church leader.

My life and ministry leadership today are defined by renewal, grace, grit, and a passion for God’s Word. These attributes proved vital to the turnaround experience God was about to bring us into at Odessa First Assembly of God in Odessa, Missouri (now called Life Point Church).

My Rural Turnaround Context In 2013 I accepted the pastorate of a rural church in Western Missouri. The congregation labored under the illusion that busyness meant discipleship. They had exchanged the work of ministry for hectic activity and were paying a steep price for it. Volunteers were worn out. Programs were ineffective. Their witness of the gospel had become non-existent. Bickering, murmuring, and complaining had replaced compassion for the non-believer. The church, established in 1938, had been in decline for many years. A once thriving congregation had dwindled from approximately two hundred worshippers to about twenty-five. During a four-year period (2009``2013), the church, under various leaders, attempted to implement change but with little success. When my family and I arrived on location, the church was deeply entrenched in survivor mode, hoping that a new “younger” pastor (I was forty-three) would be the answer to reaching new people and growing the church. To put it politely, things were a mess.

Beleaguered volunteers did their best to sustain programs that started when the church was larger. Finances were stretched, and the facilities looked haggard.

Unattractive and uninviting hand-me-down furniture filled the lobby. One wellmeaning board member told me the story of donating their living room furniture for the church lobby because “everyone told us it was too ugly for our own house.”

Bathrooms, once bright and inviting, were in shambles. The baptistry was being used to store puppets, but mostly it had become a place where the cleaners had put trash to save them the walk to the dumpster. A deacon who took care of most of the maintenance bragged about how cheaply he could make repairs. As such, the linoleum in the men’s bathroom was held down with red bricks so they would not have to purchase glue. When I cleaned out the baptistry, this same deacon dug everything back out of the dumpster and put it back, stating, “There might be things in there we could use later.”

During the first worship service, I saw the depths of dysfunction to which this church had sunk. Prior to the service, I called the two worship team members together for prayer. After prayer, we mapped out and agreed upon an order of service.

Soon the worship service started, and as agreed, I came to the pulpit after the first The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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song to greet the congregation. As I approached the platform, the piano player began shouting at her husband, who played bass, “What does he think he’s doing! We don’t want him here, and he can’t interrupt us whenever he wants to!” Thankfully, her husband quieted her down quickly. This event showed me the changes necessary to revive this church were going to come at a tremendous emotional and physical cost to everyone.

Nevertheless, I believed God called me to lead this church and to help restore it to a place of health and vitality. My goal was not to return the church to some image of former glory. In my experience, that seems to be the perceived goal of revitalization for most church members. They want a new pastor (preferably a young one with kids) to take them “back” to where they were when things were good. When they find out that is impossible, then the pastor becomes the fall guy for a host of issues he did not create.

My primary goal became helping the congregation find a new identity and a new path to impacting the community and making disciples. In an early meeting with the deacons, I expressed this goal. One deacon encapsulated the current leadership’s mindset when he said, “Well! I suppose you’re going to ask us to love people in this town. Not sure I can do that!” That comment and many more like it tried to derail the journey toward revitalization, but a stubborn adherence to the mission of God helped keep us on track.

Grit and Perseverance Leading a rural revitalization is not for the faint of heart. If you are going to lead a turnaround in a rural community, you must possess two essential qualities: grit and perseverance. Angela Duckworth states, “one personal quality is shared by prominent leaders in all fields: grit”1. Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Hallowell insists no one knows where grit comes from but assumes it is a product of one’s environment.2 While perseverance is intrinsically linked to grit, it deserves explanation and application to the rural context.

A major challenge facing small churches, especially those located in rural areas, is pastoral tenure. The rural congregation offers an abundance of learning opportunities for those entering vocational ministry. I certainly benefited from my time assisting and leading in small-town and rural congregations. Nevertheless, there seems to be an idea among many pastors that rural is a place to get started but not a place to stay. The skills gained serving a rural congregation are often viewed as one’s “initiation” into ministry. This paradigm leads to a devastating mindset for pastors and church members. Pastors wrongly believe the rural church is a steppingstone to “better” opportunities. Church members become convinced their churches are unable to attract and retain quality shepherds who will stay for the long haul.

Pastoral tenure is a major consideration in the framework of rural revitalization. I made a promise to the church I serve that no major changes would 54

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take place for the first year. In my estimation, the fact that I was there was change enough for this ailing congregation. Then it took nearly two years to lead the church into a place of new vision and identity. Another twelve months were spent dealing with the challenges and conflicts arising from that new vision and identity. It was not until year four that a cultural shift from survival to community engagement began to take place. Now, in my seventh year, the church is at its healthiest point in decades.

While not all timelines must follow the same path described above, revitalization in a rural church will take between seven and twelve years. That means pastors must be willing to stay and persevere through tough seasons, allowing the Holy Spirit to develop in them the fruit of patience.

Rural Pastoral Leadership Is Different Rural communities are different than urban in many ways. One significant difference is what I call the challenge of proximity. Sociologically, this idea is expressed in terms of simplex and multiplex relationships. Urban communities, while in close personal proximity to a larger number of people, tend to have simplex relationships. In other words, my dry cleaner is just my dry cleaner. I give him my shirts, he launders them, and I pick them up. Sure, we may exchange greetings and possibly even develop a cordial relationship, but typically, my only interaction with him is when my shirts are dirty.

Rural communities differ from urban because almost all human relationships are multiplex, not simplex. In a small town, my dry cleaner (if there is one) might also coach my son’s little league team, serve on the parks board, and attend events at my church. In simplex relationships, straight arrows can be drawn from myself to the dry cleaner. Multiplex relationships do not have straight arrows. Instead, the arrows showing relational connection resemble a bowl of spaghetti where everything touches at multiple intersections. One cannot lift a single spaghetti noodle without disrupting numerous others. This complexity is the nature of multiplex relationships in a rural setting.

Practically, this multiplex web of relationships can positively impact the health of a church. Generations of families belong to and serve churches in rural communities. They attend with lifelong friends whose families have also belonged and served for decades. When these relationships are good, the church benefits.

There is a sense of unity and bond that I have never known pastoring in a large urban area— but also a darker side to the multiplex relational dynamics of a rural or small town.

If, for instance, one family finds themselves at odds with the pastor who is trying to bring about change, a domino effect will occur. Often, the new pastor leading this church is not from the community. He does not have the web of relationships that exist for members of his church. Instead, he is often on the outside looking in, trying to understand how a disagreement with one family suddenly turns into The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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the exodus of three or four families. He cannot understand why someone he does not know at the local Dollar General glares at him, and why his sons or daughters are suddenly benched when their athleticism and skill far surpasses that of another child.

Grit and perseverance play a crucial role in revitalizing the rural church at this point. In the third year of our turnaround journey, we experienced the challenge of proximity playing out in our church. New people were coming to Christ and being baptized. New people were taking on leadership roles. New people were doing things that others had done but did not want to do anymore. The problem was that even though they did not want to do it, they did not want anyone else outside their web of relationships to do it either.

In my mind, this influx of new energy was a good thing. The very thing some had wanted to happen was happening, but many were not happy about it. I have learned over three decades of leading Christians that the issue at hand is never the real issue: the problem is typically one of control. It did not sit well with many of the long-term members that more and more new people were taking on decisionmaking roles. The first sign of trouble was when some, who had been members of the church for decades, stopped giving. I have a personal policy of not viewing the giving of individual members unless we are vetting them for leadership, but our overall income began to drop. I asked the treasurer to help me understand what was happening. The picture was clear: new people were just starting to give, and longerterm members were ceasing to give.

In Assemblies of God church government, it is extremely difficult to fire a pastor. At this point in our turnaround, my local denominational leaders served as my church board. Because of the decline and dysfunction of the church, denominational leadership had to step in and take over governing the church before I came. Today, we have our board and are an autonomous self-governing church that has voluntary fellowship with the Assemblies of God. The reason I explain our governmental structure is because the difficulty in dismissing a pastor leads church members to other options for persuading the pastor to resign. One of those options is referred to as “starving the preacher out.� Members cease financial support thinking the preacher will resign when the treasury dries up.

The cessation in giving was meant to force me to resign; but I knew God had called me to this church, and my gritty perseverance would not fall for this ploy. Instead, I accepted an appointment as Professor of Applied Theology at a Bible college and began teaching, and announced that I would be taking a pay cut until the financial situation changed. Then, with approval from the denominational board, I terminated the employment of a full-time church administrator (for a church of fewer than fifty people) to bring us in line with our budget.

While I am not suggesting these actions would work everywhere, I am advocating for strong and decisive leadership. One of the great sins of 21st century 56

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pastors is passive-aggressive leadership. I, too, have been guilty of this type of leadership where one erroneously believes that if a problem is ignored, the problem will go away. It does not go away: it grows! Instead of passively leading, rural revitalizing pastors must have the grit and perseverance to make decisions and move forward. Will there be miscalculations and missteps? Yes! But I guarantee you that indecision is worse than the consequences of making a mistake. In my rural revitalization experience, I learned that making decisions sometimes required outside help.

Bringing in Outside Help For one year, I led a team of church members in a strategic planning process.

We gathered demographic data about our community. Experience has taught me that most people think the world looks like themselves. In our case, that meant our community was perceived by most of the leadership as being white and retired.

This perception was mostly false. The average age in our community was thirtyeight years old. These 30-somethings were driving twenty-eight minutes to work in the city. Most were employed in blue-collar work to support their family. We also gathered data about our health as a congregation.

To help us set change priorities, we needed a real, statistically grounded picture of congregational health. To get this picture, I conducted the Natural Church Development Survey (NCDS) with thirty participants (not on the leadership team).

The survey is a ninety-one-question instrument using the Likert-scale to measure eight qualities of healthy churches. Christian Schwartz’s global research of seventyfive thousand churches revealed all healthy and growing churches share qualities.3 Completed surveys were sent to a tabulating company that uses proprietary software to create a health profile of the participating church. It measures the raw scores of the surveys against those in a national database and calculates a health rating. Our profile revealed areas where we should focus on moving toward health (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Health Profile of Odessa First Assembly

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The survey showed our minimum health fact was “holistic small groups,” meaning small groups that meet to discuss the Bible, apply its principles to daily life, and serve as a natural place for participants to exercise their spiritual gifts.4 I believe in transparency, so I must say that our efforts to form small groups or small group type ministries have never materialized. We have good starts to new initiatives, but people quickly tire and stop attending. Instead, I have come to realize that the Wednesday Bible study and Sunday school classes have been our most effective form of small-group life.

Our highest health factor was “passionate spirituality.” This simply refers to Christians who are committed to and enthusiastic about living out their faith. This remains our highest factor today. I am thankful for those whose love for the Lord has not waned even during tumultuous times. They stayed, worked, gave, and believed God would bring resurrection to our church. The NCDS helped us paint a picture of our congregational health and assisted in setting strategic priorities.

The goal of the demographic and church health exercises was to get clarity in three main areas: the mission of the church in the world, how we would go about making disciples, and how we would communicate all these things through vision.

Near the end of that year, our team hit a wall as we sought to develop a plan for implementing the vision God had given us. I realized that we needed an outside perspective to help us see what we could not and to foster innovation. In other words, we needed a coach to help us keep momentum and successfully execute the plans we had made.

What are a coach and coaching? In the book TransforMissional Coaching: Empowering Leaders in a Changing Ministry World, Ogne and Roehl offer a helpful definition, “Coaching, as we see it, enables transformation, which in turn leads to missional ministry. Great coaches come alongside leaders so that leaders can be transformed into the image of Christ and join Him on His redemptive mission.”5 Communication on our team had not broken down, but we required the help of an outsider to identify gaps and set realistic and measurable goals: this is what coaches do. They allow individuals and teams to gain perspective on what seems like the overwhelming job of bringing about whole-scale change initiatives. As a team, we agreed it would be beneficial to invite a coach into our process.

Our coach challenged us by asking a series of questions and leading discussion events that encouraged us to let go of irrelevant ideas. These ideas were not bad or unbiblical, but, in our context, they were not helping us move forward to health.

Furthermore, the coach facilitated robust dialogue that led to establishing realistic timelines and priorities. In the end, we were able to develop a strategy for moving forward based on a shared worldview of the church and its mission, and our capacity to transform dysfunction to health. It was now time to do what very few leaders and organizations do: execute the plan. “Strategies most often fail because they aren’t executed well.”6 All the work we did as a team would be worthless if we did not act 58

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on it. We soon discovered making plans was easier than implementing them. Sean Covey gets to the heart of why execution is so challenging when he states, Whether you call it a strategy, a goal, or simply improvement effort, any initiative you as a leader drive in order to significantly move your team or organization forward will fall into one of two categories: The first is mainly a stroke of the pen; the second requires behavioral change.7 Our team had put pen to paper and formed a strategy. Now we would ask a congregation to see the church, its mission, and the world around us differently. That meant changing minds about something vastly more important than the color of the auditorium carpet. Congregants would be asked to see the community around us differently. They would be challenged to give up long-held preferences and consider what kind of church would engage the lost. Members would have to reconsider what it meant to be hospitable and welcoming to “outsiders.” These changes, and more, called required members to deconstruct practices that seemed second nature to them but were foreign to the community we intended to engage.

Where Are We Today?

Al Pattimpalli states, “Pain + Reflection = Progress.”8 To say the process of behavioral change was painful would be an understatement. Many members of the original planning team were unable to navigate the cultural transformation and left the church. The remaining team members have taken on new roles and accepted new leadership responsibilities. Between July 2015 and today, the church has grown to seventy-five members and average worship attendance of sixty. A youth ministry was launched in 2019 and has grown from four students to an average of forty students on Wednesday evenings. Attendance numbers are part of the metrics we track, but they only tell a small part of the story.

Part of our vision is to be a church that goes in the power of the Holy Spirit. To live out this value, we have intentionally engaged our community in multiple ways.

Like many rural communities in the United States, our town struggles with poverty.

Partnering with our local school system was a natural means to love our neighbor (literally, the school is across the street from the church). Since 2015 our church has so impacted the community that its business owners voted to award us with the 2019 Community Betterment Award.

Prayer has become a powerful force in our church. Recently, I received a frantic call from someone telling me their friend was in a coma. We talked, and I asked if I could share the prayer need with the congregation. She eagerly responded, “Yes! I am so glad to be a part of a praying congregation. When our church prays, things happen.” I am thankful for the faithful men and women who stop what they are doing, read a texted prayer request, and then go to prayer. Each year we gather in The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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the winter, spring, and fall for “seasons” of prayer. Over the course of seven evenings, we lift our voices to God in intercession for our community, church, county, and country. On the first Wednesday of every month, we set aside Bible study and gather as a body to pray. Every Sunday morning, those who are serving gather before worship to pray and seek the Lord’s blessing on our worship. One of our core values summarizes what we are living, “We pray—a lot!”

Another part of our vision is to help people grow in their relationship with Christ. Part of that vision is to challenge members to serve internally on serve teams.

Today 65 percent of attenders at Life Point are serving at least two Sundays per month on a team. Through our assimilation process, they are challenged to discover their gifts and then get on a team. A part-time worship pastor has been installed, and our Sunday worship is more engaging and dynamic. Per-member giving increased, allowing us to pay off nearly $60,000 in debt. As of this writing, we are wrapping up the last project of a complete remodel of our nearly twelve thousand square foot facility.

Conclusion The road to revitalization is filled with twists, turns, joys, defeats, and victories. It is not easy. It is not for the faint at heart. I have planted four churches on two continents, and the work of revitalizing a rural congregation has been the most challenging assignment to date. The work of revitalization will challenge you as a leader in ways you would never imagine, but the reward is fantastic. Watching something near death come back to life and health is something that must be experienced to fully understand the depth of joy it brings to one’s heart. My prayer is that God would call an army of pastors to lead dying rural churches back to health.

Why? Because every community deserves a life-giving church.

NOTES

1. Angela L. Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, and Michael D. Matthews, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 92 no. 6 (2007): 1087–1101. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087, 1087.

2. Edward Hallowell, Shine: Using Brain Science to Get The Best From Your People (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2011).

3. Charles Schwartz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches (Carol Stream, IL: ChurchSmart Resources, 1996).

4. Schwartz.

5. Steve Ogne and Tim Roehl, Tranformissional Coaching: Empowering Leaders in a Changing Ministry World (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2008), 7.

6. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (New York, NY: Crown Business, 2002), 15.

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7. Sean Covey, The 4 Disciplines of Execution (New York, NY: Free Press, 2012)., 3.

8. Al Pattimpalli, Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds To Change (Audiobook), ready by the author. (New York, NY: HarperAudio, 2016), Chapter 2: 13:35.

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Advancing Technology for the Advancement of Church Ministry Kenneth R. Lewis, PhD Dr. Lewis serves as assistant professor of practical theology and director of information services at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

He also serves as pastor of Briarwood Community Church in Cordova, Tennessee. He received his MDiv and PhD from MABTS.

Introduction Technology is a term that invokes excitement and anticipation in some and fear and aversion in others. While the development of technology has provided innovative ways to advance the interests of the church, opportunities continue to emerge for new dimensions of gospel ministry through technology. Successive generations are increasingly immersed in digital technology as demonstrated through the ubiquitous ownership of smart phones and access to high-speed internet. In this sense, technology becomes a vital part of a missionary strategy to engage, evangelize, and equip people for Christ, especially younger generations with the propensity for high digital adaptation.

Churches of all contexts—urban, suburban, and rural—have considerable opportunities to utilize technology for gospel ministry. The rural church, however, faces unique challenges over their non-rural counterparts. These issues include cultural inhibitions, inaccessibility, and lack of skills to deploy the technology.

While these problems pose difficulties, they need not be prohibitive. The investment in time and costs usually provides dividends in various ways that promote better stewardship of limited resources. It also will raise the church’s competence and confidence in becoming conversant with digitally native generations.

Leveraging technology for kingdom purposes, thereby meeting the demands of ministry in any context, is a matter of faithful and prudent stewardship. The article, however, will focus on the rural church and the technological opportunities specific to its context. The aim is that this work will present helpful ideas for rural churches employing technology for more effective and efficient ministry in an age trending in a more digitally dependent direction.

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What Is Technology?

Technology, in its most fundamental sense, refers to the usage of tools and processes to solve real-world problems.1 Such a definition will include objects such as “clothes, utensils, structures, apparatus, utilities, tools, machines and automata.”2 This broad array of objects is not typically associated with technology but correspond to the formal definition of it.

In reference to the formal definition, technology has pragmatism as its main purpose. Campbell and Garner commented about the pragmatic approach stating that understanding technology is, “inherently connected to and embedded within human culture and values, with a particular emphasis on pragmatic ends.”3 The common understanding of technology pertains to the digital space of computerized and electronic systems.4 Digital technology deals with the practical use of digital devices such as computers, mobile devices, and smartphones. Schuurman definition of computer technology provides a pertinent framework for this article, “a distinct cultural activity in which human beings exercise freedom and responsibility in response to God, to unfold the hardware and software possibilities in creation with the aid of tools for practical ends and purposes.”5

Theology and Technology Historical Developments Christianity’s applied use of technology is not simply a conversation for the modern or postmodern era. Christians have used various tools of technology to fulfill the Great Commission. One of the first technologies Christians used to spread the gospel was the Roman roads of the first century. The Roman road system implemented during the time of the Roman empire allowed “swift and safe” travel for gospel ministry.6 Green commented further on the believers leveraging the cutting edge technology of first century interstate travel: “It is clear from the pages of the Acts that Christians made the maximum use of the Roman road system, and that it formed an unconscious directive to their evangelism. What a merchant could do for financial advantage, a Christian could do in the cause of the gospel.”7 The early followers of Christ used the sovereignly provided means to carry out their call to take the good news to a world made reachable by the Roman roads. Their example gives credence to using the digital pathways to reach people where they are.

Another example of early Christian use of technology was the codex which allowed the church near the end of the first century to copy and transport the Scripture text in a safer and more efficient manner. Likewise, the printing press of the fifteenth century exponentially improved the output of printed material and literacy. Bourgeois commented on the resourcefulness of Christians as “among the first to see the value in this technology.”8 Martin Luther, the notable reformer, applied the technology of the printing press to produce and distribute his ninety-five

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theses. Johannes Guttenberg, the inventor of the printing press, used his invention to print Bibles because he understood the implications for furthering God’s kingdom: Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books, which confine instead of spread the public treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.9 Additional technologies throughout Christian history are possible to mention but beyond the scope of what this article can cover. Such technologies include the telegraph of the nineteenth century and the radio and television technology of the twentieth century. Christians have made considerable use of the available technologies of their time with the sense of God’s provision to further His cause.

God’s people through making use of their accessible technologies have paved the way for successive generations to make similar application.

Modern Developments The current era of technology is digital where systems and devices contain some aspect of computerized design and function. Most of the modern devices provide means to access the internet. The internet is a technological phenomenon of the late twentieth century into the current day. Developed in the 1960s as a means for computers to communicate across a network, it has become a platform that has connected much of the world. Families can use the internet to correspond via email, phone, and videoconferencing. Missionaries can keep close contact with families and supporting churches. Churches can stream services to member campuses or even over the entire internet.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has thrust many churches into virtual spaces for worship gatherings and discipleship meetings. As governmental regulations and advisories have restricted public gatherings, churches have resorted to streaming and videoconferencing to maintain continuity and connectivity. The trend of dependency on digital technology will likely continue as these tools become integral to the regular functions of the church.

Spiritual Developments As modern culture has become more digitally fluent, attitudes toward technology have become more positive as people realize its inherent advantages and are able to ascend the learning curves to use such systems. Christians, as products of a digital culture, have been similarly influenced in the direction of greater acceptance and adaptation. Attitudes toward technology, particularly the internet, have trended to more favorable positions among churches and pastors in recent The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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years. Barna conducted a study that indicated 54 percent of pastors in 2015 agree that the internet is a powerful tool for effective ministry compared with 35 percent in 2000.10 That same study also revealed a strong majority of pastors who said they believe it is theologically acceptable for a church to provide faith assistance or religious experiences to people through the Internet—87 percent in 2015 comparted to 78 percent in 200.11 Such noteworthy changes in affirming attitudes toward digital technology by church leaders gives insight into its value for doing ministry.

Worldview of Technology Historical developments provide a perspective on the value of technology that may not have been apparent to the adherents of that day. With rapid changes in technological developments and its inherent risks, the question remains as to whether the investment will return adequate dividends. What clear advantages exist in taking the leap to adopt and implement technology in the local church?

Community and Communication As the church is an assembly of believers in Jesus Christ, its two main means of maintaining relationships are community and communication. Technology empowers both of these realities. Wayne Sankarlal remarked, “The church is about community, and technology is about communication. By their natures, they are intertwined and intermixed. They thrive when they are brought into harmony with one another.”12 Technology has enabled communication in incredible ways.

Specifically, communication technology has facilitated a high level of interaction where virtual communities are formed and sustained. Ruth Conway has insightfully written, “Communication technologies deal with the lifeblood of meaningful human existence. It is through communication that we sustain relationships, create community, and discover identity.”13 The internet has become an undeniable force in the communications realm.

Recent statistics estimate approximately 4.5 billion people not only have access to the internet but also actively use it.14 This number represents about 60 percent of the world’s population. While the rural church may see this statistic as overwhelming and out of reach for its missional scope, it nonetheless provides the probability that their context consists of a majority who are online users. Thus, reason would prevail that the church should not overlook the internet in its operational and missional objectives.

The rural church, being fewer in number, typically contains members who have a stronger sense of community than its non-rural counterparts. Communication technologies such as phone, text messaging, and email allow the community to stay informed especially during critical times such as a pandemic. Communication technology also allows the church to further develop the life of its community while expanding it to include others. For instance, a church or small group could regularly 66

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use their social media channels to communicate important church news, events, and teachings.

A common concern is whether a virtual community really works to build true community or simply tolerates interpersonal communication that is more impersonal than personal. Can people interacting with each other over computerized devices form real community? While physical presence is the ideal means to foster relationship, virtual presence does not necessarily hinder it. Stetzer rightly quipped that “[t]echnology enables community” and further stated that it “allows a greater sense of community that doesn’t demand proximity.”15 Virtual community can be real community when participants engage one another in genuine ways using the Christian ethics of love, humility, and respect.

Douglas Estes affirmed, “a necessary ingredient of healthy, biblical community is participation.”16 Consider the apostle Paul who used the Greco-Roman technology of writing letters to express his frequent prayers, instruction, and admonitions to the church.17 Paul participated in the lives of the local churches through the medium of epistles. Physical presence does not necessarily mean participation. Thus, participation, as the key element of community, can function in the virtual space of communication technology.

Expediency and Efficiency The pragmatic possibilities of technology made it the cultural staple it has become. In many realms, digital technology has produced indispensable tools such as the mobile phone and computer. The mobile phone has been the most widely acquired device over the last decade. A Pew study reports that the “vast majority of Americans—96%—now own a cellphone of some kind.”18 Mobile phone ownership in America has reached almost saturation levels in America and most developed countries around the world.

The pervasive use of mobile phones has resulted in a culture of hyperconnectivity. In former times, the method of reaching someone via a telephone call was to place a call to a stationary home-installed device shared by the household.

The current method, however, is to call a personal mobile phone possessed by the individual. Mobile phones have become the common and preferred method for personal voice communication. Because these mobile devices are typically in close proximity to the person, they are potentially reachable most of the time unless the person is unavailable for immediate contact. The instant access through mobile phone and text allows more time throughout the day for communication to occur than in times past. For example, church members may reach the pastor through his mobile phone as a primary contact without the need to choose between an office, home, or work phone number in an emergency. Although the pastor or church leader may not be reachable at all times via their mobile devices, they have to ability to handle missed calls or text messages in a relatively brief timeframe. Many churches The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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issue cellphones to pastors and church staff or compensate them for using their own devices because of the high accessibility and utility it affords.

The majority of mobile devices that American consumers use are smartphones, a mobile phone that performs many of the functions of a computer. The same Pew study reported that approximately 81 percent of Americans own smartphones, compared to just 35 percent in 2011.19 The commonality of these devices has made their possession almost requisite. The advantage of smartphones for pragmatic and productive purposes is their computer-like capability and portable manageability.

More than simply a phone for talk and text, smartphones can be used for such purposes as social media, web browsing, online transactions, office productivity, and presentations. With the network connectivity provided by mobile carriers, a growing number of smartphone users can operate their devices without a physical connection to the internet.

The COVID-19 crisis caused many organizations including churches to conduct their businesses virtually. Using the technology of mobile devices, audioconferencing, video conference, and online purchasing, many organizations were able to continue the essential functions of their business. With the provision of internet access and appropriate computing devices, the rural church can continue their ministry in similar fashion as their non-rural counterparts.

In-Reach and Outreach Digital and media technology have provided innovative means for the church to enhance its ministry of shepherding, discipleship, and fellowship. Because of the time people spend online or handling their mobile devices, the church has a good opportunity to assist church members and others with redeeming this time for kingdom purposes. Even assisting people in using their technology time in a redemptive manner can be a discipling moment itself.

One of the most straightforward ways to reach people with spiritual content on their phones is through text messaging. The church can send group texts to members and guests with brief devotionals on a regular basis, such as daily or weekly. The pastor or other church leader should devise the devotional content, if possible, to make it more personal and applicable to the members. If time or skill becomes a hindrance, devotional content could be used from another ministry that publishes them. This content will likely be copyrighted and thus, require appropriate permissions before redistributing it to others.

Texting has become a more common way of interacting and disseminating information due to the conciseness of the communication. Since most people own mobile phones, particularly smartphones, this communication medium can be an efficient way to keep church members informed on church-related matters. Group texting could replace automated phone tree messaging as the preferred method of messaging a number of people at once.

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Other ways of ministering via technology include posting church-related content through various platforms such as websites and social media. For example, the church can post sermons online for members and guests to access them on demand. The logistical components necessary involve proper recording equipment within the church to capture the footage for production and subsequent posting.

Wares of Technology An abundance of technologies exists to enable or enhance the mission of the church. The following tools are provided with the rural or small church in mind based on the feasibility in cost, learning curve, and implementation.

Website The website has become the new front door to the church, meaning the first place where guests and potential members make interest or inquiry into the church. While the website is one of the most fundamental technologies available to the church, it can be an effective tool to engage people within and outside the church. The church has the opportunity to utilize its website to communicate its mission, values, and beliefs to interested persons. A church without a website or an inadequate one will forfeit opportunities to reach people for ministry.

Building websites has become less technically involved with the emergence of commercial software that provides features for quick design and publishing of a site.

These website-building tools are reasonably accessible and affordable. These tools provide standard templates that can be configured to deploy a website in a much shorter timespan than a completely custom-built one. Church leaders must consider, however, that web-building tools that are the easiest to use often produce websites that look fairly ordinary and are limited in features and scalability. Nonetheless, a stock website will be, in most cases, better than none at all.

The key to effective websites is to keep them updated with current information.20 Outdated or incorrect information will reflect poorly on the church.

To keep the site maintained, the church can appoint a staff member or volunteer with the requisite skills or capacity to learn. Rural churches, with the likelihood of limited staff, however, may consider outsourcing, but if it is cost prohibitive, the church could seek the assistance of other churches that may have available staff or volunteers willing to help.

Social Media Social media platforms have gained prominence in recent decades as the preferred method of interpersonal communication. Social media usage has become widespread in the United States and the world due to its ease of accessibility through technologies such as computers and smartphones. According to a Pew Research study, social media was the top tech-related trend of the past decade as “the go-to The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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platform for connecting with others, finding news and engaging politically.”21 The article further reported that social media use has reached “near-saturation levels of use among major segments of the population.”22 While the rural demographic using social media seems to be less likely than that of non-rural users, the gap is not significant.23 Thus, social media has reasonable potential for the rural church to execute and enhance its communication.

The concern for rural church leaders is whether their church should be involved with social media. Based on the high likelihood that church members, especially younger ones, and potential members are using the platform, the church should take the opportunity to meet the people where they are. If a church endeavors to make a physical appearance to a certain mission field for gospel ministry, should not a virtual mission field be just as valid? The benefit of communication and connection is important for making disciples wherever they exist. Jonathan Howe pointedly commented, “The people you will reach and disciple are online on social media. If your people are on social media, your church should be on social media.

It’s a great way to promote and inform members and guests alike.”24 The church interested in being where people are, even in virtual spaces, will consider social media involvement necessary.

Social media can be the first place where the church engages people on a personal level. The pastor or church leader who communicates through blogs or social media can maintain consistent interaction with church members and others.

Ed Stetzer claimed he was able to pastor his church throughout the week through social media and digital technology.25 Livestreaming Livestreaming is a technology that broadcasts events in real-time over the internet. It has become an increasingly popular method of reaching people virtually by including them in church events real-time. Initially, it was used primarily by larger churches, but the COVID-19 crisis caused churches of various kinds to invest in and implement this technology. Churches broadcast, through livestream, events such as worship services, discipleship groups, church leader announcements, and meetings. The livestream technology has evolved to the point of reasonable cost and accessibility. Livestream can be done with minimal technical investment, requiring only internet access, a capture device such as camera or smartphone, and a streaming platform account provided through social media. More comprehensive and higher quality livestreams will require a higher investment in technical equipment, network capacity, and technical expertise.

Blogs and Podcast The pastor or church leader can use blogs and podcasting technology to expand their equipping ministry into cyberspace. Blogs are written posts where the 70

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writer shares views or ideas on a particular subject. Setting up blog posts can be done with relative ease and low cost, but doing blogs well requires skill and consistency, which the pastor must consider before launching a blog. He must also consider the time and method by which he will promote the blog since social media is often the preferred channel to promote blog posts and it also requires skill and consistency, as well as intentional engagement.

Podcasts are digital audio files hosted by audio messaging platforms that allow persons to deliver programs to subscribers. Podcasts are growing in popularity due to their ability to be consumed while the listener is doing other activities such as driving or exercising. The on-demand format distinguishes podcasting from radio broadcasting. The technical requirements for podcasting include capable sound capture equipment, sound editing equipment, and a podcasting service for publishing the content. It also requires a higher level of skills to manage the technology.

Prospecting The increase of smartphone usage has made available innovative ways to interact with prospective members of the church. Whereas the common way for a prospect to submit his or her information to the church was to complete a printed visitor’s questionnaire, newer ways involve submitting the information on the church’s website or through a mobile application. These automated features allow the information to be captured and managed in a more efficient way and is more conversant with the digitally native generations.

Online Giving Giving through online services has provided the church with automated means to receive financial donations. These online services can be accessed on the church’s website, smartphone app, or text. Online giving allows donors an alternative means to give to the church rather than the traditional offering tray. The primary concern about online giving is the security of the information the donor is required to submit for the financial transaction. Cybercrime continues to be a reality, and donors may have serious reservations about their personal and financial data being compromised. To mitigate these risks as much as possible, churches should research and vet the service providers to verify they are using secure tools and best practices when handling financial transactions.

Another concern for online giving is the fees paid to the service provider for the automated giving technology. The fees are usually assessed at a percentage of the donation for each transaction. Depending on the number of transactions and the amount of each, the fees could be substantial. These fees are in addition to other costs such a monthly charges. Therefore, these costs could reduce the total net donations for the church in a considerable way. The convenience of online giving, however, could result in increased financial support for the church.

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Church Management Systems Church management software enables church staff to handle the business operations using modern technology. These systems provide tools to perform such tasks as member management, financial records, and event management. The capability of these tools varies from basic to very complex based on the needs and affordability of the church. A church with minimal staff can realize operational benefits from church management software.

Wisdom in Technology Seek to Serve Training people on the proper use of technology is an overlooked need the church, rural and non-rural, can provide. A Barna study revealed a sobering reality: Most parents and tweens/teens have not heard any kind of teaching in a church, religious setting, or public forum (like a school) about how families can best use media, entertainment or technology. In other words, most families are not getting any coaching or assistance when it comes to integrating technology into their family life. 26 The church has a timely opportunity to minister to families on a very relevant matter that profoundly impacts their daily life. The Barna article posited, “[t]he implication is that faith communities could take a leadership role in teaching about the proper use of technology in healthy families.”27 Churches interested in serving and equipping families must not overlook this issue that affects the health and harmony of many homes.

Be Your Best The greater exposure of the church through digital media has raised awareness of the need to produce quality content. Whatever content the church produces—website, messages, social media communication—should be the best quality possible. Work poorly done brings criticism on the local church and affects the Christian cause, to a larger degree. A side effect of being online is the projection of an image or brand. Correll advised, “being online requires accepting that you have an audience, and participating online demands curation.”28 Church leaders should be ready to invest the necessary time and costs to handle their technical and media responsibilities with great care.

Count the Cost The church must invest wisely in its technical needs. Church leaders should assess what is needed to accomplish the intended purpose within reasonable limits of cost and expertise. The church must take caution in acquiring technology simply 72

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because of its marketing prominence (it seems cool or catchy). Much consumer technology is marketed with such pointed proficiency that it can create a euphoric craving that compels some people to compulsive behavior. What works well in one church may not work well in another one. For instance, a small rural church will not need the same level of audio-visual system as a larger church. Reason must be applied to acquire only what is needed and suitable for the church’s needs, as the wrong kind of technology, or even too much, can cause unnecessary complications in implementing the technology. Many online resources are available for research before making purchases. The church leader would be wise to use them thoroughly to become educated and advised on the technology.

Heed the Warnings As with any tool used for practical purposes, digital technology is replete with great promise but also great peril. Borgmann warned, “[a]lthough the technological society is stable and resilient, it is shallow too, having lost dimensions of life that we used to value.”29 Technology has been used in the addictive behaviors of pornography and gambling. Social media platforms have regrettably become a battleground for disputes, criticisms, slander, and pointless debates. While the heart of the issue is the human heart rather than the technology itself, wisdom would hold that appropriate boundaries and other protective measures be put in place for accountability and protection.

Beware of the dehumanizing effect of technology that reduces people to simply online users or avatars (images people use to represent themselves online).

Behind the screens or devices are real people for whom Christ died. Affirming the dignity of the individual will go far in sustaining the personal relationship while maintaining a good reputation for the church or Christian leader.

Another warning is to avoid spreading false information. Besides being disobedient to the Lord in being a false witness, the church’s testimony is adversely affected. Would one believe the truth of the gospel when they know a church or Christian has spread untrue information?

Political polarity is often the scene of much confrontational interaction on social media. The church must exercise careful wisdom so as not to project the image of being the operative of any political party. While the church has a right and responsibility to speak to the moral issues of the day, it is advisable to conduct itself in an apolitical way as much as possible.

Conclusion Jesus' parable about the dishonest manager is helpful for Christians regarding their attitudes toward technology. Jesus commended the unjust manager in Luke 16:8, “because he had acted shrewdly.” Stein commented that the comment of shrewdness, “urges believers to act as prudently with regard to divine things as The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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unbelievers do with regard to earthly things.”30 Commercial businesses, sporting franchises, and even political candidates recognize the power of technology to build their constituency. Social media is a platform where thought leaders seek to influence others. Should the people of this world be committed to using the available technological tools to further their interests while the church remains disinterested and disengaged? Intentionally ignoring the digital space is to miss the means of the day God has sovereignly availed to the church to fulfill its divine mandate.

A healthy perspective on technology is necessary to see its advantages for using it appropriately. Campbell and Garner expressed the phrase of “technological optimism as having a positive impact on the nature and function of the church.”31 Technology is not a fear to avoid, but a resource to engage for effective ministry. May the church make the fullest use of technology to further God’s kingdom for God’s glory.

NOTES

1. Derek C. Schuurman, Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013), 13.

2. Ibid, 13.

3. Heidi A. Campbell and Stephen Garner, Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in a Digital Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 21.

4. Ibid., 13.

5. Schuurman, 22.

6. Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 16.

7. Ibid., 16.

8. David T. Bourgeois, Ministry in the Digital Age : Strategies and Best Practices for a PostWebsite World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013), 15.

9. Bourgeois, 15–16. The author quoted Gutenberg’s comment from the preface to the Gutenberg Bible (1454).

10. Barna Research Group, “Cyber Church: Pastors and the Internet,” Research, Barna Group, February 11, 2015, https://www.barna.com/research/cyber-church-pastors-and-theinternet/.

11. Ibid.

12. Wayne Sankarlal, “Technology in the Small/Rural Church,” The Presbyterian Outlook, July 25, 2016 https://pres-outlook.org/2016/07/technology-smallrural-church/.

13. Ruth Conway, Choices at the Heart of Technology: A Christian Perspective (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 87.

14. “Digital around the World”, Datareportal, https://datareportal.com/global-digitaloverview. The report also noted that the average increase of people who come online grows approximately 950,000 new users per day.

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15. Ed Stetzer, “3 Ways Technology Enables the Mission of the Church,” The Exchange with Ed Stetzer (blog), Christianity Today, October 25, 2014, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ edstetzer/2014/october/3-ways-technology-enables-mission-of-church.html.

16. Douglas Estes, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 66.

17. One example would be Romans 1:8–13 where Paul participated in the life of the church in Rome by praying for them although he had intent to see them in person.

18. “Mobile Fact Sheet”, Internet & Technology, Pew Research Center, June 12, 2019, https:// www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/#:~:text=The%20vast%20majority%20 of%20Americans,range%20of%20other%20information%20devices.

19. Monica Anderson, “Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2019”, Internet & Technology, Pew Research Center, June 13, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/ internet/2019/06/13/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2019/.

20. Thom S. Rainer, “Seven (Plus One) Deadly Sins of Church Websites,” Church Answers (blog), Church Answers, https://churchanswers.com/blog/seven-plus-one-deadly-sins-of-achurch-website/. Rainer mentioned several points of advice in this blog for maintaining a healthy website.

21. Brooks Auxier, Monica Anderson, and Madhu Kumar, “10 Tech-Related Trends that Shaped the Decade,” FactTank-News In The Numbers (blog), Pew Research Center, December 20, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/20/10-tech-related-trends-thatshaped-the-decade/.

22. Ibid.

23. Maeve Duggan and Joanna Brenner, “Social Networking Site Users,” Internet & Technology, Pew Research Center, February 14, 2013, https://www.pewresearch.org/ internet/2013/02/14/social-networking-site-users/. The authors report that 61 percent of rural internet users use social networking compared to 67 percent suburban and 70 percent urban.

24. Jonathan Howe, “Six Technologies That Can Help Your Church Connect More Effectively,” Facts & Trends, June 21, 2018, https://factsandtrends.net/2018/06/21/sixtechnologies-that-can-help-your-church-connect-more-effectively/.

25. Stetzer.

26. “How Technology is Influencing Families,” Research, Barna Group, May 20, 2011, https://www.barna.com/research/how-technology-is-influencing-families/.

27. Ibid.

28. Angela Williams Gorrell, Always On: Practicing Faith in a New Media Landscape (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 79.

29. Albert Borgmann, Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology (Grand Rapids: Brazo Press, 2003), 44.

30. Robert H. Stein, Luke, in vol. 24 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 414.

31. Heidi Campbell and Stephen Garner, Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in a Digital Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 29–30.

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From the Cross to the Crescent: Conversion Experiences of Young Professing Christians to Islam Tom Marshall, PhD Dr. Marshall serves as assistant professor in business administration and organizational leadership and as the director of Institutional Assessment for the College at Mid-America. He has a PhD in Education and is senior pastor of Parkway Baptist Church in Hernando, Mississippi.

An Alarming Reality Next to Christianity, Islam is the largest religion in the world with more than 1.8 billion worldwide followers.1 If current growth trends persist, researchers indicate that by 2050, the number of Muslims in America will surpass Judaism while Christianity will decline from three-quarters of the current population to twothirds.2 There are 3.1 Muslims born per family, compared to 2.3 children born to non-Muslim families. Consequently, increases in Muslim fertility account for much of their projected growth rate.3 However, one should not discount those converting to Islam from non-orientalist religions. As Mohamed reports, “about one in five American Muslim adults were raised in a different faith or none at all.�4 As a result, it is important to understand the thoughts, perceptions, and experiences involved in the transition between disparate faiths, like Christianity to Islam. The following is the result of research conducted on the conversions of young, professing Christians to Islam and why those religious migrations took place. The participants names have been changed to protect their anonymity.

The Growth of Islam in the South Riley identifies the South as a confederation of states with the strongest Christian influence.5 However, that vitality is tenuous as new, non-indigenous paradigms challenge traditional religious and cultural values. Islam proves to be one of these challengers as Muslim populations have grown throughout the South.

Islamic adherents in Mississippi increased 28 percent from 2000 to 2010 and there are an estimated 5,000 Muslims currently residing in the state.6 Tennessee has the The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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fastest growing immigration rate in the United States.7 Alabama reports thirty-one mosques in its state.

Combining birth rates with the number of indigenous Muslim migrations to the South has made a profound impact on the stability of its cultural and spiritual status quo. For instance, Campbell reports regional disparity in the US with a greater Muslim population density in the South than in the Northeast.8 Also, within the southernmost regions of the South (Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi) Islam, compared to Christianity, is the second largest religion.9 If Christian influence in the South continues to capitulate to Islam, residents will witness a compromise of its prevailing cultural, ideological, and spiritual identity. Religious and cultural implications resulting from these challenges will be especially profound for those in the impressionable stages of adolescence and young adulthood. And if Christian influence is strongest in the South, what will be America’s spiritual portrait if it cedes to Islam?

Questions Addressing the Issue To understand the conversion experiences of professed Christians who are indigenous southerners who converted to Islam during their late adolescent and young adult stages, I asked the following: • • • •

What were the experiences of professed, indigenous southern Christians in select southern states regarding their conversion to Christianity?

What were the experiences of professed indigenous southern Christians in select southern states regarding their conversion to Islam?

What are the perceptions, thoughts, and spiritual experiences of these southerners since converting to Islam?

What are the perceptions, thoughts, and cultural experiences of these southerners since converting to Islam?

What Were the Results?

This research revealed the participants’ initial conversion to Christianity lacked depth, substance, and subsequently, transformation. From these testimonies, several themes emerged.

Participants Professed Christ to Please Others Whether overt or implied, 50 percent of the participants revealed some type of external pressure to profess Christianity. Nathan recounted his parents glaring at him during a worship invitation signaling their expectations for him to go down and “get saved.” Consequently, no authentic conversions occurred with him or any of the participants. As a result, the “salvation” events produced no qualitative spiritual transformation. In other words, participants believed a public 78

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demonstration, validated with a denominational ritual (i.e., baptism) satisfied God’s acceptance requirements and the public’s conformity expectations. The tragedy in this ideology is that these individuals never developed a desire to connect spiritually with God. Admittedly, not all participants experienced overt pressure to make Christian professions; however, no matter the derivation or degree, 50 percent believed emotional, cultural, or behavioral coercion prompted their conversions to Christianity.

From what the participants’ testimonies indicate, the strength of Christian influence in the South appears to be its Achilles heel. With such a profound influence on the southern culture, Christianity has become a “given” identity to its residents. Parents rear their children in a predominantly religious environment, where traditional culture, church, and God intermix into their collective psyche. As a result, parents expect their child to pledge to those endemic values. In time, the child develops a socio-religious identity. Eventually, when the child makes a faith profession, it is regarded as a right-of-passage into the social and denominational mainstream.

Participants Believed Christianity Was Their Birthright Another contributor to these participants’ lackluster profession experience was the belief that Christianity was their birthright. Prior research supports this phenomena’s common popularity.10 Furthermore, Kinnaman asserts, “Adults identify as Christians typically because they had formative experiences as a child or as a teenager that connected them to Christianity.”11 As a result, participants were culturally coalesced into a religious system instead of being transformed into Christ’s disciple.

These cohorts’ socio-religious assimilation produced a shallow Christian identity. Also, their Christian professions occurred when they were most susceptible to external influences. As a result, these individuals adopted their authority figures’ faith.

Although the average age at the time of their professions was ten years old, participants had already self-identified as Christians from a much earlier period, causing them to believe they “grew up” Christian.

Unfortunately, because the South has such a pervasive Christian presence, many residents equate church affiliation with spiritual identity. The danger of obtaining a false sense of spiritual security from denominational allegiance and baptism may lead many to believe they are Christians.

Christian Hypocrisy Tempered These Participants' Spiritual Growth Complicating their spiritual development was Christian dualism. Participants became disillusioned with the hypocrisy exhibited by professed Christians. For some, the church was too judgmental; for others, it was too compromising.

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Others recounted post-conversion aggression from church members after aligning with Islam. Instead of lovingly reaching out to these participants when they made the decision to become Muslims, church members vilified them. Jacob remembered how his youth group invited him to a party and then attacked his decision to convert.

Prior studies revealed, “nearly nine out of ten young outsiders (87 percent) said that the term judgmental accurately describes present-day Christianity.”12 By outsiders, Kinnaman and Lyons mean, “those looking at the Christian faith from the outside. This group includes atheists, agnostics, those affiliated with a faith other than Christianity (such as Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, and so on), and other unchurched adults who are not born-again Christians.”13 Islam Offered Participants Stronger Community Than Christianity This study showed conversions to Islam resulted from the participants’ need to connect. Furthermore, this need was multidimensional. From the participants’ testimonies, Islam satisfied their need for community.

During these interviews, the participants touted the theological superiority of Islam over Christianity and the efficacy of their worship routine, but they became more animated and passionate when they conveyed Islam’s perceived communal preeminence. Repeatedly, participants identified Islam as a “brotherhood” and “sisterhood.” None of these individuals utilized those descriptions when they spoke about Christians. Instead, the participants described the church’s community as isolated, fragmented, and dogmatic.

The participants’ church experience is important, especially for today’s socially disconnected youth who struggle with affirmation and acceptance.

Kirkpatrick expanded Bowlby’s attachment model 14 to include adults. Kirkpatrick believes adults seek the same repose from worldly anxiety as children; however, they seek a different security source. As adults, they seek solace from a divine benefactor.

If Christianity cannot satisfy their security and attachment needs, then as an adult, people will seek fulfillment by aligning under other divine authority.15 Thus, the key to allegiance for both children and adults is attachment, according to Kirkpatrick and Bowlby.

Childhood attachment was a challenge for these individuals. The participants in this study, however unfortunate their circumstances, admitted to living on the periphery of childhood normality. At least half of the converts perceived themselves as isolated from social, personal, racial, and familial attachments. These perceptions evolved independent of the church’s influence. However, as a result of their personal detachment, the participants conveyed membership in a congregation, but they did not express an emotional or spiritual bond present in that community. Unfortunately, the church, although not the instigator of their perceived alienation, failed to ease or remedy it.

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Islam’s novelty to Western culture is its strongest attraction. Although Muslims have resided in America since slavery, Islam currently exists on the periphery of Western mainstream religions. This existence appeals to those who feel they have been marginalized. For some of these participants, Islam represents acceptance.

For some, like William and John, Islam offers an alternative to established Western culture. For others, like Mary and Thomas, Islam provides a family structure they feel they had been denied as children.

Whatever the reason for their departure from Christianity, churches would be wise to understand that Islam is not merely a religious entity. Islam is a cultural, spiritual, religious, and in many countries, a legal conglomeration distinct from Western society. Islam permeates and directs all facets of the adherent’s life. In other words, Islam is a religious microcosm of a complete social system.

Today, contemporary society has altered the way people live and what they esteem. Values shift as new generations and disparate cultures homogenize into American society. Society is divided along racial, political, economic, religious, and cultural demarcations. Technology has contributed to people existing in personal, professional, and social isolation. While some adjust to these challenges, others long for intimacy and identity. Islam promises to provide the answer to these desires.

Based upon participants’ testimonies, churches, like Islam, should consider a more active, holistic, and communal involvement with all congregants.

Islam Offered More Substantive Spirituality Than Christianity Frustration from shallow doctrine and weak apologetics were the intellectual reasons why participants left Christianity. Islam appealed to their intellect because it simplified God. For these individuals, praying to God, who exists in three persons, appeared too complex and extraneous. Every participant indicated they had difficulties accepting the Trinity. Islam’s theological appeal, according to the participants, was the negation of Jesus Christ as co-member of the triune Godhead.

Also, doubting the Bible’s validity, compared to the Islamic Quran, was another reason for participants renouncing their Christian profession. Participants claimed the Quran was fact-based, opposed to the Bible’s story-laden composition. Touting its attributes, participants indicated the Quran corrected the Bible’s errancies and human influence.

Finally, these individuals became disillusioned with Christianity because adherents could not adequately defend its doctrines. According to the converts, Christians not only failed to provide adequate answers to theological inquiries, but the aggressive and condescending manner in which they responded increased these participants’ confidence in Islam. According to the participants, Christian apologists debated Muslims with emotionally driven rhetoric, while composed Muslims retorted with facts based upon the Quran and Bible.

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These testimonies point to several sobering realities. Although the church should not accept culpability for all of the respondents’ spiritual woes, it can be more accountable in theological and doctrinal discipleship. First, Christians should consider the efficacy of substantial doctrinal Bible curricula in children and youth ministries. To repeat Jenkins, who has been a leader of college student ministries for several decades, the challenge with professed Christian college students is that they grow up in church as cultural Christians. They claim Christianity as a generational birthright instead of it being a relationship with Jesus Christ. Their Sunday school and discipleship training lacks substance. They know the stories but are ignorant of the doctrinal truths these narratives teach. When confronted, they fall prey to false ideologies because they lack sufficient doctrinal foundations to refute other religious beliefs.16 Admittedly, churches have what appears to be an insurmountable obstacle trying to capture young people’s interest to attend church. However, Christians should not believe their children are “safe” spiritually because they raised them in church and that religious exposure will equip them for the impending onslaught when they leave the family nest.

The tragedy is that these youth are released into society with a false Christian identity. That’s why, according to Jenkins, “a freshman, who comes to a university, from a church background, will have multiple sexual partners within the first few weeks, and tell us they are Christian, because their membership belongs to XYZ church.”17 To highlight the point, this author was surprised at the biblical ineptitude of some of the Muslims he interviewed who criticized the Bible. During one conversation with a candidate who said the Bible was, “full of errors,” I asked him to provide an example. He indicated, “Genesis says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days; however, on the seventh day God went to sleep. Why would God need to sleep, if he was God?” To a Christian neophyte, this might appear to be a reasonable question; however, this man was a Baptist deacon before leaving the church and his grandfather was a Baptist pastor.

Kinnaman asserts young people are growing up in churches without a zeal to engage in its activities or grow spiritually. This phenomenon is endemic, and it stems from the church’s lack of direct involvement with the youth. As he warns, “The dropout problem is, at its core, a faith-development problem; to use religious language, it’s a disciple-making problem. The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture.”18 Kinnaman argues that churches must assume a more proactive role in preparing youth to engage their culture. To accomplish this, they must commit to investing their time, resources, and people to the spiritual development of their youth.

A final startling discovery was the way many of these participants were introduced to Islam. With the proliferation of technology, children have direct 82

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and unrestricted access to limitless information. While there is no shortage of online Islamic propaganda, this research found Muslims actively practice da’wah (proselytizing) on Christian online websites. Since one does not know to whom he or she is conversing, a person can easily be deceived into thinking they are speaking with fellow Christians, when in fact, they are chatting with Muslim apologists.

Caitlyn described watching Christians and Muslims debating online, while Lauren reported an increasingly aggressive recruiting experience with Muslims that originated from an online, Christian chatroom discourse. Nathan researched Islam and other religions online to determine which he would follow. Outwardly, none of these experiences seem threatening. Surprisingly, these participants engaged these Muslims as teenagers without their parents’ knowledge. In fact, the parents were oblivious to their children’s spiritual turmoil and subsequent conversions until after they became Muslim.

Islam Better Encourages Participants’ Spiritual Growth Overall, participants claimed increased personal accountability and spiritual growth. Participants reported an increase in religious and spiritual quality since converting to Islam. These experiences are confounding. For one, the participants criticized Christianity for being ritualistic, yet ritual defines Islamic worship. Also, participants criticized pastors for telling them what they can and cannot do, but they praise imams for their prescriptive directions for Islamic practice.

Moreover, Islamic worship is more demanding than Christian. For example, prayer, according to one Muslim, must be conducted properly. If one recites the jummah prayer incorrectly, other Muslims are compelled to correct the individual.

Not only does prayer need to be concise and correct, it must be conducted during daily intervals. As mentioned earlier, salat (daily prayer) must be performed at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night. Jummah (corporate prayer) is scheduled every Friday evening. Although Christians are encouraged to maintain communion with God (1 Thess. 5:16–18), nowhere does the Bible command a regimented prayer schedule.

Also, appearance is another distinctive restriction Christians do not enforce.

Although inappropriate dress might be discouraged in the Christian church, it is a cultural and religious heresy in Islam. For men, exposing the body is shameful. For women, it is forbidden. Moreover, testimonies are mixed when it comes to women and apparel. Some indicate Islam requires women to wear the hijab and full body dress, while others claim it is optional. There are, however, no dress codes for Christians.

Yet in the midst of these and other rigid Islamic requirements, participants report freedom they could not find in Christianity.

Moreover, structure and authority are reasons why American women are converting to Islam at least four times the rate as men.19 Caitlyn expressed her appreciation for the way her husband asserted leadership in their family. She The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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conveyed her satisfaction in how he provided security and structure. These Islamic attributes are increasing in Western popularity.

For instance, I met with an imam for a local university. When asked about Islam’s allure among Americans he said, “Tom, we do not have to go out and recruit.

They come to our door. The women convert to Islam because they look for security.”

Many American women, according to this imam, seek out Muslim men because they are providers and hold conservative family values. He implied these characteristics are lacking in Christianity.”20 This author does not believe Islam’s allure rests in its supposed doctrinal truths, its superior worship, or its regard for women. Islam’s apparent attraction is its cult-like model used to assimilate and retain susceptible targets. One of these methods is coercive persuasion. Singer describes coercive persuasion as a particularly aggressive form of thought reform that is particularly unyielding and unique from other persuasion strategies.21 This cognitive restructuring disallows substantial discourse and exchange of ideas. It is dogmatic and one-sided. Furthermore, it prescribes to a systematic process that realigns one’s existing beliefs to those who are doing the persuading.

Mary described this inability to discuss the merits of Christ’s deity with her husband and his family. Although they were polite, she indicated they would not tolerate in-depth discussion about Jesus. Furthermore, she remembers them telling her she can never deny Allah once she joins. This intensified pressure disallows anything but unyielding obedience and commitment to Islam.

Islam’s rigid expectation for worship, theology, and lifestyle bears striking similarities to the participants’ professed experiences, and many elements, Singer indicates, attract converts from all races, religions, and gender.22 Ministers, parents, and social researchers would be wise to recognize that the proliferation of technology allows impressionable individuals to clandestinely search for unrestricted and unvetted solutions to their problems. With no authoritative rebuttal, many of these children and young adults become enamored with false teachings.

Unchecked, these unorthodox doctrines posited by astute influencers can lure professing Christians away from the faith. Also, ministers and parents need to address questions and not marginalize children and youth. Sound doctrinal discipleship from the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16) is the only remedy for false ideology.

No child is too young to start learning.

Participants Believe They Can Merge Christianity With Islam Perhaps the greatest irony expressed in this study was the way participants reconciled the spiritual dissonance they experienced when denying Jesus and embracing Islam. Muslims teach that Islam is the fulfillment of God’s revelation.

They venerate all of the biblical prophets, including Jesus, as making revelatory contributions to mankind. However, they declare that Muhammad was the last 84

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prophet, whose revelations “straightened out” all previous teachings. Because the Bible was corrupted by man, Muslims believe Allah used Muhammad to sanitize his defiled word.

The incongruity in their faith is that they both claim to believe in the Bible yet decry it at the same time. Participants believe in the biblical prophets but relegate Jesus as one. Yet, the Bible’s prophets proclaim Christ’s deity. Also, if they believe in Jesus, then they cannot deny Jesus' assertion that, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6, NASB). No mention of Mohammad is included in this verse, nor in any previous or subsequent Bible passages. Therefore, Muslims select biblical narratives that compliment Islamic ideology, while discounting as corrupt all other doctrines that challenge their faith.

To simplify their doctrine, they homogenize Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as elements in the Abrahamic faith. Even though the prophets are supposedly equal, Muhammad is preeminent. The Bible, although corrupted, can be trusted as long as it does not contradict the Quran. This compromise allows converts to have the best of both faiths: live with Christ’s teachings but deny Christ’s deity.

Of course, believers understand that Christianity is Christ-centric. What these participants fail to realize is that one cannot renounce Christ’s deity and align in any way with Christianity. Jesus declared that other religions will appear and claim His authority (Mark 13:6) so what one sees in Islam is nothing more than what Jesus already predicted.

Having considered the testimonies, the church must take into consideration those who are at risk for religious defection, especially youth. Admittedly, the church cannot direct the social, personal, and family dynamics that precipitated these participants’ departure from Christianity, nor can it control the exposure these spiritually, emotionally, and socially vulnerable people experienced in American culture; however, the church can address the following elements.

The church must maintain doctrinal integrity and provide assertive apologetics (1 Pet. 3:15). However, while preserving and proclaiming biblical truths are essential, the church must be mindful that without love its doctrinal accuracy and theological acumen is “like a clanging symbol” (1 Cor. 13:1).

Furthermore, the church must be aware that other faiths relentlessly proselytize through overt and clandestine mediums. For instance, what might appear to be a “safe” website may be a recruiting platform for Islam or other faiths.

Most importantly, churches must be unyielding in proclaiming that only Christianity proclaims the true Christ. Other religions try to incorporate Jesus as a component to their religion, but no religion apart from Christianity believes in the triune Godhead, where Jesus is both one with God and is God. At the heart of false religious teachings is Christ’s marginalization. While many religions compliment Jesus as teacher, prophet, and healer, they negate His

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divine sovereignty, rendering illegitimate their belief system. To align with a religion that denies Jesus as God is to forsake Christianity in its entirety.

Conversion to Islam Produced Family Alienation Once their conversions to Islam became known, participants reported varying dimensions of dissociation from family, friends, and culture. All participants reported post-conversion alienation, disapproval, or rejection from family and friends when they became a Muslim. It is important to note that no Muslim authority advised any participant to sever ties with their previous associations. In fact, one participant spoke about Islam’s reverence for the family. However, the dichotomy between Christian and Islamic identities redefined their family and friend relationships.

Deeper than maintaining dietary, clothing, or holiday customs, the participants noted that Islam changed the depth of their previous relationships.

For instance, Nathan’s mother, although reconciled to his identity, no longer allows religious discussion. Moreover, Lauren described laboring through the Christmas holiday but still attending the family celebration, because she wants to remain connected to them.

Caitlyn described a harsh and bitter separation from family resulting from her conversion. She has not been successful in reestablishing those family bonds.

Although some have not severed ties with family and friends, they did not relate intense intimacy like they boasted of with the “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” in Islam.

As mentioned earlier, Islam’s power does not rest in its intellectual and theological beliefs. Islam attracts converts because it promotes inclusiveness and equality. Those seeking affirmation and acceptance can find it as long as they conform to Islam’s demanding religious and cultural standards. This regimen ensures submissive adherents.

Due to these findings, it is important for ministers and counselors to educate and provide guidance for the family. Coping with a loved one’s loss to other religious influences can be traumatic. Religious ignorance about these faiths can prompt one to react emotionally, instead of spiritually. Reactionary outbursts, like those experienced by some participants, will thwart any immediate attempts at intervention. As Ross states, “The most important single component which is the foundation for any intervention effort is meaningful access.”23 The process that lured them into Islam was systematic and amicable. Those same elements will be necessary if they are going to be regained.

Understanding this, ministers, families, and counselors need to familiarize themselves with both the religion and the impetus for the individual to join. Open communication is key to accomplishing these tasks.

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Conversion to Islam Produced Cultural Alienation Islam, for these participants, has attenuated their sense of nationalism.

Although some were culturally estranged before Islam, it is interesting to examine the participants’ attitudinal responses toward Western culture and discover that suspicion and apprehension prevail. Islam is a social system unto itself. No other movement combines politics, culture, and religion into its corporate identity. Islam operates with a holistic agenda and incorporates many cult practices to reach its objectives. This first agenda is to transform prospects. Galanter likens the process to a factory that takes raw material and transforms it into a finished product. 24 Once a finished product has been transformed, the transforming agent must monitor the finished product’s output to ensure it is meeting its needs. This is accomplished through observing, alternating, and regulating the component part’s activities. The final step is boundary control where the transforming entity must maintain internal stability and protect it from outside threats. Information control is essential if cultural stasis is to be maintained. This might mean insulating them from general information in the public that would threaten to contradict what they disseminate. Controlling the frequency, exposure, and sources of information allows them to reinforce the social systems allegiance.

This systems approach to cult manipulation is similar to that of Islam.

Muslims are a closed community. While Muslims welcome outsiders to the masjids to observe their practices and are generally amicable to non-Muslims, they tend to remain isolated from social interaction with the outside world. Cultural isolation, in the cases of these participants, reinforces their dependency upon each other and distrust for outsiders. This is why the “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” experienced by these volunteers has a different significance than the brothers and sisters the Christian community recognizes.

Again, familiarization with the religion and keeping communication between the individual and those concerned is crucial. Ross emphasizes the importance of deescalating confrontational discourse.25 Thomas, when interviewed, wanted to venture off into government conspiracy theories; however, instead of challenging his beliefs, this author let him speak for a moment and then redirected the conversation.

When one is drawn into potential volatile discussions, it is best to enter informed and composed. When one attacks Islam, they attack the whole community of which once professed Christians are now a part.

Final Thoughts The author learned a valuable lesson throughout this study. Those participants who graciously gave their time did so with the hopes that this research would reveal not just their qualitative experience, but more importantly, their humanity. These testimonies revealed people, who for one reason or another, have experienced tragedy, disappointment, loss, and rejection. Unfortunately, they are not alone.

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Their struggles highlight the importance of churches, parents, and researchers understanding, not merely the manifest, quantifiable behaviors of conversion to Islam, but the deeper, underlying needs precipitating them. Thomas summarized the sober reality of these participants’ cultural and Christian satisfaction best when he concluded that he never left Christianity because from the beginning, it was never present.

NOTES

1. Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias, The Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2003).

2. Pew Research Center, “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050,” Religion & Public Life, Pew Research Center, April 2, 2015, http://www. pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050.

3. Pew Research Center Size, “North America,” The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2015, Religion & Public Life, Pew Research Center, April 2, 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/north-america.

4. Besheer Mohamed, “A New Estimate of the U.S. Muslim Population,” FactTank - News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center, January 6, 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population.

5. Jennifer Riley, “Report: Top 10 Most Religious States in America,” CP Politics, The Christian Post, February 18, 2016, http://www.christianpost.com/news/report-top-10-mostreligious-states-in-america-36746.

6. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Beliefs, “U.S. Religious Census 1952 to 2010: List and Rankings,” accessed April 27, 2016, http://www.rcms2010.org/compare.php (site discontinued).

7. Julia Hahn, “Immigration to Swell U.S. Muslim Population to 6.2 Million,” Breitbart, July 16, 2015, http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/16/immigration-to-swellu-s-muslim-population-to-6-2-million.

8. Ibid.

9. Cliff Sims, “The Second Largest Religion in Alabama May Surprise You,” Yellowhammer News, accessed May 17, 2016, http://yellowhammernews.com/faithandculture/secondlargest-religion-alabama-may-surprise.

10. David Kinnaman, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church … And Rethinking Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 230, Kindle.

11. Ibid., 230.

12. David Kinnaman, and Gabe Lyons, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), Kindle.

13. Ibid., 17.

14. J. Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, vol. 1, Attachment (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1969).

15. L.A. Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (New York: Guilford Press, 2005).

16. Isaac Jenkins, interview by author, Oxford, MS, April 4, 2016.

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17. Ibid.

18. Kinnaman.

19. Yvonne Y. Haddad, Jane J. Smith, and Kathleen M. Moore, Muslim Women in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

20. Imam Muhammad, interview by author, Memphis, TN, March 7, 2016.

21. Margaret T Singer, Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003).

22. Ibid.

23. Rick A. Ross, Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out. (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014), Kindle.

24. Marc Galanter, Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

25. Ross.

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Pastoral Leadership in Rural Church Revitalization David Shepherd, PhD Dr. Shepherd served as a Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary professor for eleven years, was a Baptist pastor for twenty-eight years, and served as an IMB missionary to India for seven years. He currently serves as the pastor of the County Line Baptist Church in Walnut, Mississippi.

Introduction Seldom can a rural church “get above” its pastor. His leadership is the key to bringing new life and power to a weakened congregation.

Some New Testament churches, such as the Jerusalem church, were at times very large. Consider the biblical testimony. Lost Jewish leaders arrested the apostles.

Their charges were revealing. The apostles had defied their strict orders to “not teach in this name.” Instead of being silent about Jesus, they “filled Jerusalem with [their] doctrine” (Acts 5:28, KJV). The impact was huge.

Under the anointed preaching and prayers of the apostles, and the attentive congregational care of the wise Spirit-filled deacons (Acts 6:3–6), “the word of God increased;”—i.e., “kept on growing all the more”1—”and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly” (v. 7a). The multiplying number included “a great company of the” approximately 8,000 “priests” (v. 7b) associated with the temple in Jerusalem.2 Baptist commentator, B. H. Carroll, estimated that the Jerusalem church grew to have as many as 100,000 believers in the local assembly.3 Rick Warren notes that the Jerusalem church’s phenomenal growth happened within twenty-five years.

At its zenith, it may have included up to half of Jerusalem’s first-century population of two hundred thousand.4 As James and the other Jerusalem church elders reported to Paul, “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe” (Acts 21:20).

However, many New Testament churches were small house groups, such as those meeting in the houses of Priscilla and Aquila (Rom. 16:5), Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11), Stephanus (1 Cor. 16:5), Nymphas (Col. 4:15), Onesiphorus (2 Tim.y 1:16), and Philemon (Philem. 1:2). These smaller congregations were significant: they received much of Paul’s biblical guidance.

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Rural Churches and Pastors This article focuses on how a rural church pastor can help his church grow, increase its ministry, and turn outward. Seldom will rural leaders seek academic journals for help. Therefore, this article has a non-academic approach. It is rooted in my personal pastoral ministry and missionary life over the past forty-five years.

Rural Churches If New Testament small churches needed help, we should not be surprised that our smaller rural churches are also struggling today. My premise here is that church revitalization begins and expands with pastoral leadership. In my area of north Mississippi and southern Tennessee, rural churches are often sinking and struggling.

The following problems often plague these rural congregations: • • • • • • • •

Steadily declining attendance Loss of millennial members Buildings that are much too large and are expensive to keep up Rapid increases of community drug and alcohol abuse Young married members with low commitment to the church Memories of “better yesterdays” when the church was thriving Structures or policies (or the lack thereof) that hamstring needed changes Apathy in many members and decision making by a very few members

Rural Pastors None of these challenges can be resolved without strong, biblical, purposeful pastoral leadership. I am not advocating for a dictatorial, ham-fisted, cold pastor whose motto is: “My way is always right.” A biblical approach requires rural leadership that will serve in accordance with 1 Peter 5:2–3. Peter encourages pastors to “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.”

At a minimum, the pastor is the person charged to preach to the church, encourage the church, and lead the church. Failure in these tasks will greatly hurt his church; but if God called the pastor to the church, he can successfully do the Ephesians 4:12 leadership tasks.

Preaching Preaching to a declining rural church can offer God’s perspective on its situation. John recorded Christ’s solution for the declining Ephesian church: “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

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or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (Rev. 2:4–5).

The Ephesian church was, at most, forty years old when this admonition came through John the Revelator on Patmos. Their original “charter” members likely were gone or weakened.5 Like the Ephesians church, many rural churches today need to be cautioned against falling away from Christ. The Pastor’s preaching is God’s primary tool for turning around a declining flock. Calling them back to their first love can fan dying embers of devotion and call out a sacrificial spirit among the people. The church will never be stronger, more faithful, or more spiritually-minded than their pastor challenges them to be. Before seeking other changes, the pastor must work on the hearts of his people.

Encouraging Pastors have the solemn duty to encourage their people. With a declining or weakened church, there is usually a spirit of uselessness and lost hope. This discouragement is expressed (often verbally) by statements such as: • • • • •

Nobody would want to be a pastor here.

We have no testimony or power in this community.

Nobody has been saved or baptized here in a long time.

We are just too small to do anything that matters.

We have been going downhill for a long time. That is probably not going to change now.

In his preaching and meetings with church leaders, the pastor can affirm that his church can be God’s hands for their community. He can publicly express his confidence that if God can use a donkey (Balaam), a murderer and adulterer (David), an eighty-year-old leader (Moses), and a “cussin’ preacher” (Peter), then He can use us!

I urge the pastor to ask for public invitation responses, or altar calls, or some other movement by the church members to say, “We want to be this type of church.”

This public commitment lets other members see that hope is alive, the church is committed, and God is at work.

A weakened or declining church needs to hear its pastor say publicly that he loves them and has confidence that God will use them. Pulpit time is the prime opportunity to spread hope and raise the people’s expectations for a better future.

Leading “Taking the oversight” is another of the pastor’s tasks (1 Pet. 5:2). No other voice in the rural church has the same divine mandate. Pastors cannot revitalize a church if they will not lead it. The following tasks flow from the pastor.

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Facing the Facts New pastors should listen to the church family explain how the decline happened. Get a clear timeline of church life for the past twenty years from its remaining members. New pastors who hear well can lead well. Recounting the loss of “the good old days” may explain why folks think, act, and respond as they do now.

Praise and rejoice with the church over “what was,” but call them to find His path for their future.

New pastors should also be aware of how community changes can decimate a rural church field. Over the past thirty years, the prevalence of rural drug abuse, child abuse, unmarried couples living together, pornography, and drunkenness has skyrocketed. In rural areas, the rise of methamphetamine and cocaine use has devastated morals, families, incomes, and marriages. Homemade “meth” is created easily with common household chemicals in a process commonly called “shake and bake.”6 The resulting social fallout leaves a damaged population, with children suffering massive collateral wounds. Here a rural church can show love for needy children and offer friendship and love to parents. Single mothers are particularly open to the Gospel when the church shows love and mercy towards them.7 An effective entry to the community is visiting rural school principals and offering tutoring, mentoring, clothing, shoes, book bags, etc. to needy children.

Meeting their parents is an open door for the Gospel.

To raise awareness and stir a church to action, the pastor can call for an open public meeting with every member and attender to discuss the church’s future. Ask, “How many in the most recent worship service were not grandparents?” Ask each person to state aloud his or her age plus twenty years. Ask if a church for grandparents can survive the next twenty years? Who will take your place in this church?

Assure the church that they are not the only congregation having problems.

High-altitude summaries of church life offer evidence of widespread problems in our Baptist churches. Southern Baptist Convention churches lost a total of 288,000 members in 2019.8 That is a fifteen-year pattern of decline. Also, total baptisms fell by 4 percent to 235,748, which was the lowest number since World War II. This situation is the brutal reality facing our churches.9 Remind the people that the church likely will not survive another twenty years without God’s help. At the bottom, the only way to go is up. Deep decline also pushes the church to accept new things, abandon old processes, and take risks to grow. I often told my church, “The only way to get a bigger snake is for it to shed its old skin.” I admonished the church to “try it,” with the caveat that they can always stop the “new thing,” if it does not fit them.

Use what you have and use whom you have. Leaders need to help declining churches abandon a “preservation” mindset. Some “old ways” (i.e., previous successes) will have to be discarded. These do not “fit” now. Nothing is as hard to get rid of as a good idea that worked well in the past. Get rid of red tape and complicated 94

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rules and protocols. One of my previous churches (in decline with only seven adults attending) had a huge sign over the copy machine, “DO NOT USE without proper training and prior authorization!”

Communicating A church is people. God set them in the body. When members are disconnected from the church, disaster occurs. A human arm lying alone on the side of the road is a sure sign of a terrible wreck. The first task for pastoral leadership is connecting to his flock. Rural church members almost all have cell phones. Texting is the norm for many people, but this requires accurate phone numbers. Compiling a current, accurate phone and address list of members and attenders is needed. I have found this is usually neglected as a church declines. Without it, nobody can communicate or work with other people.

Regular mail is effective. The post office now offers “Every Door Direct Mail” programs that allow targeted rural mail-outs. You can select which rural mail routes to mail to and can view maps showing demographic household data. It is easy to use and lets the church put its best foot forward in the community.10 Social media is ubiquitous in rural America. Failure to employ it is like a shy man winking at his girlfriend in the dark, he alone knows what is going on.

Silence is never effective. Facebook is now the pervasive default medium for local rural social communications. It is much more useful than email or a church website, since limited rural access to high-speed internet makes website use by the entire congregation problematic. Assigning someone to produce and manage a church Facebook page and keep it updated is a cost-effective way to get the church before the community. Announce the Facebook page’s existence. Call for pictures. Post video of the pastor’s sermons. Publicize the events and life of the congregation. Post many recent pictures. It is free but powerful in rural areas.

Ministering to the Community Niche Solutions Regardless of how small or weak, every rural church can find niche solutions for its ministry field. Every church can succeed at something. However, without a pastoral “push,” this will never happen.

The pastor should lead brainstorming sessions and put out a churchwide call for ideas, sources, and events. I asked anyone who would come to join my “Pastor Advisory Team.” All were repeatedly publicly invited to participate in it, with no age limits. This informal meeting at tables allowed me to share “why” we were doing

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these ministries. I laid out my ministry philosophies and scriptural mandates. The following beliefs undergirded our work: • • • • • • • • •

God expects us to “be about our Father’s business” here. We cannot sit here, idly.

Our witness is needed. People here are badly wounded, lost, and scarred by sin.

You cannot steer something that is not moving. Even if we have to adjust and revise our plans, God knows we are willing to move ahead in new ways.

After every ministry or event, we will evaluate, consider, and look it over to see how it went and if it could have been improved, or if it should be killed off.

We will not fear failures. If some ministry idea is ineffective, we learned from it what not to do.

We will target young adults, young families, and children. Every age group is important, but we will use our time, money, and resources, mostly for this cohort.

We cannot do everything at once. Some good ministries may have to wait until we can “pull it off ” with the people we have.

The pastor will ask for volunteers to participate. He will also directly ask specific people to get involved. We may not be able to wait for someone to “get a burden” for every task.

I want to be approachable and hear you out—your input matters to me.

At pastor advisory team meetings, I gave out 5x6 cards and asked people to list the most improbable, wild, unheard-of things they could conceive for church ministry. This exercise was to “knock off the rust” from people’s imaginations. It produced uproarious laughter and discussions and openly allowed folks to speak up without fear of rejection.

This pastor advisory team gives the pastor a safe place to toss out his ideas, plans, and future wishes and to get input, assistance, and frank assessments. The church can see issues that are not obvious to the pastor. At my rural Mississippi church, we considered the local school calendar, various community events, and customs before launching an ill-fated event or program. However, the pastor must be willing for his pet ideas to be examined, refined, modified, or rejected in this process. If the pastor does not want to know what people really think, he should not ask.

Since the people jointly created these ministry ideas, they were much more likely to support them and to get involved in executing them. We could plan 3–6 months ahead and get good buy-in. Information brings excitement and participation.

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Special Events By carefully budgeting its funds and people, a rural church can effectively do events that draw in the lost community. Especially attractive are events planned for children. Parents’ natural love for their children makes them appreciate a church that expends its resources for children. The following special events effectively drew large numbers of unchurched local parents and children to our church campus. They were free and planned for children.

Fall Festivals about the time of Halloween were a big hit. We served inexpensive foods (hot dogs, nacho chips, hamburgers, cookies, etc.) and did not charge for it.

We also provided free cotton candy, icees, popcorn, etc. Church families operated the games, dunking booths, hayrides, fishing ponds, and bouncy houses. We discovered that the old-fashioned hayride was a novelty that many modern rural children had never experienced. A petting zoo with our members’ small animals (sheep, calf, goat, chickens, etc.) was a big hit. With a morning worship attendance of only 100+/-, we had 350+ attending this outdoor event.

Often rural families are poor or economically depressed and could not afford expensive trips to other fall events. Repeatedly, we got rave reviews for “doing this for free for our kids.” We provided free “tickets” to the event. These were sized to fit in a shirt pocket and be carried with you. Guests needed one to get into the event. The tickets were a simple but effective advertisement, which was created on the church copy machine. When our church budget could not pay for the Fall Festival, we asked our church families to fund or sponsor or create a game for it. This strategy resulted in almost no cost to the church and was much less difficult to set up and staff. Upon entry, every family was registered for a drawing for a free grand prize. This step provided follow-up phone and address information.

Women’s Events Rural family life is hard on wives and mothers. Reaching out to unchurched women is very productive. We had Ladies Art and Painting parties that guided a lady to paint her own framed art for her home. All brushes, paints, canvas, and supplies were provided, as well as a salad luncheon. This event opened relational doors to many lost women and made follow-up witnessing more natural.

Developing a Good Reputation Service and ministry on a small scale can be significant to a rural church. Its testimony is usually built on its personal help to people, one crisis at a time.

Unsaved people in the community develop an opinion about the openness, friendliness, and Christlikeness of a church. They have high standards about what a church “ought to be doing.” While congregations often focus on their buildings, the lost are most concerned with the church’s attitudes and helpfulness. If a church

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building is clean and well kept, that is sufficient. A lost person living in a run-down house trailer is unlikely to want to go to a large, elegant, cathedral-like structure.

Any size church can offer benevolent help to its community. We built a simple, drive-up “Blessing Box” for food and home items. Our members provided food items. It was placed in the church parking lot for anyone to use anytime at no cost. You take whatever you want from it. We also have New Testaments and Christian literature in it. Also, several people outside of our church place food items in it. It is common to hear local unsaved and unchurched people say, “Wow, ya’ll really help people!”

Every rural family will eventually have a death event. We created a Grieving Families Ministry for this. Food, prayer, visitation, and other kinds of help are offered to lost and unchurched people who have lost a loved one. We find that if you are “there” in their painful sorrows, lost people are much more open to attending church and hearing the Gospel. Pastoral visits near to the time of death produce excellent relationships with the unchurched.

International Fields The vast majority of the world’s rural churches are not in western countries.

They spread across the mission fields of the third world.11 They are numerous but fragile. Once started, a village or rural church can quickly die. These thirdworld churches also need help and revitalization. Even when struggling Indian congregations are in mega-cities, they are usually composed mainly of people who migrated from remote rural areas seeking jobs. They bring their values, religion, mores, and social practices with them.

India Revitalization Missions has often been most successful at church planting in rural settings.

As a missionary, experience in India taught me that while rural Indian churches were common, they were often weak, ineffective in evangelism, and unable to reproduce daughter churches. The Indian complexities of caste and persecution greatly inflamed church weakness. The role of a missionary as an outsider and cross-cultural advisor was also filled with easily misunderstood nuances, cultural blindness, and emotional issues.

India’s rural churches’ saving grace is their undying acceptance and belief in the absolute authority of scripture. Teaching biblical church life touched on the painful needs of their weak rural churches. The following issues afflict India’s rural churches.

Self-Supported Pastors If an Indian pastor or church leader works a job, he is often criticized. Critics say all new church leaders should do their ministry “by faith,” without working at 98

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any other job. Often Indian pastors say, “A man cannot have one leg in the world and one leg in the ministry.” Indian men who receive funding and support from outsider donors (usually in America) are said to be pleasing to God.12 The result is that until new financing can be found, no more “legitimate” pastors can serve. Rural churchplanting is stalled due to a lack of foreign funds. Teaching on Paul’s tent-making lifestyle while pastoring and planting churches is the best antidote to this issue.

Releasing Authority to New Leaders Because he receives all the offerings, a pastor will not hand over leadership to a new local leader. He visits all his churches and does every ministry task. The founding pastor alone retains the right to baptize, serve the Lord’s Supper, and handle all finances. New leadership is not wanted, and rural churches are generally not reproducing or expanding. The need is to emphasize Paul’s apostolic pattern of finding, training, and giving away his churches to new leaders.

Caste Issues Almost without exception, Indian rural churches are started exclusively with converts from within the same caste. Usually, these are Dalit (or untouchable) caste people. They are on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Western minds have difficulty grasping the pervasive power of caste in all of Indian life. It dominates everything. Rural believers often will not witness to or invite to church anyone from a higher caste than them. Hindu converts will not share the gospel with Muslims.

Here the solution rests with firm biblical teaching on the free offer of the gospel to every caste, tribe, religion, or social strata. I found that as an American, and thus “outside” of caste issues, I could present the Bible mandate to reach all castes and all people groups. Reception of this was mixed. But some pastors began aggressive witnessing to Muslims and other castes.

Doctrinal Aberrations Deep poverty in rural Indian churches opens them to the Word of Faith movement’s errors and other neo-Pentecostal aberrations. Even the most remote villages have television access to programs by these false teachers. It stifles personal evangelism and focuses on possessions and money. Low educational levels and the tendency to accept Western preachers without question is a deadly mix. The socalled “God Channel” replaces critical thinking and good biblical education. A lower level of pastoral training which focuses on scripture, evangelism, and church life is widely needed. We created several Tentmaker Schools and other forms of simplified theological training focused on rural leaders. They received it gladly.

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Communal and Family Rejection In India’s extended family units, being a convert to Christianity is a betrayal of community and family. Rural areas are much more caste conscious and have much higher rates of violent persecution than cities. Hinduism reigns uncontested there. Beatings, arrests, rejection, and public humiliation are common ror rural believers,. Many of them also face the following threats to daily life: loss of use of the village water well, loss of space to bury their dead, refusal to accept their children in marriage proposals, denial of jobs or rental houses, police harassment, loss of employment, and more. House church gatherings are either forbidden or viewed with suspicion. Breathing new life into these persecuted churches is much needed.

Teaching pastors and house church leaders a biblical perspective on persecution will help immensely. Intervention with legal aid, food, shelter, travel costs, and other assistance may be necessary.

Nationalism The current Indian government, led by Narendra Modi, is pursuing “Hindutva,” which seeks to make all of Indian life conform to Hinduism. In this radical viewpoint, to be Indian is to be Hindu. This extreme nationalism would remove all non-Hindu activity (including Christianity) from India.13 With the rise of this policy under Modi, rural villages have begun purges and attacks on churches without police intervention. Vast numbers of pastors, Christian leaders, relief organizations, and evangelicals have been pushed out of India or denied visas and/ or permission to operate. As difficult as this is for the most impoverished Indian believers, it may result in village churches growing and developing their own support and relief systems. No outsiders can do it for them.

Delayed Baptisms For Indians, especially in rural India, baptism is the defining break with Hinduism and family idolatry. It is a public rejection of all other gods and family idols. Thus, it is common for new believers to hesitate to be baptized. Pastors almost always require extended waiting periods of two to four years or more after salvation before they agree to baptize a recent convert. This generally accepted practice is unscriptural and grounded in culture, fear, and other pastors’ standard practices.

Bringing the rural church to its potential requires scriptural guidance and teaching on baptism.

Conclusion Rural churches, whether in the US, India, or other nations, have two significant needs for revitalization. Biblical teaching and strong biblical pastoral leadership form the answer to a languishing rural congregation. If that church does not welcome and heed them, a downward spiral will inevitably continue. The advice 100

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from Jesus to his church at Ephesus is still valid: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Revelation 2:7).

NOTES

1. Archibald Thomas Robertson, “The Acts of the Apostles” in Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1930), 3:74.

2. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary: New Testament (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989), 1:430.

3. B. H. Carroll, “The Acts” in An Interpretation of the English Bible, ed. J. B. Cranfill (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1947), 110.

4. Rick Warren, “8 Acts of a Healthy, Growing Church”, CP Opinion, The Christian Post, October 17, 2013, https://www.christianpost.com/news/8-acts-of-a-healthy-growing-church. html.

5. Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Pillar New Testament Commentary, 1999).

6. See this process described at “What is Shake and Bake Meth?,” Methamphetamine (Meth) Addiction & Abuse, The Recovery Village, https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/methaddiction/shake-and-bake-meth.

7. See further statistics at “Mississippi Substance Abuse Statistics,” Turning Point Blog, Turning Point, June 24, 2019, https://www.turningpointtreatment.org/blog/mississippisubstance-abuse-statistics/.

8. Aaron Earls, “Southern Baptists Experience Historic Drop in Membership” [2019 Annual Church Profile, a summary article], Lifeway Newsroom (blog), LifeWay, June 4, 2020, https://blog.lifeway.com/newsroom/2020/06/04/southern-baptists-experience-historic-dropin-membership 9. Kate Shellnutt, “Southern Baptists See Biggest Drop in 100 Years,” News & Reporting, Christianity Today, June 4, 2020, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/june/ southern-baptist-sbc-member-drop-annual-church-profile-2019.html.

10. “Using Every Door Direct Mail,” United States Post Office, https://www.usps.com/ business/every-door-direct-mail.htm. It is designed for small businesses and non-profit groups.

11. Lisa Hoff, “The Future of the Church is in the City,” Newsroom, IMB, November 12, 2018, https://www.imb.org/2018/11/12/future-church-city.

12. David Shepherd, Self-Support for Pastors (Bangalore, India: Indian Baptist Society,.

2012).

13. “Hinduvata,” Wikipedia Foundation, last modified October 11, 2020 , 09:17 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva.

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Five Ways for Rural Ministry to Look Ahead Stephen Witmer, PhD Stephen Witmer is the pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and adjunct professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the co-founder of Small Town Summits, an organization that serves rural churches and pastors, and the author of Eternity Changes Everything (Good Book Company) and A Big Gospel in Small Places (InterVarsity Press). He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He and his wife, Emma, have three children.

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t a 2019 conference for rural pastors, Ron Klassen, director of the Rural Home Missionary Association for nearly three decades, remarked from the podium that he had never before seen the blossoming of interest in small-town and rural ministry that he had witnessed in the previous two years. He is not alone; many of us have noticed this same trend. Particularly since the 2016 American presidential election, national secular media has focused fresh attention on rural areas. More to the point, there has been a marked increase in the number of Christian conferences, networks, ministries, articles, and books focused on smalltown ministry. In the past few years, while leading Small Town Summits in New England, writing a book on small-town ministry,1 and speaking at several gatherings devoted to the subject, I have had opportunities to dialogue with and learn from rural ministry leaders around the country and the world. I can testify from these experiences and interactions that a fresh excitement about what God is doing in small places is brewing.

Even beyond a generally increased excitement, I am seeing a clearer recognition that small-town ministry is not a default option, a thing someone does because they could not find a church elsewhere. Rather, it is a calling from God. My sense is that, in the past, many ministers in small places have not had much of a vocational identity attached to their small-town ministry. Many thousands of small-town pastors have served faithfully but have not considered how unique their opportunities and obstacles are in rural ministry. In other words, they have thought of themselves as pastors but not specifically as small-town/rural pastors.

Consequently, they have not connected deeply with other small-town pastors to consider best practices in small-town ministry. Nor have they fully appreciated the The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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particular strengths of the country church, remote location, and small community to which God has called them. They have not felt the joy and camaraderie of sharing in a vital ministry with gifted and motivated gospel partners around the world. Instead, they have felt largely overlooked, isolated, and forgotten in the Christian ministry world. A significant step forward over the past few years has been an increased self-awareness and vocational identity for many small-town pastors. When a new organization, such as the Acts 29 Rural Collective, emerges (as it did in 2018) with a view toward planting rural churches around the world, those who are already planting churches in such places, and those considering doing so, can more easily appreciate the uniqueness, significance, and value of what they are doing. They can greatly benefit from the fellowship and togetherness that urban planters and city pastors have already enjoyed for many years. And they can better feel the enormity and importance of the task before them.

Although the Christian ministry spotlight still shines mainly on cities and suburbs, the renewed attention to small places is encouraging for those of us who devote our lives to ministering in them, but it immediately raises some questions.

Is this merely cultural curiosity following the 2016 presidential election, or could it be something more? What might be done to sustain and strengthen this attention so that it matures into a lasting and fruitful ministry focus? How can small-place ministers appropriately develop a unique vocational identity without giving way to pride or unnecessarily and unhelpfully separating themselves from ministers who serve in other contexts? These questions require those of us in small places to look ahead and give some thought to the future of small places and small-place ministry.

My aim here is to suggest five directions we ought to be looking in hopes that smallplace ministry will go deep and last long.

Look Down (Sink Theological Roots, Deepen Our Understanding of Culture) For a ministry focus to endure and bear fruit, it must be grounded in the Bible and conversant with culture. This grounding means that one of the most critical tasks for those currently doing small-town/rural ministry is to think theologically about it, sinking roots deep down into rich biblical and theological soil. We can learn much from our urban brothers and sisters in this regard. In Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, Tim Keller claims that the key to Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s success was not its programs or strategy, but rather its theological vision. Keller describes theological vision as a “middle space” between doctrine and practice—a “space where we reflect deeply on our theology and our culture to understand how both of them can shape our ministry.”2 This theological vision promotes unity among the many urban churches within the Redeemer City to City network.

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If the current interest in small-town ministry is to mature into something of lasting value, small-town and rural ministers must develop a robust theological vision for their ministry, rooting it in the character of God and the nature of his gospel. Formulating a theological vision for small-town ministry also requires increasing our fluency in local small-town/rural cultures, recognizing where the gospel alternately challenges and affirms them. This development of a small-town/ rural theological vision is the main burden of my book A Big Gospel in Small Places, and yet my book only begins this crucial task, inviting others to join in and develop it further. In the book, I sketch out some basic gospel contours that provide those who love rural places and people the permission and encouragement to see such places and people—in contrast to how our broader culture often perceives them—as valuable, significant, and worthy of a lifetime of faithful ministry. My hope is that the task of reflecting fruitfully both on the Bible and on local culture to formulate a rural theological vision will be taken up by many more rural pastors and ministry leaders.

Theological vision will source and stabilize our daily life and ministry, providing motivation and perseverance. It will give us a reason to listen to our communities— and something to say to them.

In addition to formulating a positive theological vision for small-place ministry, one of the necessary tasks in our day is to clear the ground by addressing the many arguments advanced by urban leaders for prioritizing city ministry. I think this is one of the most important contributions of A Big Gospel in Small Places, the final chapter of which provides an extended interaction with, and critique of, what I call the “urban apologetic literature” (including writings by Tim Keller, Stephen Um, Jon Dennis, and others). I do not aim to prioritize rural ministry in place of urban or suburban ministry, but rather to argue that all are necessary and none should be prioritized over the other. In order to pursue this case, I engage biblically, theologically, and strategically with the urban apologetic literature. My chapter is the first extended critique of the urban apologetic literature of which I am aware, and I very much hope there will be more work done in this area. In particular, I draw on Thomas Robinson’s influential 2017 book, Who Were the First Christians?

Dismantling the Urban Thesis,3 a book which will richly reward further study and interaction. Robinson offers probing, sometimes devastating, critiques of the urban thesis, a common understanding of early Christianity promoted by Rodney Stark, Wayne Meeks, and other scholars according to which early Christianity in its first three centuries was an almost exclusively urban religion. Much of the urban apologetic literature of Tim Keller and others is built on this scholarly understanding of early Christianity, particularly the work of Rodney Stark.

To see a scholar of Thomas Robinson’s stature raising fundamental questions about this urban-centric view and opening up fresh avenues for research is, therefore, a significant development. Robinson’s work has received positive reviews from other scholars. Intriguingly, one reviewer notes that “There is a current trend The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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in missionary and church planting strategy to emphasise [sic] the need to focus on urban areas. While this book does not undercut all of the reasoning behind those strategies, it does suggest that any appeal to the early church in those strategies needs to be reconsidered and heavily qualified.”4 As New Testament scholars and historians of early Christianity explore some of the fresh avenues Robinson’s research has opened up, their work will hopefully also impact popular writing about ministry strategy and ministry location, tempering the insistent call for strongly prioritizing urban ministry—a call that has unfortunately nearly blinded a generation of young pastors and church planters to the possibility of work in more rural, less cutting-edge communities.

A positive rural theological vision will be constructed not only through careful work in the biblical materials, but through rural ministers and laypeople attending closely to their local rural cultures and growing in their understanding of the needs and possibilities of rural life and ministry. They will ask: “Of what are people in my small town most proud? Of what are they most fearful? How has my community constructed a local identity? What are the local idols of my town and region?” I spoke recently with a small-town New Hampshire pastor who was prayerfully considering how best to shepherd those in his congregation with strong libertarian instincts and a resolve to not be told what to do by the government or anyone else. “Live Free or Die” is the official motto of New Hampshire, and it can easily become an idol that trumps allegiance to the gospel.

A rural theological vision will often be a local theological vision, engaging with local values and local idols. But those in rural ministry will also be closely attuned to the ways in which national events reflect and reveal large-scale rural realities that hold true around the country. The 2020 presidential election will almost certainly highlight (and perhaps exacerbate) a rural-urban political divide, as did the last presidential election cycle in 2016.5 The COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought great tragedy and loss to many, has mapped onto the urban/rural realities of the United States in fascinating ways, highlighting features of the relationship between cities and the countryside that have been present all along but perhaps were not as obvious to some. For example, because cities are densely clustered masses of human beings, they often experience lots of things first (including cultural trends and ideas). Rather predictably, coronavirus hit cities first, but of course, it did not stay there. The very real threat and reality of coronavirus moving to, and crippling, rural areas has highlighted the often-overlooked needs of the countryside. Rural populations are particularly at risk from coronavirus because they tend to be older and in worse health than city dwellers. In addition to being higher in multiple risk factors, many rural residents are underserved in terms of public health and medical infrastructure, including hospitals.

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Though these concerns have been reported in the national media, the major news coverage concerning coronavirus has predictably focused on cities and metro areas, which often receive far more attention than small places. But the threat of coronavirus crippling rural areas has also offered a fresh reminder of just how important these places are to the entire country, particularly as meat-processing plants have been affected, and agricultural supply chains have been disrupted.6 Of course, there is a political edge to all this as well, with the urban/rural political differences coming to the fore in the way individuals are thinking through the issue and the ways in which state governors are approaching the crisis. Many rural governors have pushed to open up more quickly than the blue states on the coasts.

As rural ministry thinkers and practitioners “look down” by plumbing deep theological truths and by understanding local rural cultures (as well as rural culture at a larger scale), we will develop a compelling theological vision for how the gospel both affirms and challenges the places in which we live and minister. This theological vision is crucial as we look ahead to the future of rural ministry, and as we seek to invite and include new ministers in this work.

Look Back (Learn From Those Who Have Been Doing This Work for a Long Time) One common, regrettable error of those who start new organizations, ministries, and churches is assuming that no one has ever done it quite right (or at all) before—thereby implicitly boosting the importance and urgency of their own new ministry. This ungracious posture reduces our ability to learn from those who have been doing the work faithfully and fruitfully for a long time.

Though the recent increased attention toward small-town ministry is a new development, small-town ministry itself is, of course, not new at all! For as long as the church has been the church, there have been gifted pastors and leaders laboring fruitfully in forgotten locales. We ought to dust off the obscure biographies of these obscure individuals and read them for our pleasure and profit (of course, most small-place pastors never had a biography of their lives written, but some did). I have found and benefited from numerous such biographies. One of my favorites is Music at Midnight, by John Drury, a masterful biography of the famous English poet and pastor George Herbert.7 Not only did Herbert serve as a village pastor, but he also wrote a manual for pastors called The Country Parson. Though this manual is little-known or read today, it has had a massive influence on many generations of ministers since the 1600s, and I have suggested elsewhere that a careful reading of it will be fruitful for small-town pastors today.8 It is also important and helpful for those of us who minister in America to learn from those in other countries who have devoted substantial thought to the unique realities of rural places and rural ministry. I am thinking particularly of the Church of England. In 1990, The Archbishops’ Commission on Rural Areas The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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(ACORA) presented a report called Faith in the Countryside9 to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. ACORA’s mandate was “(1) To examine the effects on economic, environmental, and social change on the rural community; (2) To describe the changing nature of the Church in the countryside; (3) To examine the theological factors which bear upon the mission and ministry of the Church in rural areas; (4) In the light of the above, to make recommendations for consideration and action.” The commission’s four-hundred-page report, which was more than two years in the making, is impressively researched and very thorough and concludes with forty-seven principal recommendations. Encouragingly, the report begins with a chapter of theological reflections, seeking to ground the project in a Christian theology of creation and personhood. I am not aware of any American organization or institution that has devoted such substantial effort and funding to considering the needs and opportunities of rural places and rural ministry. The British continued their leadership in this area by convening a major conference in 2010, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Faith in the Countryside report. More than two hundred academics, church leaders, and local clergy participated in the 2010 Faith and the Future of the Countryside Conference, and a number of the papers presented there were subsequently collected in the 2012 volume Faith and the Future of the Countryside.10 Again, this book repays interaction. We have much to learn from our British friends.

Not only have there been many generations of rural pastors, but there have also long been faithful ministries to support and resource them. Two long-standing North American ministries for which I am particularly grateful are the Rural Home Missionary Association (RHMA) and Village Missions. Begun in 1942, RHMA plants, supports, and resources thousands of small-town/rural churches and pastors all over the United States through conferences, courses, and printed materials.

Village Missions was founded in 1948 and sends full-time missionaries to rural churches and communities across North America (it currently supports about two hundred and thirty missionaries).11 Both ministries have amassed much hard-won wisdom about God-honoring rural ministry. It is important to learn from them and from many others who have long been doing this work.

Look Around (Establish New Ministries, Networks, and Institutional Partnerships) I am encouraged by the recent increase of Christian ministries and networks focused on rural areas, among them Small Town Jesus, the Vineyard’s Small Town USA project, the Small Town Big Jesus Network, the Back 40 Network, the Acts 29 Rural Collective, and Small Town Summits. Among the common challenges of rural ministry are a sense of isolation and a lack of support, and these networks (and others like them) can be particularly helpful in resourcing small-place pastors and encouraging fruitful partnerships among them.

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In my work with Small Town Summits, a regional ministry focused on connecting and serving rural laypeople and ministers in the six New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, I have discovered just how meaningful it is for often-overlooked small-town churches and pastors to have gatherings designed specifically for them. Our summits meet in small churches, in small towns, and are led by small-town pastors. This means that they are highly contextualized and adept at speaking to issues that participants care deeply about. The summits are hosted in and focused upon particular states or regions, which increases the likelihood of ongoing connection and partnership long after the summit is over. There is great fruit in this regionally specific, highly local approach. But I have also seen the benefit of connecting online with rural/smalltown pastors from around the world. Through the ministries of Small Town Jesus and the Acts 29 Rural Collective, I have benefited from conversations with smalltown ministry friends and partners in Wales, Northern Ireland, England, Australia, Guatemala, and elsewhere. Though there are, of course, differences in ministry emphasis and approach because of our differing locations, I am often impressed by the significant overlap in our respective rural contexts.

Another exciting development is the possibility of small-town/rural churches partnering together financially and relationally to plant churches. Urban churches have done this effectively for many years. Because small-town churches often lack the resources necessary to send out church planters and planting teams on their own, the possibility of cooperating with other like-minded rural churches to plant more rural churches together is particularly promising. This is already beginning to happen in various parts of the country. Also important is considering how urban and suburban churches might contribute to this work of planting rural churches by using their resources (dollars, personnel, knowledge, and experience) in order to work together with small-town churches for kingdom advance.

In my view, it is particularly significant that several Christian colleges and seminaries have recently begun to focus on resourcing rural/small-town pastors.

This current issue of The Journal, from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, is one such example. The Rural Matters Institute of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College is active in regularly gathering and resourcing rural pastors and ministry leaders. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary hosted a sold-out Small Town Summit in 2019 for rural pastors from across New England. The Project on Rural Ministry, based in rural western Pennsylvania, is well-funded and led by members of the faculty and administration of Grove City College. It is committed to investing deeply in a small group of pastors over the course of five years, and the program’s close connection with the college allows faculty resources and expertise to flow toward addressing the challenges of rural ministry. Such cooperative efforts with established institutions are full of promise.

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Look Outward (Publish on Small-Town Ministry) Just a few years ago, when I searched for helpful resources on small-place ministry, I found only a smattering of articles and a few books (not all of them still in print at the time). One of the most encouraging developments of the years since then has been an increasing number of thoughtful, practical, pastoral writings on the importance and practice of small-town/rural ministry. Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and other websites and publications have featured numerous articles. Small Town Summits now features STS Articles, a steadily growing collection of articles written by small-town pastors for small-town pastors across a range of subjects that are highly relevant for those engaged in rural ministry.12 Donnie Griggs’s 2016 Small Town Jesus is a popular book-length treatment. Brad Roth’s 2017 God’s Country and Glenn Daman’s 2018 The Forgotten Church both won Christianity Today’s Awards of Merit. Winn Collier’s 2017 fictional work Love Big, Be Well is also a significant contribution. Major publishers have generally been wary of publishing books on small-town ministry—after all, they are typically written by small-town ministers, who usually lack name-recognition and sell fewer books. It is encouraging to see some major Christian publishers now willing to publish on the subject anyway.

Well-written, culturally engaged, biblically rich works on small-place ministry will do much to deepen and promote a small-place ministry focus. They will build a deeper theological vision for this work. They will speak to the need for small-town churches to be on mission in their communities.13 They will seek to tell the stories of those who are gladly devoting their lives and ministries to small places, in hopes that these stories will inspire, motivate, and inform current and future small-place ministers. They will also address practical concerns and questions, such as the various models for funding ministry in remote areas that struggle to afford it. The Village Missions model of pastor-as-missionary is one viable model; others include bi-vocational (or tri-vocational) pastoring, small churches forming parishes to support clergy, lay-led congregations, or like-minded churches partnering together to provide financial support. Publishing on these and many other rural topics will help those already in the rural ministry trenches and will continue to form the vocational identity of small-town pastors.

Look Local (Be More Excited by Your Small-Town Ministry Than by Talking About It) I believe there is a real need for all the things I have mentioned. Rural ministry books and articles ought to be written, and small-town ministry gatherings ought to be hosted. But in my view, the single best way to ensure that the present interest in small-town ministry goes deep and lasts long is for small-town ministers to keep their eyes fixed mainly on their own town and church, faithfully and fruitfully doing 110

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the humble, hidden work of ministry. To the degree that rural pastors grow more excited and energized by talking about small-town ministry than by actually doing it, this new ministry focus will lose its way. We ought to recommit ourselves to staying local—to pouring our best thought and ministry effort into our own small place and to raising up, through personal relationships and intensive discipleship, others who will do it with (and after) us.

In The Country Parson, George Herbert suggested that a rural minister should “diligently and strictly” weigh any invitations from outside his parish since his parish is “all his joy and thought.”14 Herbert also advised that rural ministers should “carry their eyes ever open, and fix them on their [parish], and not on their [professional advancement].”15 That is important advice for every pastor to hear and heed. Herbert envisioned pastors whose gaze was riveted on their own people and place, whose joy came mainly from doing ministry not from encouraging others to do ministry. May we be such pastors.

Small-town ministry will advance through the devoted, full-hearted ministry of small-town lay-people and pastors—those who are giving their very best to the work before them. The nineteenth-century Scottish pastor William H. Burns was one such man, laboring faithfully in the obscure Scottish parish of Dun. “He preached the word; dispensed the sacred supper; warned the careless; comforted the sorrowing; baptized little children; blessed the union of young and loving hearts; visited the sick, the dying; buried the dead; pressed the hand, and whispered words of peace into the ear of mourners; carried to the poor widow and friendless orphan the charity of the Church and his own…” and he did these things “for twenty successive years day by day.”16 According to his son (and biographer) Islay Burns, in the ministry of William H. Burns “there is much…for the records of the sky, but nothing, or next to nothing, for the noisy annals of time.” The important observation for our purposes here is that W.H. Burns fully devoted himself to his ministry, obscure though it was. One humorous incident from early in his ministry at Dun increased his commitment. It was a stormy Sunday, and few of his congregation made it to church. Having carefully prepared a full sermon, he decided, upon seeing the smallness of the congregation, to save his prepared sermon for the following week. In its place, he read the allotted chapter of the Bible and make various extemporaneous comments on it. At some point in this impromptu sermon, he glanced into the balcony and saw an important and respected person—a man under whom he himself had previously studied. His former teacher had been in the neighborhood and had dropped in unannounced in order to hear his former pupil preaching. In years after that, Burns often said that he decided from that time onward “never to preach a rainy day sermon again!”

Years later, while ministering in the small parish of Kilsyth (less than five thousand people), Burns experienced a remarkable revival. But his pastoral work was devoted and earnest and excellent regardless of the external results.

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Look Ahead (God Will Work in the Forgotten Places) I believe that God will mature and deepen the present interest in small-place ministry into something of lasting significance as those who serve in tiny, littleknown communities look down, back, around, outward, and local. As we look in these directions, let us look ahead with joy to what God will do in the forgotten places of the world. He knows, remembers, and treasures every single one.

NOTES

1. Stephen Witmer, A Big Gospel in Small Places: Why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019).

2. For my review of Robinson’s work, see Stephen Witmer, “Who Were the First Christians?

Dismantling the Urban Thesis,” ( Book Review) Bulletin for Biblical Research 28 no. 1 (2018): 149–151.

3. Tim Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012): 17.

4. David Evans, “Who Were the First Christians? Dismantling the Urban Thesis,” ( Book Review), Colloquium 50, no. 2 (2018): 160–163.

5. Cf. Robert Wuthnow, The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

6. Michael Warren, “Heartland Hotspots: A Sudden Rise in Coronavirus Cases Is Hitting Rural States Without Stay-at-Home Orders,” CNN Politics, CNN, Updated April 17, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/politics/republican-governors-stay-at-home-coronavirus/ index.html.

7. John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (UK: Penguin Books, 2013).

8. Stephen Witmer, “What a Famous Poet Can Teach Rural Pastors,” Ministry, The Gospel Coalition, August 19, 2019, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/country-parsongeorge-herbert/.

9. Archbishops’ Commission on Rural Areas, Faith in the Countryside: A Report Presented to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (Worthing, West Sussex: Churchman Publishing, 1990).

10. Alan Smith and Jill Hopkinson, eds. Faith and the Future of the Countryside: Pastoral and Theological Perspectives on Rural Sustainability, (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012).

11. See Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “Reviving the Dying Small Town Church,” Ministry, The Gospel Coalition, September 25, 2017, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/revivingthe-dying-small-town-church/.

12. STS Articles, Small Town Summits, https://www.smalltownsummits.com/articles.

13. See the helpful book and study guide by Aaron Morrow, Small Town Mission: A Guide for Mission-Driven Communities (GCD Books, 2016).

14. George Herbert, The Country Parson, ed. by John N. Wall, Jr. (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 78.

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15. Ibid, 93.

16. Islay Burns, The Pastor of Kilsyth: The Life and Times of W.H. Burns (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2019), 44.

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Book Reviews A Big Gospel in Small Places. By Stephen Witmer. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019.

Review by Gerald Colbert, DMin and DMiss Dr. Gerald Colbert has over forty years of experience in the church planting world and currently serves as a Church Planting Consultant for the Georgia Baptist Convention.

In a day of fascination with the “big”—major cities, big box stores, megachurches—Stephen Witmer writes from the perspective of one who has lived in both the big and small places. He calls for a reexamination of the small places in light of the bigness of the gospel. While he emphatically states that not everyone should consider ministry in small places, he calls for persons not to exclude them automatically. While not trying to convince everyone to become a small-place minister, Witmer writes, “every one of us ought to be open to whatever God is calling us to do, wherever he’s calling us to do it” (145).

Witmer divides the material into three sections and builds the content around three questions: • • •

What are small places like?

How can we minister fruitfully in small places?

Should I be ministering in a small place?

Throughout the material, the author masterfully weaves his own story, the stories of other contemporary small place ministers, and eighteenth and nineteenthcentury ministers from Britain.

Witmer does not seek to give a program for effective small-place ministry.

He notes the diversity of small-place ministry and recognizes that some small urban churches have elements of the small place about them (15). Not only are the places diverse, but each minister is unique and different in background, personality, and spiritual gifts.

Rather than give tips for ministering in small places, Witmer calls for the minister and church leaders to do three things. First, they need to develop a comprehensive ministry vision. He urges that the ministry vision grow out of the church’s biblical and theological values and draw on the nature of the gospel and character of God (112). This understanding “leads us to discard worldly values we’ve

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adapted from our culture and adopt new values that send some of us to small places, shapes our ministry there, and sustains us for the long haul” (69).

Second, the church needs to understand deeply and exegete its community; the vision it develops must inform the church of the unique sinfulness, brokenness, and complex problems that face the small-place community it serves. Witmer states, “[b]ut it’s not as simple as saying country problems are due to sin. Beneath smallplace struggles is a potent mix of sin and despair, culpability and hopelessness” (55).

He sees ministry vision as the key to motivating and shaping ministry in the small place.

Third, Witmer states emphatically, “Rural America is neither fully evangelized nor over churched” (158). He calls for healthy churches to engage the small places with the gospel. He identifies five characteristics of churches that effectively engage the community. They are local churches that live out the gospel in the culture and relationships of their community, listening churches that seek to understand the concerns of church members and the surrounding community, and serving churches.

Witmer says, “We want to be a church that’s so invested in our small community that we’d be sorely missed if we disappeared tomorrow” (123). In addition, they should be celebrating churches and proclaiming churches, communicating the gospel verbally in a way that connects with the local community, and in acts of compassion.

Stephen Witmer has produced a book that is a must-read for every small-place minister and church leader. It could be strengthened with some dialogue questions or personal exercises for a small-church leadership team. This book is also valuable for many ministers in urban or suburban churches and church/denominational leaders who need to reexamine attitudes toward support of ministry in small places.

The Forgotten Church: Why Rural Ministry Matters for Every Church in America. By Glenn Daman. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2018.

Review by Gerald Colbert, DMin and DMiss Glenn Daman presents the purpose of The Forgotten Church, “[t]he goal and purpose of this book is that the church at large might understand the importance of and need for rural ministry, as well as identify ways that rural and urban churches can partner together to mutually encourage and strengthen the larger body” (17).

As I read the first half of the book, I felt that I was reading a social-economic and historic review of rural America and the rural church, unsure of its focus. The book is packed with valid and important information that could help a person from an urban or suburban background who finds himself ministering in a setting different 116

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from his own life experience. Daman observes, “Pastors from urban backgrounds, educated in an urban context, taught by professors from urban churches, often do not understand rural people and the rural church have a different worldview” (79).

Daman encourages those who seek to minister in a rural community of the “need to first learn and understand the values and worldview of a community... Without this understanding we cannot effectively work with the people and institutions that shape the community and adapt our ministry to their specific needs” (34).

Chapter 5, “Understanding Rural Culture,” is required reading for anyone who is going to minister in a rural setting and those who would relate to ministers in the rural setting. Daman gives attention to how rural people relate to the land, family, values, church, and community. He calls pastors in the rural community to see themselves as a pastor of a local church and the whole community.

Daman graphically pictures the changes occurring, “rural America was rapidly becoming the new ghetto, with high poverty, drug use among young people, and crime all becoming systemic problems” (94). Poverty is escalating because of a lack of employment opportunities resulting from the changing farming methods and management, loss of mining and timber industry, the exportation of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries.

Daman documents the racial divide in sections of rural America: • • •

70% of rural Blacks live in five southeastern states.

70% of rural Latinos live in eight western and southwestern states.

Most of the 326 Native American reservations are rural and in the western half of the United States.

Common to all three groups in rural America are substandard housing, lower income, higher-than-average unemployment, low levels of education, and inadequate health care.

The second half of the book seeks to identify some critical principles for effective ministry in rural America. The first principle is involvement. As a personal testimony, he writes, “I learned early on that to be effective in the rural community, one has to be part of the community.” He calls for ministers to engage people and structures if they want to gain a hearing and share Christ’s redemptive work.

Second, he calls for church leaders to develop a biblical theology of the church. He notes that they may have to overcome an urban bias in most seminaries, Bible colleges, and denominational entities. In laying a biblical foundation for this, he points to the ministry and teaching of Jesus, finding no preference for urban versus rural ministry settings but a marked predominance in teaching using rural illustrations.

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for evangelism. It calls for confronting multiple moral issues such as individual and structural racism, sexual identity, attempts to redefine marriage, and economic and family issues.

As part of an effective future ministry, Daman urges the development of what he terms “strategic partnerships” among rural churches, between rural and urban churches, with denominational entities, and Bible colleges and seminaries but laments urban bias often found in the potential denominational and educational partners.

Daman’s final principle calls for the rural church to be a missional ministry.

The missional church exists to advance the kingdom of God by evangelizing and discipling people. Considering this focus, he states, “we need a new generation of people who see the rural communities as a mission field. ... The task requires dedicated pastors willing to go to rural communities; it also mandates the training, equipping and mobilizing of rural people to become missionaries” (205).

Rural Church RESCUE: A Call to Restore Healthy Churches to Rural North America. By Jon Sanders. Monee, IL, 2018.

Review by Gerald Colbert, DMin and DMiss Sanders states his desire for the book, “I want to offer some very practical, simple, and biblical solutions to the problems that are plaguing so much of the church today” (vii). To some degree, his purpose gets lost in telling interesting firemen stories, bouncing indiscriminately between principles and practices, and the book’s forced title/outline. The author builds the book’s outline on the name of the church he pastors in a forced acrostic. Principles are fundamental truths that are applicable regardless of time, place, or culture. Practices are often limited in effectiveness based on the differences in culture, location, or a leader’s personality.

This book has numerous nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout it, such as the critical nature of vision, the pursuit of excellence in ministry, and the enlisting and releasing of ministry teams. These nuggets should prompt the reader to additional reading, study, and skill-building.

Sanders identifies the church’s mission as joining “Jesus in his mission of seeking and saving lost people through the presentation and promotion of the gospel” (16). He laments that many churches are more concerned about their facilities than reaching people. Sanders calls for the church to involve actively in ministries that meet the needs of its local community. Chapter seven has many ministry suggestions, including his call for a robust online presence and excellence in ministry.

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In chapter eight, Sanders calls for the pastor to enlist, train, and empower ministry team leaders (he uses the term staff). He points to Eph 4:11–13 as a principle with which every pastor must wrestle and apply to his setting. Again, Sanders bounces back and forth between principles and practices. Each pastor will need to evaluate which approach will work best based on who he is and where he is.

Ministering in Patronage Cultures: Biblical Models and Missional Implications. By Jayson Georges. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019.

Review by Neal H. Creecy, PhD Dr. Neal Creecy is the senior pastor at Redemption Church in Las Vegas, NV. A hermeneutical challenge of any student of the Word comes in understanding the scriptures not in the context of his or her own culture but in the context of the writers’ culture. For this reviewer, the greatest shifts in interpretation have come not from reading books on hermeneutics or Biblical history, but on missiology.

Ministering in Patronage Cultures is such a book. Georges, with his background in theology at the Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, along with his over fifteen years of cross-cultural ministry experience, continues his work in helping missionaries and students of the Bible understand honor-shame and patronage cultures, how those cultures impacted the Biblical writers, and how they impact the work of ministering to people in those cultures.

Georges makes two important contributions in his book. First, he introduces a new lens through which one should view the scriptures. By introducing, defining, and unpacking the system of patronage, he thoroughly demonstrates the importance of understanding this cultural view for a complete hermeneutic. Second, Georges gives preliminary implications of how understanding patronage culture is imperative for cross-cultural workers who live and work in such cultures.

Georges approaches the subject by dividing his book into four parts, each containing three chapters: Cultural Issues, Biblical Models, Theological Concepts, and Missional Implications. His section on cultural issues introduces and explains the phenomenon of patronage. He describes patronage as a “reciprocal, asymmetrical relationship” (2). He further details the three roles within the patronage system: patron, client, and broker. The patron meets the needs of clients in such areas as finances, protection, and opportunity. The client reciprocates with honor and loyalty.

The broker serves as a bridge between potential clients and patrons. By successfully serving as a broker, he gains for himself greater honor and social capital.

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After thoroughly explaining the system of patronage, Georges gives examples of patronage relationships that the modern reader can easily recognize, such as government/citizen and parent/child relationships. He finally ends the section by addressing misperceptions of patronage. While Westerners often feel embarrassed or awkward when asked to provide help, he states that “Africans are flattered when they are asked to provide help. This gives them a sense of being useful, of thinking people have need of them. They are honored” (29). This divergence of views between Western and Majority World people on the subject of patronage deteriorates relationships between missionaries and the ones they are trying to serve. This demonstrates the importance of thoroughly understanding a patronage worldview and the impact it has on relationships within the community.

Once Georges explains the concept of patronage, he does an excellent job in parts two and three of giving Biblical examples of the system of patronage in how God relates to His people and how God’s people relate to one another. He then shows important theological themes that stem from the patronage worldview. In these two sections, Georges systematically demonstrates the Biblical role of patronage through solid exegetical exposition of both the Old and New Testaments. He draws upon the work of both ancient and modern Christian theologians to emphasize his arguments. While his section on theological concepts is not necessarily intended to be devotional in nature, the reader is challenged by a greater understanding of the tragedy of sin as Georges relates how sin is the ultimate display of ingratitude to a God who has sacrificed and given so much. Presenting sin as ingratitude—and, therefore, shameful—is a powerful concept that addresses honor-shame cultures in a way that most Western analogies will not.

The final section transitions from the theoretical to the practical. First, Georges addresses the importance of understanding patronage. He states, “realize that your actions will be interpreted through the prism of patronage. Ignoring this fact may cause others to view you as a shameful (and shaming) person, regardless of your noble intentions” (115). He then stresses how applying what one has learned about patronage can help the cross-cultural worker transform patronage relationships into ones that honor God. Finally, he addresses how understanding patronage changes the way a Christian views his or her relationship with God. “Christians who view themselves as God’s clients develop a healthy sense of gratitude—a core element of our relationship with God” (143).

Ministering in Patronage Cultures is an obligatory read for two groups of people. First, anyone seeking to deepen his or her understanding of Biblical culture will benefit from this book. It empowers a student of the Bible to have a wider view of God and His relationship with man. Second, anyone serving in an honor-shame and patronage culture will be better equipped to live and work in their field of service.

While this book accentuates concepts and is lighter on actual application, it serves as a powerful introduction to the issue of patronage. The appendix detailing additional 120

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resources is helpful, but a second volume that offers more into the practical application of these concepts would be most welcome.

Systematic Theology. By Robert Letham. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019.

Review by Josh Howard Josh Howard is an associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Southaven, Mississippi and a PhD student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Robert Letham brings a long career of theological and pastoral ministry to bear on this new work in theology, having taught at various institutions, including Union School of Theology Westminster Theological Seminary, Ligonier Ministries, and Reformed Theological Seminary. Emphasizing Christology, as well as Trinitarian theology, Letham instills richness and depth to this current work in systematic theology, as he makes an initial (and pervasive) Trinitarian focus a hallmark of this contribution to the field. Systematic theologies apply the timeless truths of the Christian faith to the issues of the contemporary day, and it is especially welcome that this current theological treatment illuminates some areas that often suffer neglect.

Letham’s Systematic Theology comes from a confessional Reformed standpoint (33). Each chapter consistently engages contemporary issues of import to the church, such as Open Theism and evolution, while also showing a particular affection for historical theological arguments reaching back to the Patristics. Letham begins his treatment in a decidedly different manner than many systematic theologies, as he omits the typical introductory prolegomena section and instead begins with a lengthy discussion of the Trinity. Not only is this Trinitarian focus a welcome adjustment, but it is also a calculated one. In Letham’s estimation, opening with a discussion of God gives more robust grounding to systematic theology (as opposed to the typical initial focus on Scripture proper), as his main innovative goal is integrating soteriology more fully with ecclesiology (36). Letham brings pastoral concern to bear in each chapter, concluding each with suggestions for further reading along with discussion questions geared toward group discussion. As a broad work of systematic theology, exegesis of individual passages is not normative within this work; Letham instead pursues a wide engagement of various biblical themes (35).

With a total of thirty-one chapters, Letham organizes his work into eight major “parts.” In the initial section, Letham spends three chapters focusing on the Triune nature of God. This Trinitarian attention reflects Letham’s focus on illuminating Triune theology. Letham discusses the concept of the Trinity on the biblical basis The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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of the doctrine, the formulation within the church, and the ongoing questions and controversies surrounding the doctrine. Only after discussing the manner in which God reveals Himself and His Triune nature, does Letham turn his attention to God’s attributes, a discussion which is almost always included in the introductory section of a systematic theology text. Letham’s focus on the Trinity preceding a discussion of the divine attributes is innovative, yet he defends this approach as a particularly appropriate contemporary method (155–156). Letham brings historical stances of the church into key focus in each section, and he maintains that the Reformational position of sola Scriptura does not give license for ignorance concerning historical exegesis within the church (34).

Following discussion about divine revelation, Letham focuses on issues concerning Scripture. He contrasts matters concerning the doctrine, tradition, and interpretation of Scripture with some modern challenges to biblical tradition. The discussion of Scripture gives way to features of God’s work in creation and providence, while Letham confronts contemporary challenges ranging from evolution to alien life. Next, he discusses the image of God in its relationship to the Edenic environment, the Adamic covenant, and the state of things after the Fall. Letham’s previous work in the Person of Christ then comes to bear, as his consideration of God’s covenantal relationship with His people leads into a lengthy section devoted to the Person of Christ, one which contains a particularly heavy emphasis on the Incarnation. In these latter sections of the work, Letham pays particular attention to the meaning of both the Incarnation and Ascension of Christ. This work closes out by discussing the relationship of the Spirit to the people of God while concluding (perhaps unsurprisingly, in a systematic theology tome) by considering God’s ultimate purposes in a traditional eschatological sense.

A pronounced strength of Letham’s praiseworthy contribution to systematic theology is the breadth of interaction that he brings to bear on each topic. Letham regularly interacts with modern challenges to various doctrinal stances, and his dialogue opens up readers to a range of differences between Protestant and Roman Catholic interpretations, Eastern and Western theological lineages, and other doctrinal viewpoints. Meanwhile, he interacts with Origen, Augustine, Athanasius, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin (among others). Letham is consistently conscious of historical church positions and creeds while moving toward contemporary viewpoints and dialogue. Though written from a candidly Reformed Protestant standpoint, Letham’s reach remains broad enough to meaningfully engage a diverse array of views that may otherwise prove separated by time or geography.

It is of great help that Letham brings a particularly focused Trinitarian viewpoint to bear in this work. Letham recognizes that in church history, Trinitarian questions quite often focus on the Person of the Son (94), and he, therefore, devotes helpful, independent chapters to historical Trinitarian heresies (3) and some enduring Trinitarian questions (4). An example of the contemporary importance of 122

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Trinitarian controversy comes in the ongoing discussion of the submission of the Son (120–121) and whether the eternal relationship of the Father and the Son is properly expressed in terms of authority and submission (77, 153–154). Letham’s book gives a laudable overview of fundamental Christian doctrines, engaging the contemporary while remaining anchored in the historical. This work in systematic theology will significantly benefit those from within and outside Letham’s theological camp and will prove to be a valuable contemporary resource.

Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning. By Wayne Grudem. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018.

Review by Heath L. Starks Heath Starks is a PhD student at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

Well-known author Wayne Grudem combines higher education, raw experience, and intellect with vast amounts of research and contrasting opinions in Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning, a foundational work for future studies in Christian ethics. Grudem utilizes more than forty years of experience in ministry and academia to consider and provide a solid biblical response to virtually every major ethical problem troubling modern Christians.

Other authors address limited topics in their work without assigning the explicit terms of “right” and “wrong.” Grudem presents the biblical position and boldly states his conviction on what is right or wrong. Grudem’s overt approach requires sizable amounts of thought and explanation; both of these attributes echo his famed text Systematic Theology, which many use in introduction to theology courses.

Christian Ethics is a formidable text to read for several reasons. First, discussion of these topics can be extremely opinionated and heated. Brief statements related to ethics in general often inspire anger and bitterness in both verbal and written exchanges, which frequently scare people. Adding in the Holy Bible as the “rule book” makes discussions on ethics even more difficult since people vehemently disagree on the application of its contents. Is it literal, or does the Old Testament apply to today? (It is important to note that Grudem uses the Bible as a literal source with supreme authority.) Second, introductions on the broad topic of Christian ethics are easy to ignore because they may appear too generic to satisfy some scholastic readers’ interests on a specific issue like abortion. or capital punishment.

The generic status of this introduction misleads and can deprive the academic reader of an excellent resource. The final, and obvious, reason reading this book is such an intimidating task is its size. Grudem’s Christian Ethics is a behemoth of nearly The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

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thirteen hundred pages. Each of these superficial deterrents actually manifests itself as a significant asset to the book once one engages the contents.

Grudem divides the book into seven large parts; each containing multiple chapters which focus on individual issues pertaining to the subject of the section.

The first part introduces Christian ethics where Grudem examines the basis, goal, and joys of Christian ethics as well as other deeper matters. The succeeding six divisions discuss the Ten Commandments. Grudem analyzes each one of the Ten Commandments in the individual chapters in terms of a Christian’s life. For example, part four handles protecting human life. The overall theme then subdivides into ten chapters, tackling a wide variety of frequently debated topics including capital punishment, war, abortion, euthanasia, and more. Grudem follows this pattern dealing with individual issues related to protecting God’s honor, human authority, marriage and sexuality, property and money, and purity of heart. God’s law encompasses all of humanity’s needs for direction in our behavior, and Grudem does an excellent job engaging these laws in a way that we can access and utilize God’s wisdom.

Some of the books greatest strengths root in Grudem’s purpose and approach in writing the book. Grudem states early, “I write as an evangelical for evangelicals.”

He is restating Paul’s teaching in Colossians 1:9–10 that he wants to educate fellow believers to walk worthily of the Lord and bear fruit in every good work. Grudem further accomplishes his purpose by writing with a humble spirit. Throughout the text, Grudem cites other well-known and respected authors whether they agree or disagree with him in order to give the reader information for further study. The length devoted to each topic allows readers to feel adequately introduced to the issues presented with the resources to engage in further academic pursuit. No text is perfect, and one significant weakness emerges; this volume is written by Grudem alone. While Grudem acknowledges special assistance from his son and editors relating to his declining health, Wayne Grudem himself is the only author. A book this size, regarding this many core issues to the Christian faith would present even stronger positions if more than one notable and respected author collaborated on the arguments presented.

Finally, it is worth noting that this work is an exceedingly valuable resource for a diverse range of readers with different goals. Christian Ethics is valuable for the layperson trying to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord and for the academic attempting to go beyond simple decisions. Both the college freshman and the professor can learn from this text either through simply reading Grudem’s analysis or by using the extensive bibliographies for further research. The book provides multiple useful attributes to the various levels of study. An individual student can utilize this book throughout multiple classes because of these various strengths.

I would recommend Grudem’s Christian Ethics to all those in the ministry as an

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excellent source for guidance in difficult matters as well as to professors and students for classroom study.

Teaching Across Cultures: Contextualizing Education for Global Mission. By James E. Plueddemann. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018.

Review by John William Trout, PhD Dr. John Trout serves with the International Mission Board of the SBC at the Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Baptis Indonesia seminary in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia.

In his second installment on cross-cultural ministry, Plueddemann writes from a wellspring of experience, having served in Nigeria with ECWA and SIM as a missionary educator, curriculum developer and consultant, and an international field director. He also speaks from years of graduate school teaching, gaining his experience from a significant variety of educational platforms in formal institutions, churches, and grassroots venues across continents.

Plueddemann takes as axiomatic that culture influences expectations regarding the way people transmit and receive information. His central thesis on teaching cross-culturally recommends the Rail-Fence Model and the PilgrimJourney metaphor. Together these harmonize an essential balance between learnercentered and subject-centered teaching to promote holistic human development.

Chapters 1–2 introduce the metaphor and the model. The Pilgrim metaphor presents a paradigm shift in which the teacher forges a trail for a mutually transformative relationship with students. In the Rail-Fence model, the top rail represents abstractions of truth, ideas, concepts, and content within a subject or discipline. The bottom rail represents the daily life, personal experience, and identifiable needs of students. Periodic “fence posts” or “dialectical tension” punctuate these parallel rails of knowledge as a result of a process of discovery catalyzed by the teacher in order to show the relationship between ideas and reality, or simply “content and practical needs” (8).

Culture, or colored lenses, that inform peoples’ “behaviors, assumptions, beliefs, and values,” (38) comprises the discourse of chapters 3–6. Cultivating selfawareness and empathy, effective cross-cultural teachers must become adept at connecting subject matter with the “life and cultural values of the learner” (31).

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instructional methods and objectives, … the role of the teacher and student, [and] educational evaluation” (39).

Chapters 7–9 postulate how cultural understanding should impact educational aims, values-derived objectives, and the value of savoring struggle as impetus for growth.

Plueddemann’s conviction is that the subject matter of an academic field stands as a means by which a teacher may foster “the holistic development of persons into all God created them to become” (69). After providing a taxonomy of outcomes or educational objectives (behavioral, problem-solving, and expressive), he explains how cultural values inevitably influence both the predominance of particular types of outcomes and, by extension, inform expectations for assessment.

The concluding chapters synthesize his narrative with lucid examples, showing his application of the model and metaphor in various settings and critical evaluation of how, or to what extent, context-determined outcomes were achieved. Chapter 11 exhibits a gamut of teaching/ministry platforms, ranging from formal higher education to informal mentoring and parenting. Personal evaluation extends into his final chapter.

He closes pragmatically by addressing the evaluation of methodology based on relative predominance of power distance, tolerance for ambiguity, and individualism or collectivism within a given context.

Plueddemann’s insightful cultural descriptors and mastery of social and educational theory will please readers. He references numerous pioneers in related fields, all rendered accessible through leisurely, non-specialist prose and commendable for its concise consolidation of ideas from ancillary humanities. He mines three distinct academic disciplines (Education, Cultural Anthropology, and Missiology) for principles to support the central model and metaphor. Further, he punctuates chapters with anecdotes, testimonies, and authentic scenarios to clarify academic theory.

Plueddemann’s culture theory should reach beyond the bifurcation of complex, diverse, and transient world cultures and ethno-linguistic or geopolitical entities. Each has unique tendencies regardless of where they abide along a horizontal spectrum.

Theory should accommodate the heterogeneity of thought, behavior, and practice that often occurs within a segment of population or even within an individual. Dualities insufficiently assist students of culture in appreciating the processes of dynamic change that occur even within cultures that appear outwardly stagnant. Such recognition is crucial for cross-cultural educators desirous of contextualizing subject matter.

Plueddemann writes as a developmentalist Christian educator concerned with contextualized teaching models for cross-cultural field workers, short-term volunteers, educators, and pastors. He approaches discipleship, therefore, from the perspective of transformative Christian education, with various fields or academic disciplines representing paths to know, love, and glorify God. His use of “mission” in such a generic sense both in the title and throughout potentially conflates distinct terms or concepts that should necessarily be distinguished, but unfortunately, remain opaque. Nonetheless, his primary contribution is to cross-cultural Christian Education, not Missiology.

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Volume 8 n Spring 2021 Welcome..............................................................................................................Dr. Michael Spradlin and The Journal Committee Biblical Counseling and Beyond: Ministering Scripture in Rural Settings....................John Babler The Centrality of Expository Preaching to Pastoral Ministry......................................Lee Brand, Jr. Modern Cultural Shifts in Rural America and Their Impact on the Church..................Jeff Clark The Product of Jesus’ First Miracle Considered Practically, Exegetically, and Theologically...................................................................................................Wayne Cornett From Death to Life: Reflections on Rural Church Revitalization.................................Danny Davis

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Volume 8 n Spring 2021

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Advancing Technology for the Advancement of Church Ministry.................................Kenneth R. Lewis From the Cross to the Crescent: Conversion Experiences of Young Professing Christians to Islam................................................................................................Tom Marshall Pastoral Leadership in Rural Church Revitalization...................................................David Shepherd Five Ways for Rural Ministry to Look Ahead.............................................................Stephen Witmer Book Reviews