Who Cares About the Rural Church?

Rural Pastors Talk is back!

In this Season 6 premiere of the Rural Pastors Talk podcast, we’re asking: What ever happened to Rural Pastor’s Talk?

This episode is gives us the opportunity to “un-rebrand.” And with it comes a renewed commitment to the health of the rural church. We talk honestly about why RPT rebranded, what we hoped to accomplish, why we’re changing back, and what we believe is at stake for pastors serving Christ faithfully in rural places. Beneath the humor and banter is a clear conviction: the rural church is not a stepping stone, a training ground, or God’s penalty box. As long as Christ’s people live in rural communities, Jesus intends a vibrant, healthy, multiplying church to be there.

This episode of Rural Pastors Talk is for rural pastors, small-church leaders, bivocational ministers, elders, and anyone who cares about the long-term strength of churches in rural America. We pray this episode helps encouage as you pursue faithfulness in your small, country church. 

In this episode, we discuss:
 • Why Rural Pastors Talk is back
 • Why we rebranded—and why we’re changing back again
 • Why healthy rural churches matter for the advance of Christ’s Kingdom
 • A practical book recommendation rural pastors can actually use
 • A  quote from John Wesley to keep us from being too fleshly
 • Plus some banter—including the important question you’ll have to tune in to hear!

Book recommendation for rural pastors:
📘 What’s Best Next by Matt Perman
A theologically grounded vision for productivity that roots joyful, effective work in the doctrine of justification and love for others.

Quote featured in this episode:
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.” — John Wesley

If you’re serving in rural ministry, leading a small church, or laboring faithfully in a place that feels overlooked, this episode sets the tone for Season 6 and reminds us why the rural church is worth giving our lives to.

👉 Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a rural pastor who needs encouragement. Your support helps strengthen healthy rural churches for the glory of Christ.

Transcript

TJ: Hey Skeeter. 

Joe: What up? Barry, Jimmy, Earl. 

TJ: Hey man. You remember them old fellas we used to listen to on the computer? 

Joe: Weren't them like three redneck pastors? They cut up and Kay eyed and laughed and every once in a while said something halfway intelligent. 

TJ: Yeah, them boys. That's the ones I'm talking about.

Whatever happened to them boys?

Joe: I think. I think. I think they went off the air. But I'm looking for my VHS eight Track something. See if maybe I got something recorded here somewhere. 

TJ: Oh yeah, I think that's it right there. You want want me to try it? 

Joe: Yeah. 

TJ: All right. Let's play it. Thank you for joining us for another edition of Rural Pastor's Talk, a podcast highlighting the advancement of Christ Kingdom in rural places. Just like the town you live in. The rural church is not the baby pool we splash in before Moving on to bigger opportunities.

It's not the place we're confined until we can take off those training wheels, and it is not God's penalty box as a punishment for breaking the rules. No, Jesus died for his people. And as long as Christ's people live in rural places, a vibrant, healthy, multiplying presence of his church will be there too.

Well, hello, my name is TJ Freeman and I am one of them old redneck fellas that used to be on the Rural Pastors Talk, and I am joined by some of my friends here today. 

Joe: Hey, my name is Joe Wagner. I am one of those pastors as well. I am the pastor of Cutting Up and Kay Eyeing. 

TJ: That's right. Mostly Kay Eyeing.

Joe: Yes. 

TJ: And we've got a noob in the room today. Uh, 

Joe: we brought him along so we can pick on him. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right. It's definitely generally abusing. Definitely. He's definitely not here because Josh couldn't be here. 

CJ: Definitely not. 

TJ: No. We brought him in special. 

Joe: You weren't second best in ours. 

TJ: Right. 

CJ: I'll take it.

TJ: Yeah, that's right. Who are you? 

CJ: My name is cj. I'm a pastoral assistant out here in Wellsboro. 

TJ: All right, very good. And hey, so we have a lot of splaining to do here on this episode, but before we get to that, I'll give you kind of a little lay of the land. So we're gonna talk about why we're re rebranding, or can I call it un rebranding?

Joe: You could. 

TJ: Um, why we think you should care about that. We're gonna give you a book recommendation that we think will really float your boat, and a quote from John Wesley, so you aren't so fleshly. All right. But before we get to any of that, I need to hear from both of you guys, and I'm really anxious to hear about this from you, cj.

CJ: Uh oh. 

TJ: What is the last thing you shot? The last thing you shot, Joe, you wanna go first? 

Joe: I will go first. The last thing that I shot. Was a deer. 

TJ: Okay. 

Joe: Yeah. I can't even say I went hunting. I just walked into the woods and shot a deer. 

TJ: This year? 

Joe: Yeah, this year. Okay. It was the easiest thing I'd ever done in my entire life.

Easiest, most successful hunt ever. 

TJ: Did I eat some of that deer today? 

Joe: You did eat some of that deer. Today we made some of that into venison pastrami, which was not too bad. 

TJ: I loved it. 

Joe: Pretty good. 

TJ: Yeah, it was really good. And I need to get the recipe, but cj, last thing you shot? 

CJ: Uh, soccer ball. 

TJ: Ooh, well played.

Yes. Very good. Have you ever in your life shot an animal? 

CJ: Uh. So where I grew up, hunting wasn't a thing. But. 

TJ: Are you allowed to have guns in Maryland? 

CJ: We were allowed BB guns. 

TJ: Okay. 

CJ: Yeah. So I have shot a squirrel or two. Ooh. But, um, yeah, since moving up here, I have gone hunting a couple times. 

TJ: Okay. 

Joe: I remember the last time I went hunting with you.

Do you remember the last time I? 

TJ: We're gonna lose him? For sure. Yeah. 

Joe: We sent him through the clear cut, which was not clear at all. Not at all. Since there were tree saplings that too far apart. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right. 

Joe: And he went through there for like a mile. Poor guy was bled on the way out. 

TJ: That's right. 

CJ: I got stuck in a bush.

It was not fun. 

TJ: And it was in the middle of the state forest where if you get lost, you're gonna be lost for a while. 

Joe: It was about 15 degrees outside too. 

TJ: That's right. So, uh, good. Well the last thing I shot, I don't honestly remember because I have been an unsuccessful hunter for a while. 

Joe: W wa. 

TJ: But this year I had the delight of taking my.

Middle daughter out and took her into the woods with a crossbow. Mm. We sat there and it got cold and it was starting to get dark, and she said, dad, can we go home? And I said, yes, sweetheart. You've done a great job. And then I heard f. You know what that means? 

Joe: Was that the arrow or the deer? 

TJ: No, that was the deer.

Yeah. That impression. 

Joe: Oh, that, that I thought it was like. 

TJ: It was a snort. 

Joe: It was more like. 

TJ: Yeah. And um, I was like, oh, we better wait just a minute. And a little buck came running right up to us and she was like, am I really allowed to shoot it? Like, yep, if you got a good shot, take it. And she took a great shot.

And then the deer went maybe a hundred yards and we found it after dark. The whole family came. It was delightful. And we've been eating on that deer here for a while. 

Joe: Nice. Well done brother. 

TJ: Yeah. Very good. And today we are shooting something very different. We are shooting a live episode of Rural Pastors Talk and we, we should probably explain ourselves a little bit because we were Rural Pastors talk.

Then we came up with this great idea to be. 

Joe: That was your idea. 

TJ: To be, that's why it was great to be rural Church renewal. And I had good reasons for that. Really good reasons, all of which proved to be really bad reasons. Here's reason number one, okay. I've been listening for a long time to a superior podcast called Pastors Talk Put out by nine Marks, and I had the clever idea when we came up with rural Pastors talk.

We wanna get similar resources out, but into the hands of rural pastors. So it seems reasonable that maybe if somebody's Googling pastor's talk and they see, oh, there's a rural version of this. 

Joe: Actually, your idea for naming it was better than my idea for naming it. Remember what I wanted to call it? 

TJ: I do.

Joe: You called it Pastor's talk. I wanted to call it staple people. 

TJ: Yep, you did. 

Joe: I wanted just trips right out the tongue. 

TJ: I have often thought of that and chuckled to myself. Yeah. Uh, it's not a bad name. 

Joe: It might've worked. 

TJ: It might've worked. I, I have proven to be pretty poor at naming things myself, but you know, we figured, hey, we're rural, we're pastors, we're talking, and that seems pretty straightforward.

We like to name things what they are, which is why at our church, we don't call it like, youth group isn't like Ignite or the Fuge, it's youth group. I like naming things for what they are. Um, but when we, when we were podcasting for a while, we got what, five. Four, four seasons in. 

Joe: Oh, hundreds and hundreds of episodes 

TJ: and we realized, hey, nine marks is naming a lot of stuff.

Talk now. Preachers talk. Your your buddy on there there. 

CJ: Copycast, Steve Holm and Copeland. 

TJ: That's right. 

Joe: Well, did you say Kenneth Copeland? 

CJ: Ed. 

TJ: Ed. Ed k Edward Copeland. Yeah. 

CJ: Ah, don't mix it. Two. 

TJ: Hey, you gotta be really close on that thing. We call these make out mics because you have to literally touch your lips to 'em.

Gotcha. Yeah. 

Joe: That will be your mic forever. 

TJ: Forever. Until Josh comes back next week. Um, so yeah, there's Preachers talk, there's Priscilla Talk, there's Missions Talk. I think they started naming everything Talk, which they have the right to do, and I thought maybe we should get outta that space because we don't wanna be confused as trying to actually like step on LA Mark's toes.

And then I also, on top of that, we wanna talk to more than just pastors, right? I mean, we're interested in helping pastors, but we also want to help the church that's struggling to find a pastor, which is often the case in rural places. We wanna help the deacon who's going, Hey, you know, our church is struggling and I want to invest some time in trying to get some good resources.

So we didn't wanna scare people away who weren't pastors. So we thought, well, the rural church needs renewal. Let's go with that. And we just didn't like it. Why didn't we like it? 

Joe: Yeah. Well, along with the name change, we. We kind of changed the dynamic a little bit too. 

TJ: We did. 

Joe: And we weren't as um, banter.

TJ: Silly. 

Joe: Silly, Chucky. 

TJ: Yep. 

Joe: And it's not that we were trying to become off as experts at all, but we did tackle different subjects and we wanted to communicate and speak and talk. And I don't think we got too big for our britches, but maybe we got close. 

TJ: Yeah. So thinking about the Brainerd Institute, which this is a ministry of the Brainerd Institute. We want to, to represent the institute well through this podcast and thought maybe some of the banter silly cold opens aren't as institutional. 

Joe: Mm. 

TJ: And hey, maybe that's the problem. We don't really want to be institutional. So the Brainerd Institute is just a central resource to help strengthen and plant rural churches.

And I think we can be as, 

Joe: we can have as much personality, 

TJ: authentic as we wanna be. That's 

Joe: right. Yeah. 

TJ: That's right. So really glad to be back with that, and that's kind of the main thing we wanted to cover in this episode is helping you see, hey, still the same kind of thing, still the same kind of heart.

We're going back to rural pastors talk, which is why we got that suite. I don't, I have to see where I'm pointing here. If you're watching on YouTube. They're right there. I don't like it when people do this on their channels, but now I'm doing it. Um, you can see our little logo up there. That's our original Rural Pastors Talk logo made by the inimitable Rachel White.

Mm. And um, yeah, just kind of diving back in, you wanna say something cj? I, I thought you took the breath. Feel free to jump in anytime. Yeah. CJ wasn't around, was it Rural Pastors Talk when you came? 

Joe: You were still in high school when Rural Pastors Talk started. 

CJ: Sadly, no. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right. 

CJ: Yeah. Uh, it was, but I don't, it was in that transition period when I was a resident. 

TJ: In our awkward pub pubescent season.

Yep. Hey, so we're here in the Brainerd offices. We are renting an office space at another nonprofit, and they gave us the whole upstairs, which is sweet. Um, you'll see this space if you keep watching on the channel. We'll, we have another spot in the room where we're doing interviews. This little corner we're in, we're still working on getting set up right.

But we got a good start. I think this is, seems like it's working. Uh, it might be a little echoy. Everything over to that side of me is just a giant open cavern at this point. So we're working on that. And here's why I raised this. If you know things about how to have good sound quality, whatever in a studio space, would you reach out to us?

You can email CJ. 

CJ: Oh, cj@christchurchlife.com. 

TJ: Yep. He would love to hear back from you on how to help with that. Anything else, Joe? 

Joe: No, I think you covered it pretty well. 

TJ: Alright then. Uh oh, I hear in my little ear. 

Joe: Oh, this is Josh's time for an SOS. 

TJ: For an SOS. 

Joe: Danger. 

TJ: That's right. But in lieu of Josh being here, 

Joe: it's cj.

You have no idea what to do. 

TJ: Did you take good notes? Last week? He watched us record and then scrap this episode last week. 

CJ: Yeah. But you are more than welcome to subscribe to this YouTube channel. We have a Facebook page. You can even just go to the BRAINER website and find it. It's a great way for you to offer review and have some comments interact with us.

TJ: Alright, let's re let's back up. So you gave us the S, which was, 

CJ: yeah. Subscribe. 

TJ: Okay. Then you just gave us the 

OO 

CJ: offer review or comments. 

TJ: There you go. Why is that helpful? 

CJ: To know what we're doing. If it's encouraging, it's helpful for you guys or if you want something different. 

TJ: Our friend Al really likes reviews.

You know Al right? 

Joe: Al? Go Rhythm. 

TJ: Go Rhythm. Yeah. 

Joe: Oh my goodness. 

TJ: Yes. Al Go Rhythm really likes it when there's a review on Special Apple, especially Apple Podcasts. Spotify. Spotify has kind of taken over the podcast space lately. Whatever you're listening on though, if you could leave a review, if it's a five star review, that'll help us go in a positive direction.

If it's less than that, it would actually hurt the podcast. 

Joe: Just send us an email and tell us how much we stink at that particular point. We're 

TJ: happy to 

Joe: take you. It'll hurt our feelings more if you do it that way. So don't like tell everybody. Just tell us and, and we'll correct. 

TJ: That's right. Yeah, that's right.

We can take it. We like constructive criticism a lot. But we wanna get the algorithm to help us. So five star reviews are particularly useful to us on that. What's the last s 

CJ: Share? 

TJ: Share, 

CJ: either through Facebook, through Instagram, through just sending your friend the link. You could even write a letter and share any way to share.

Joe: So word of mouth is really, really good. You tell somebody, Hey, listen to these three guys. They sometimes have some good things to say. That's right. And they want to help the rural church, and we love the rural church, that niche. That's where we all grew up, except for cj. But he has grown to love the rural church as well.

TJ: That's right. Hey, why don't you tell us about that real quick? 

CJ: Yeah. 

TJ: You came here how long ago? 

CJ: Close to three years now. 

TJ: Wow. 

CJ: Crazy. And yeah, fall of 23, and now we're hitting on 26. 

TJ: And in those days. You took to the Innerwebs? 

CJ: Yeah. 

Joe: Oh, this is deep, dark, secret revealing time here. 

TJ: With a blog. 

CJ: Yes. 

TJ: That we didn't know existed, but somebody found it.

CJ: Yeah, someone found it. 

Joe: Did you ever find out who found it? 

CJ: I did, yeah. 

TJ: Okay. And, and tell us what kind of thoughts you expressed on the block. 

CJ: Well, I guess little background. So clearly I'm not from rural Pennsylvania. I'm not even from Pennsylvania. I'm from uh, Columbia, Maryland, which is right between DC right between Baltimore.

Very different. Like if I wanted to go to a park, I had to drive trees. You had to go to the state park and see 'em. 

TJ: So you're in concrete jungle. 

CJ: So concrete jungle, like we had trees, we had yards, but very different to here. Um, you see a deer, you just look at it, you don't eat it. There's no thought of consuming it, no thought of anything.

And like went to college in Louisville, Kentucky, which is very urban. And so I came out here and I'm like, this is so different. Like, they don't talk like I do. They don't dress like they, I do. I like my fancy lattes and everyone's like, A couple, Folgers is good for me. So I felt very out of place and in college I had this blog that.

It was mainly satirical, just kind of talking about my week. And sadly, those first couple blogs of me being here, were all like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I belong here. I don't wanna be here. 

Joe: With these lesser people. 

CJ: Uh, I said Amish folk. 

Joe: But we, I'll never forget, I'll never forget the very first time, and I will leave the name of the town unnamed.

But we were traveling to a small church where you were going to fill the pulpit from. Yeah. And I wanted to show you around. And we literally drove for 15 minutes through the woods and never passed another car. Mm. 

CJ: Another car, another house. 

Joe: Your eyes were this big. Where am I? It was like the apocalypse happened.

Yeah. And poor CJ had no idea what was going on. Yeah. 

TJ: Man. Yeah. 

Joe: But by then, I remember the conversation that we had, and this was months after that initial thing. Uh, and he said, if the Lord calls me here, I want to go. 

TJ: Mm. 

Joe: I I love these people. I love this place. Even if the Lord calls me all the way out here into the middle of nowhere, I'm going. 

TJ: Yeah, I have loved watching you embrace rural life and yeah, just dive right into where the Lord's got you.

That's been really sweet. And you had the choice to leave. 

CJ: Yeah, I did. 

TJ: You came back? I did, 

CJ: yeah. I was in Chicago for nine months and I could have stayed. But yeah, falling in love with the church that I was at, falling in love with the people, the community. Like also 

TJ: falling 

CJ: in love with 

TJ: somebody else.

CJ: Yeah. Falling in love with somebody else who was living here, like yes, it kind of helped. 

TJ: That's right. 

CJ: Um, but yeah, it was hard to leave the community, hard to leave a place where, one, they invested so much into me, but then also was just, there's a need for preachers, not just here, but in similar places. I couldn't leave.

TJ: Mm. 

CJ: I felt like this is where God was leading me to and I've fallen in love with rural living. Still a lot of learning and growing, but I will say, dear meat, tastes amazing. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right. 

CJ: That's part of it. So that's. 

TJ: It hooks you. Now let's see how rural a boy you really are. How do you say CREEK? 

CJ: See, uh, Creek.

TJ: Yeah. So we're, we've got still room to work on. You still do a 

CJ: little work to do 

TJ: some discipling? Left to go. 

CJ: That's just part of my weird Maryland accent, so it's 

TJ: fine. C-O-Y-O-T-E-C-O-Y. 

CJ: Oh, coyote. 

TJ: Okay. You've embraced coyote. There you go. You're halfway there. 

CJ: A yo as someone 

TJ: did a yo. Yep. The yos. Alright, well thanks CJ for that.

Thanks for letting us. Talk about your old blog. All right, now we're moving to this little section here stuff. Pearl Pastors 

CJ: can use our reviews. 

TJ: There it is. All right. 

Joe: You did that pretty well too. 

TJ: You did that very well. This is a little section of the podcast we used to do back in the day, and we're bringing it back and it is an opportunity for us to share with you some things that we have found helpful over the years as rural pastors in particular, and right now.

What's the thing we're finding most helpful, Joe? 

Joe: Uh, it is actually a book, another book. See pastors, rural pastors especially, can find themselves incredibly busy. Oftentimes it's just a pastor with no staff or maybe with an admin or a secretary that comes in for a couple hours a week. And so there are so many things to do and you get incredibly busy and then you leave the week or the day thinking, oh my goodness, there's so many things I haven't got done, and that just piles up and piles up and piles up.

I would encourage you to. Read this book. It's called What's Best Next by Matt Perman. And it is, and essentially it is a theology of work. Or maybe to be more precise, it's a theology of effective productivity. 

TJ: Yeah. 

Joe: And it helps you biblically in a godly way, prioritize. All the things that you have to do, and it provides incredible biblical insight. 

TJ: And it's all for the sake of love, which I really appreciate because I am, I have an aversion to the, like Malcolm Gladwell camp of books, not because I don't want to be better, but because early in ministry, those kind of books were used a lot as like the standard we're driving for, we're trying to be productive, uh, kind of for the sake of growth and productivity.

That's probably not what the intention was, but that's how it felt. I started to shy away from some of that stuff, and some of it's really inauthentic and pragmatic and all that. This book is not any of that. This book says If you wanna love Christ, you're gonna love other people. And if you wanna love other people, you have to plan your life in a way that allows you to love and serve them faithfully.

And it just kinda gives you a good framework on how to do that. So. 

Joe: There are golden nuggets all the way throughout. That's right. So I would really encourage you to pick that up. Uh, it's not a short book, but it's an easy to read book, take it a couple chapters at a time. We've been taking it two chapters at a time and it has been incredibly helpful for us.

As pastors on the same staff, even organize how we're doing things. It's already made an effect on the way that we do things. 

TJ: Yeah, absolutely. 

Joe: Be more productive. 

TJ: Yeah, it's been super helpful. Also, just reading books with other pastors together. Super helpful. You may be a solo pastor, you may be a bi-vocational pastor, but you've probably got some Saturday mornings or something like this that you can get together with another pastor from your area.

Just work through stuff together. I think you'd be really encouraged by that. This would be a great book to do it with. I think that's kinda it, right? 

Joe: We're wrap it up. 

TJ: Wrapping it on up. Alright, we're, I feel like I'm a little rusty on how to get out of a podcast and I have all these buttons. 

Joe: Go land the plane, brother, land the planes. 

TJ: All these buttons right here to push.

I'm not sure which one puts the landing here down. 

Joe: So one of the things that we always did at RPT is we ended with a quote.

TJ: We did. We also had another segment I'm gonna beg for. 

Joe: Okay. 

TJ: But we need your help dear listener. Remember what we used to have? The mailbag. 

Joe: Oh. 

TJ: We had a name for it. I don't recall it right at this second.

We'll have to think about that. 

Joe: Well, you're good at naming. Maybe we just call it mailbag. 

TJ: That's a good idea. I like it. Um, and in order to have a mailbag, you need to have people mail us and you can mail CJ@Christchurchlife.com and he will give us your questions. If it's not useful to you and you don't want to ask us any questions, then we don't have to have a mailbag, but it'd be kind of fun to be able to do that.

We can just do it once in a while. 

Joe: We met one of our favorite people through this, through the mailbag. 

TJ: Yes. Yeah, that's right. We totally have. 

Joe: And made law made friends. Yeah. We've been, we've we've met some, yeah. Uh, name names, but I'm not gonna, anyway, they're cool dudes. 

We wanna hear from you. 

TJ: Every head bowed and every eye closed.

If the Lord is prompting you right now to send an email, 

Joe: just slip up your hand and tap to send on your email. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right. That's all you gotta do. But yeah, you were getting to the quote. 

Joe: Yeah, it actually ties in to the book that we are reading. Mm-hmm. And it's by somebody that we don't as quote as often as maybe what we should.

TJ: Yeah. 

Joe: It's by John Wesley. He says this, do all the good you can by all the means. You can in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can to all the people that you can as long as you ever can. Wise words. 

TJ: Very wise words. 

Joe: By John Wesley. 

TJ: That's right. Alright, well, I'd like to thank you for joining us for this episode of Rural Pastors Talk and we will see you next time.

Joe: Raise your Ebenezer. 

TJ: Thank you for listening or watching this episode of Rural Pastors Talk. For more information and some helpful articles and all kinds of other resources, head on over to the Brainerd Institute website@brainerdinstitute.com. For now, go serve Christ faithfully. We'll see you.