Yesterday we began looking at the realities of calling a pastor to serve a smaller church. Our focus was on calling bivocational pastors. Today we will look at some other options.
Methodist churches have had pastors serving more than one congregation for many years. One pastor serves three churches in the area in which I live. I once led a conference for a Methodist district and preached in one of their churches on Sunday morning. That church was one of four that pastor served.
As a Baptist I have found many in my tribe do not want to share a pastor with another church. I was once asked if I would consider serving another church that was much smaller than the small church I was already serving. After speaking to our leadership I agreed if the other church was agreeable. They weren't. They wanted their own pastor. This happened years ago, and they've been without a pastor more often than they've had one. There is no reason a pastor cannot serve more than one small church. I predict we will see more of this in the future or we will see more churches closing their doors.
Another option is to allow your small church to be a satellite of a larger, nearby church. The pastor of that church would serve your church as well. Sermons would either be live via technology or be on video to be played a week later. I know many want a live person presenting the sermon, but these folks also have no problem watching a movie or a TV program. There's really no difference. The pastor would provide leadership to the church as well as preach. One big advantage to the smaller church is that they would probably have an experienced pastor serving them for an extended period of time rather than someone lacking experience who would stay a year or two before moving on.
A third option is one that many churches will not consider: calling a woman pastor. My denomination, which supports women in ministry, has many churches that will not consider a woman candidate. Other denominations will exclude one of their churches that would call a woman as pastor. It's hard to justify that from Scripture (Please don't send me your proof texts. I know them all.). I also struggle to understand this mindset when so many conservative denominations welcome women as pastors in their churches. Can so many denominations be wrong about this? To exclude women pastors is to exclude a growing percentage of the people who might be candidates for the position.
A fourth option is to select someone from your congregation to serve as pastor. I've seen this done a few times, and it worked out well. Such a person is committed to the church and is known and trusted by the members. There are training programs available to help such a person acquire basic pastoral skills and theology. One big advantage is that the person is a known commodity and is already trusted by the congregation.
A fifth option is to restructure your church into small groups with a pastor/small group leader for each group. This might entail selling your building and meeting in homes. As one church planter told me once, a church of 30 people can do the same things in homes as it can in a building. You might decide to keep your building and come together each week for fellowship and worship. The small group leaders might take turns speaking or you could use video courses to study together as a church body. There are a number of possibilities associated with this option.
Smaller churches need to rethink what they can expect from future pastors and what these persons will look like. As I wrote yesterday, it's not 1950 any more. What worked then will not work now no matter how much you might want it to. If you are flexible in your search for new pastoral leadership, you will find the person God has for your church. If not, you are going to struggle to find leadership in the future.
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