The Small Town Church Plant Challenge

In this episode of Rural Pastors Talk, Josh MacClaren, Joe Wagner, and first-time podcast guest Eric Grant swap small-town stories before diving into why churches in tiny towns matter and why church planters shouldn’t overlook them. Eric shares about planting Trinity Church in Antrim, Pennsylvania, a former coal town with about 30 weekly attendees, more hunting cabins than permanent homes, and the only other establishment being a bar across the street. The guys discuss how rural ministry keeps relationships intimate, why the “what and why” of ministry stay the same while the “how” shifts by context, and why shorter sermons can serve unchurched listeners without compromising substance. Eric recommends Martin Lloyd-Jones’s Preaching and Preachers and closes with a Steven Whitmer quote from A Big Gospel in Small Places.

Transcript

The Small Town Church Plant Challenge

Hey there, Jim Merrill. I bet my town is smaller than your town. I don't know Bobby Joe, I don't think so. Hey, no, my town is so small. The welcome sign and the thanks for Visiting Sign are on the same post. Oh yeah. Well, my town is so small. We only have one yellow page and it's just a post-it note with everybody's name and number on it.

Oh yeah. My town is so small. The high school reunion, it's just called Friday Night at the Diner. Oh yeah. Well, my town is so small the barber mechanic and the funeral director are all the same guy, and he still remembers what you wanted for Christmas when you were six.

Thank you for joining us on this edition of Rural Pastors Talk. A podcast highlighting the advancement of Christ's kingdom in rural places, just like the town you live in, the rural church is not the baby pool we splash around in before moving on to bigger opportunities. It is 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 Josh MacClaren. I am a rural pastor and I'm here with two very dear friends. Hey guys. My name is Joe Wagner. I also am a rural pastor.

My name's Eric Grant and I am also a rural pastor. Look at that. I like the three magos. Bam. Oh, something I just wanted to share as well. Sure. Like when we make those country redneck voices, it's not 'cause we're making fun of country people. Nope. It's 'cause we love 'em and we are them, love them, and we just don't have the accents.

Hey, on this episode of Rural Pastors Talk, we're gonna talk about churches in church planning in tiny towns and why churches in tiny towns matter and why If you are looking to plant, you should plant a church in a tiny town. A book recommendation we think will really make your frown upside down. And a quote from Steven Whitmer to make your get here out in the boonies.

All right, so let's get started off with a question. And right now we are getting close to the end of winter. Dude, it's in the fifties today. It is in the fifties, and it's still, what is it, January or February? I don't even know. It's February. It's February. All right. Question. How much snow have you ever shoveled at one time?

How long? How much, how long of a driveway? Hit me with it, Josh. Well, the longest driveway I've probably ever shoveled was my childhood driveway, and it wasn't long. Just a couple years ago. Yeah. Just, yeah. Nice. The baby face. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it wasn't that long, man. So. I, it was maybe, maybe, maybe 25 yards. Maybe 25 yards.

Not that you wanna A shovel. Yeah, shovel this out, boy. Yeah, and honestly I was a pretty lazy kid, so my dad probably plowed it or something. All right. So, okay, Eric, for you. What's the most you've ever shoveled before in your life? I see where you're going with this. I, I asked this question for you, brother.

Yeah. People don't know. I have like a quarter mile driveway and, and it is, I think it snowed probably what, two feet a couple weeks ago? Uhhuh. It was a light snow though. Fluffy. Yeah. Real light. Yeah. After a thousand shovels, I, uh. Managed to get down to the bottom. So, yeah, and did so it was all just you and a shovel, uh, for the most part.

Then this kindly old gentleman showed up with a Dodge ram and a nice snowplow and got the last maybe quarter of it, but Yeah. But other than that, it was all you. Yep. All right. My driveway is not quite as long as Eric's driveway, but it was a good a hundred yarder, and I did it one time. Two feet of snow when it was not so fluffy.

And I ended up at the chiropractor. How's your back? First time, your first time I'd ever been to a chiropractor. Yeah, the old sciatica was going off.

Alright, so you guys know that you hear a different voice in here. We've already introduced him as Eric.

This is his. And he wins the reward of, of shoveling the most. The most. He gets the trophy. Yeah. And this is his very first podcast he's ever been on. Podcast rookie. Eric, tell us a little bit about yourself and what are you doing right now, the two big things that are going on in your life. Share. Uh, I'm about to have my second child.

Woo. Uh, Any minute now your wife is? Yes. So yes. Yes. Not me. Yeah. One flesh. I'll be there to catch. So important job. Uh, yeah. The other thing, I just planted a church with a fellow brother of mine, uh, back in October. In the smallest town, probably in the United States. So you are the inspiration for this podcast episode because we're talking about planting churches in tiny towns or just churches in tiny towns altogether.

This is what I would like you to do. If you're out there listening, I want you to email us if you think that you live in, if you are in a church, in a town tinier than Eric's town. Let us know name of your church, who you are and how many people are in your town. Do the same for us. Eric, name of your church, name of the town, and how many people live there?

Alright. I Pastor Trinity Church. It's in Antrim, Pennsylvania. You probably will not find it on a map. Uh, yeah, there in our church we have about 30 people attending every week. In our town there's probably 200 housing units and half of them are hunting cabins. I was just gonna ask you, do you think that there's more permanent residences?

No. Or more more hunting cabins? More hunting cabins. There's more hunting cabins there. What else is there in the town? You don't have to share the name of it, although it's a great place that we like to go. Absolutely. Yeah. It's uh, there's a bar across the street. Yeah. And that's the only other establishment in town. And man, they have the best wings.

Yeah, wings are great. Cheese steaks are great. Cheese steaks are great. And it's a great place to go over and have meetings and lunches and take people to places there. Yep. What do you think? And Josh, I'm gonna ask you this too, because you're not planting in a big town. How many people are in your town?

3000 in the borough. So bigger. Much bigger than Antrim, but you're 3000 in the borough? Mm-hmm. So 3000 there, 200 for you and Wellsboro is what? 2,600 in the borough? 32 in the borough. But the zip code in Wellsboro jumps to 10,000. Okay? Ours is 6,200. We're still not talking huge numbers at all. And compared to some of our brothers who we know very well, our towns, all of them are tiny, tiny.

One of the things I would say about your town, Eric, not only is it a tiny town, but it is like on the frontier of wilderness. It's, it's a pioneer. And didn't used to be that way. No. Yeah. Maybe a little bit about the history. Yeah. At one point in time it was a major coal mining town, and I believe there was close to 4,000 people that lived there.

There were five churches. Wow. A school. Wow. The railroad came right through there. Uh, all of that is gone. We were the last church building standing and it closed down in 2002, seven, somewhere in there. It's been over 20 years since, uh, a congregation has worshiped the Lord there. So Brainerd was able to buy it back and, uh, we, we planted a bit.

You planted there. Hmm. That is fantastic. Uh, just brainerd's not planting. No, no, no. Yes. But we were able to help fund that church building, so thank you very much for to Brainard and all the people who had given to that. Uh, one real quick, interesting thing about the church building itself. It's made outta stone, which is awesome.

Uh, the stained glass is just absolutely beautiful. Uh, it's an old Episcopal church, right? Yes. And yeah, there's no like natural gas or anything, so we heat the propane and sometimes that runs out. Yeah. Do you to, to get from the upstairs to the downstairs. You either have to go outside or jump down through the trap door.

Yes, sir. Yeah, we're thinking about putting a fireman, uh, pole. Slide down. Send the kids down. Send the kids down to kid ministry on the sliding pole. All right, so let's talk this through. 'cause I know that there are brothers out there and there are people out there who are in churches, in towns that are just this small.

What is one of the great benefits of pastoring in a small town? I think the best benefit so far has been able to meet everybody and everybody knows each other's names, and you can get involved in people's lives. Like there's not a lot of hiding you can do when your neighbors all can see you and know where you go and where you work.

And. Yeah, it's just very intimate there. So do. Now one of the. One, we don't necessarily need to talk it all the way through. But one of the limitations that you have right now at your present church's parking, but does that necessarily matter right now for where you're at? Right now, no, because a lot of people walk there.

They just walk from home to church. It's glorious. It is super cool. Josh, yo. One of the best things that you can think of for planting. You did plant. Yep. A couple years ago indeed. But you are pastoring in a small town. Mm-hmm. So best thing? The best thing about pastoring town? Yeah. Best thing about it. Uh, you put me on the spot, Joe.

Killing me. I do think small town. I so appreciate the ability to know meaningfully, uh, the people who are there. Um, to be able to go into any establishment and recognize someone, obviously that comes with its drawbacks, but the, with a lack of affluency, you know, it allows you to just build really deep relationships that can last as well as, uh, yeah.

Sorry Jack. Now you're doing good, man. Keep going. Well, part of me wants to even scale back like this is like five minutes ago, which is a bummer. Um, I. Eric had mentioned the size of the town, and then it would've been a really easy transition to say, why did you plant there then? Like, if, if this town was once in its heyday, what would be the purpose of you planting?

Now? What, what, why is that helpful? Why is that beneficial? Eric, do you wanna answer that question? Absolutely. Uh, 'cause they need the gospel just as much as everybody else and, uh, it's a place that's often overlooked, especially by bigger organizations. It doesn't really seem that beneficial. But going there and hearing the stories and hearing people, we, we haven't had any conversions yet, but people saying, we're so glad that there's life in this town again, and we're so glad there's a church, and the church is being used as a church.

Yeah. What would you say to somebody who's, who would say to you, would challenge you and push back a little bit there and they'd say, yeah, okay. I get it. I understand, but did you do any research? I mean, did you try to figure out how many people live there and whether it would actually support a pastor in a church in that town?

What about the demographics? What's your 10 year plan? Did you do any of that sort of research at all? With even, and especially if that research said this is not a good place to plant. What would be your pushback to that? I would say, well, God says go out to the ends of the earth. Disciple his people. So why am I overlooking an area like that?

Yeah. God's glory is gonna cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And if we just wait for the cherry picked places where we can go and plant churches instead of tackling these other, um, little bitty tiny towns or other areas where the demographics or the research says, don't go there. Well then we're gonna leave that spot blank and empty.

So Eric, what's been some encouragement for you planting in antrim? What have you enjoyed about it? Maybe even some advantages of planting in a tiny town? What do you think? I'm seeing a lot of good come out of it. So I'm seeing the people who have came with us to the church are really just coming in their own.

So their spiritual gifts are. Uh, coming to the surface and they're being, they're being invested in and they're investing in the church so well. The other thing, the people that have been coming and attending from the town, we're seeing some cool stories. One guy broke down in front of our church when we were having a tree lighting ceremony, and one of our congregates went out and fixed his car for him.

Mm. He was out there in the freezing cold for like 30 minutes working on his car. They get it up and coming. They decide, well, they were so nice to us. We're coming to that church and they've been coming pretty faithfully ever since. Really? That an amazing, amazing story. It's, there's been a few stories like that.

That's just really warms my heart. Yeah. You were able to have a pretty meaningful phone call and meeting with someone who was in a place of kind of distress even and. Yep. Give him the hope of the gospel. Yeah. There was another man, a gentleman that was, uh. Dealing with the death of his daughter over a year ago and just reached out to us and he lived right down the street and he's like, I know I need a church.

I know, I know need to hear the gospel. Would you mind meeting with us? So that's awesome. Yeah. Then there's a couple other families, they're a little, little more on a poverty end of things and they just come just 'cause it's a warm place. Mm. And they're hearing the gospel and it's great. And they're starting to.

Really start to understand it. So amazing. Praise God. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, the Lord Jesus said when you do it to the least of one of these, like you've done it to me, right? Yeah. You've given 'em something to eat or, uh, been able to serve their needs. That's great. You know, I was, I want to go in a little bit different direction here in a second, but as I was sitting here thinking about it, I'm still at the church.

That sent you to Mansfield. Yes. You know, finish this story for me. So you went, we sent our best. Oh, you're not gonna hear me say this very often, Josh. That's true. But you are our best No right. To go and plant in another tiny town. And then what's the next. Sounds like's a pattern in, in acts we could copy just. I, I would think so.

Tell us about that. Yeah. Yeah. And in after Stephen's, uh, martyrdom in the book of Acts, I think it's maybe chapter nine or 10. In 11, uh, Barnabas hears, uh, it's Stevens martyrdom. If I said Barnabas, sorry, Barnabas hears of the need, Jerusalem hears of the need. So they send Barnabas to Antioch, which is this place that disciples are being made.

Barnabas recognizes he needs help. So he sends for the Apostle Paul, uh, from his hometown, and then they meet and they serve for a year. And then after about a year, give or take, uh, the Holy Spirit sets both Paul and Barnabas apart in Antioch to then send them out in planting. Uh, and we've had that experience with Eric.

Eric and Nate. The brother who went with them. Were being raised up as elders in Mansfield, having been sent from Wellsboro over. So here's the, here's the progression. Yep. From the tiny town of Wellsboro. Yep. We planted a church in the tiny town of Mansfield. Mansfield, and that church in the tiny town of Mansfield then was instrumental in sending out the pastors for Antrum.

Antrum. Yeah. So you've been along for the ride. You were started at Wellsboro, Help plant in Mansfield, and now you're planting in Antrum. Yes. I was at three years ago. Yeah, man. Uh, I mean, the work was four years ago, but officially, yeah, two and a half years ago, October 23. So about three years ago, Josh has said, I, I'm, I'm heading over to Mansfield.

I said, I'll give you three months. And then I stayed over there. Awkward. And next thing I know, I'm heading to Antrim. So you're heading to Antrim. Eric is a graduate of our, the Brainerd residency as. And, uh, we knew that, you know, he had been gifted pastorally. It's just a matter of where would that happen and how would that happen and when would it happen.

And it's been pretty amazing to see the ride so far. So, all right. So we have established your bonafides, both of you, that you had planted a church in a small town. I also had planted a church in a small town before I had come over to Christ Church. So all three of us have planted a church in a small town, all but AFI days established.

Now, what then could we share with others of how that we would pastor in a small town? Right? Here's the encouragement brothers out there in a small town. Here's our encouragement to you. How you, we would pastor. In a small town, what changes? Does anything change? Does it have to change? Are we being pragmatic or practical or real?

How long do you preach for Eric? Uh, we aim for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. How long would you prefer to preach for Eric? Uh, like three hours, but. Alright, Paul. I, I, I try to keep it around 40 minutes. You keep the windows closed and you're on the first floor. Fall out? Yeah. All right. So you would prefer to preach for three hours?

In real realistic time, you probably would really prefer to preach for 40, 45 minutes. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. But why do you only preach for 20 minutes? Uh, just coming from unchurched people, uh, they just don't have the attention span buildup. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you telling me that country people are dumb?

No. Not at all. Not at all. I just think they're not used to long, long sermons and people can, especially with me, hear my voice. I, I could doll some people to sleep. So how, how about you, Josh? Yes. Well, being discipled under the Christ Church peeps, you know, we stick to 35 ish. You're, yeah, you're at 35 ish.

Our, our people were not. The majority of our people had come from Wellsboro. Now by God's grace, we've seen some, um, families from the community. That's, I mean, the whole reason we were there, we have some transplants who've moved in that are now attending. Um, so our demographics were just a little different with the people we were bringing.

Right. And, uh, and so we, you know, we had the, the capacity to have a little longer sermons. What would you say to a young pastor who loves the Lord, loves the word. Loves to preach and knows the importance of preaching, of which we really foundationally hold as something of utmost importance. It's of our pillar importance of preaching.

Yes, it's one of our fillers. But what would you say to him if he preached regularly for 40 to 50 minutes and then he comes to you and he says, I don't know what to do, that people keep telling me that they want me to preach shorter and more simple. What would you say to him? Well, I'm new to this game myself.

I've only been a regular preaching pastor for two and a half years, and I have a lot to learn. And I think, uh, the more, more is not always better when it comes to preaching, especially if you're new to it. Does preaching for 20 minutes mean that you're going to preaching for 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes?

Does that mean you're going to teach less important stuff? Nope. No, I don't think it compromises your argument in any way as long as. Your argument, you understand, you know what the text is saying. You're articulating it in such a way that, uh, you're seeking to be persuasive to your people. If your argument's tight, you can do that in 20 minutes.

Yeah. That was, I, I think I preached for 22 minutes in Antrim last Sunday. We were, yep. It was two nights ago. We were all sitting in the church and you were preaching 22 minutes in that morning. I preached for 33 in Mansfield. Same sermon, but my audience was different. Nope. Different text. Yeah. Matthew 25 in the morning and Mark chapter two in the evening.

Mm-hmm. So, Eric, you were nodding your head along. What are your thoughts on that? If you were going to your, your admonition, your exhortation and encouragement to that pastor who wants to preach for 45 or 50, but really the folks in his congregation, they're, they're more like a 20 or 25 minute, I think I have to tell myself off and get to the point dummy.

So we all agree that every passage has a message, a specific message for the people mm-hmm. That are sitting in front of you. So you don't have to bore them with too many rabbit holes and different stuff. Now, each, uh, congregation, different context. Um, my, my, uh, congregation right now, it's really evangelistic efforts.

Mm. So we try to aim for that a little more than, okay, let's, let's, let's pour, let's pour into that a little bit. You're in a situation where it's more evangelistic, right? Yes. Rather than, rather than what? Well, I mean, we, we had planted again with. You know, 80 people who are coming from a church background.

They were healthy church members with their children. This is in your situation? Yeah, in Manfield. 80 people came from Wellsboro, went to Mansfield with you. How many people went from Mansfield, went from a church situation to an unchurched situation with you? Uh, I think we have five families, so roughly around a little less than 15 people.

Mm-hmm. Right around that. So, so it's like half the church Yeah. Is not regularly involved in the life of a church. So they're like you said, unchurched. And just to pull back the curtain a little bit, you are, the church that you're pastoring at is the only church in the entire township? Yeah. Yeah. It's not just that little bitty tiny town.

It's the entire township. Mm-hmm. And the folks there that are coming to Antrim, I talked with quite a few of them a couple nights ago, hadn't been going to any church at all. Yeah. They, they don't leave the town, so. They don't leave the town. Yeah. They, they go get the gro groceries. That's the only time they travel out outside the town.

So Yeah. There's a reason people live there. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Nice. All right. Any other advice that you would want to give to a pastor in a tiny town?

Somebody's gonna say something smart. Uh. How about leadership? How about leading? Leading your congregation, leading your members in a small town, when, rather than dealing with a membership of 200, a hundred or 60. You've got a, uh, a core team, um, of like, like you said, maybe a dozen or 15, not very many. Yeah.

So here, here's a tricky part. Uh, as we all came from a bigger church setting, we we're used to all the things a bigger church can give you. Mm. And at it's not the same context we find ourselves in now, right? So, although we want to do a hundred different ministry things, we really can't. So we need to just take our energy and put it into.

The means of grace. Mm-hmm. Preaching the word, the ordinances and just really concentrate and letting God work and building his church and you know, that's, yeah. I had a pastor recently share with us, I took our residents to a partner, church of ours. And he said, the what and the why doesn't change, but the how changes based off of your context.

I've even found that in Mansfield, uh, we have, uh, a smaller congregation and that means we have less men. And so we have the ability to gather our men a little more regularly in a little more concerted or, uh, not concerted, but yeah, a little more regularly, uh, than, than Wellsboro is based off of just the, the sheer amount of men, right?

That, that you have. Right. So. The what and the why are the same. You know, we're making disciples who represent Christ. We exist to glorify God, uh, and we're gonna do that through, yeah, the word preached. The word celebrated through the ordinances, but how those things are done right, uh, can look different, whether it's mission groups or whether it's a Sunday evening Bible study, you know?

So we're able to be flexible based off of our context. Yeah. The other thing I would say too is if you're pastoring a small congregation, prepare to do things you didn't want to do or you didn't expect to do. So two weeks ago I was out of a couple plumbers in a freezing cold, uh, trying to unfreeze our pipes.

So, so why in the world would somebody want to go and be a pastor in a tiny town? And I'm not talking about gospel, theological sorts of reasons. We've already covered that. Why would somebody want to go and pastor in Antrim or in Mansfield? I just seeing the life changes it brings in people is well worth it to me.

And, uh, getting to know people on that kind of level, it's just, it's just, it's just been great and so rewarding to me. That's, I think I've heard TJ say that Eric is ready to live and die in Antrim. Did you actually say that? I may have said that. I thought I only said that to my wife, but, uh. We've got the whole place bugged.

It sounds like trouble to me. What do I hear? That's our SOS. Josh, we need one. Mm-hmm. Yes. You good? No, I'm, yeah. I was gonna, I'm telling this is what you, you always do this part. Uh, well, the SOS guys. Uh, we would love the reach of rural pastors talk to go beyond just the three of us, and we need your help to do that.

So this is our SOS Uh, first and foremost, we would ask for you to subscribe if you haven't. That way you can stay up to date with new content as we release it. O offer a review, a fivestar review in particular, if you would be so kind that would aid the algorithm. And if you give us a bad review, instead of just giving us a bad review, just email us.

ruralpastorstalk@gmail.com and, uh, let's talk about it before we get that nasty little one star review. And then finally share. Uh, if this has been helpful to you, if you're encouraged by it or you'd like someone else to consider what it could look like to plant in a tiny town and you've been looking for some resources to help them with that, perhaps this will be that.

So just share it. So subscribe, offer review, and share. Wonderful. Now it's time for stuff. Rural pastors can use reviews. Eric, tell us about an amazing book that you love. All right. One of my top five books is Preaching and Preachers by the Great Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. Uh, this is a book that he actually gave a few talks to college students who were thinking about going into the ministry or had already, uh, accepted the call there.

And really, it just, it's great. He talks about expository preaching, what it is, what it's not. Yeah. But the biggest thing that helped me in my walk was when he talks about the call to ministry and the five, uh, things you need to be looking out for. And when I was trying to discern what call I had mm-hmm.

Whether that was preaching or being a pastor, that was really helpful to me. So I'd recommend it to anybody who's young and considering ministry, but also I think it's great help to anybody that may be doing this for a few years. That is preaching and preachers by the great Martin Lloyd Jones. And now a quote to turn your frown upside down by one of the friends of the podcast, Steven Whitmer.

Mm-hmm. Past guest. Past guest, yeah. From his book, A Big Gospel in Small Places, why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters. He says, it can be difficult to go to such humble places like small, rural communities, and it can be difficult to stay there. But if these billions of souls start to be reached with the gospel, we must go.

Amen. Thank you guys for joining us. Lord willing. We'll see you next time. Until then. God speed and raise your Ebenezer.