Or, how Tim Keller wants to save your aggie soul.
We were delighted to see a recent post by Keller at his blog in which he recommended rural congregations to aspiring pastors. It helps us get over some of the angst we experienced when reading about church planting in New York City. In this post, “The Country Parson,†Keller writes:
Young pastors or seminarians often ask me for advice on what kind of early ministry experience to seek in order to best grow in skill and wisdom as a pastor. They often are surprised when I tell them to consider being a “country parson†— namely, the solo pastor of a small church, many or most of which are in non-urban settings. Let me quickly emphasize the word “consider.†I would never insist that everyone must follow this path. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about. It was great for me. . . .
Some will be surprised to hear me say this, since they know my emphasis on ministry in the city. Yes, I believe firmly that the evangelical church has neglected the city. It still is difficult to get Christians and Christian leaders to make the sacrifices necessary to live their lives out in cities. However, the disdain many people have for urban areas is no worse than the condescending attitudes many have toward small towns and small churches.
Young pastors should not turn up their noses at such places, where they may learn the full spectrum of ministry tasks and skills as they will not in a large church. Nor should they go to small communities looking at them merely as stepping stones in a career. Why not? Your early ministry experience will only prepare you for “bigger things,†if you don’t aspire for anything bigger than investment in the lives of the people around you. Wherever you serve, put your roots down, become a member of the community and do your ministry with all your heart and might. If God opens the door to go somewhere else, fine and good. But don’t go to such places looking at them only as training grounds for “real ministry.â€
Could Wendell Berry have said it any better? Well, with all due respect to Keller’s powers of communication, probably. So let me round out my endorsement with some of the edge that makes Berry such an important person to consult about rural communities, farmers, the economy, and the work of the church agrarian settings. In “God and Country,†he writes:
The denominational hierarchies, then, evidently, regard country places in exactly the same was as “the economy†does: as sources of economic power to be exploited for the advantage of “betterâ€places. The country people will be used to educate ministers for the benefit of city people (in wealthier churches) who, obviously, are thought more deserving of educated ministers. This, I am well aware, is mainly the fault fo the church organizations; it is not a charge that can be made to stick to any young minister in particular: not all ministers should be country ministers, just as not all people should be country people. And yet it is a fact that in the more than fifty years that I have known my own rural community, many student ministers have been “called†to serve in its churches, but not one has ever been “called†to stay. The message that country people get from their churches, then, is that the same message that they get from “the economyâ€: that, as country people, they do not matter much and do not deserve much consideration. And this inescapably imposes an economic valuation on spiritual things. According to the modern church, as one of my Christian friends said to me, “the soul of the plowboy ain’t worth as much as the soul of the delivery boy.†[from What Are People For, p. 97]
Old Life 
I’m not sure I’d recommend all young pastors to consider a rural or small church.
I suspect many young pastors entering the ministry who gain more benefit serving under
a senior pastor at a larger church. That mentoring experience can make a great differenct in a young pastor’s life. I realize that won’t work in all cases because some Senior pastors are extremely selfish and dictatorial in their job. I think their insecurities keep them from being a good mentor. Yet, as I look back on my life, had I gone into a situation where I was mentored, it could have saved me a lot of pain and mistakes.
I was not ready to pastor a church of any size on my own in those early years.
If a young guy is mature, and many are coming out of seminary much more prepared than I was, then I say, yes, let them cut their teeth on a small church.
Even better, how many older ministers who still have the fires burning, would be willing to take on a small church in a small community to keep the Gospel light shining?
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Thanks for the quote from Berry.
It encompasses the substance of what I tried to express in my comment on Keller’s blog post.
I still think that it’s problematic when the weight of emphasis in this matter seems to rest on the concept of a pastor’s personal development in contrast to a call to minister to God’s people and partner with them in the Gospel.
Even in the cities various pastoral situations are not considered with favour because they are perceived to have less prospect for personal development.
Gary Ware.
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Hooray for Keller’s post. The only thing I would add (and I am sure Keller would affirm), is that wherever one ends up pastoring, one should just love the sheep you have, and not worry about whether they are “strategic” to changing culture or how they are helping you develop as a pastor so you can move on and do something “more” important. I Corinthians 1 and 4 and all that, not to mention Ecclesiastes; that is, a proper (amil and two kingdom) eschatology applied to the pastorate. Just love folks and serve Christ and it will all be fine.
When I was graduating seminary, I was encouraged by many of my mentors to try to take some strategic urban or suburban church in order to have “maximum” impact, but I just didn’t want to due to the above passages and many others. And one of my profs gave me this very simple and freeing advice: “Even if urban ministry is the most strategic way to influence culture, it doesn’t mean *you* have to do it.” I know — obvious. But I needed to hear it to reinforce the freedom I had in Christ to not have to do that which others said was important. To squander gifts, what few may be, upon a few in obscurity, is the Gospel call, at least for me.
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Sort of sad that small churches either get the young guys who are ‘cutting their teeth’ or the old guys who still have some life left in them. What’s wrong with someone actually going young, staying through their “prime” and retiring before they begin to gnaw on the congregation?
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I cannot help but read Keller’s quote as a form of cultural elitism. While there is an identifiable admission by Keller that pastors should not view churches in a ruralist setting “merely as stepping stones,” there is, also, an almost tacit expression of something else: the acceptance of pastoral impermanence. Or, to put this another way, Keller is quick to encourage ministers to view ministry in progressive stages, from low-cultured, inexperienced ruralism to high-cultured, experienced urbanism. Why do I read his quote this way? Allow me to briefly sketch, what I believe is, the spirit of his post.
Firstly, Keller is asked what kind of “early” experience one should seek “in order to” best “grow” in skill and wisdom as a pastor. There is no question that Keller is probably often asked such questions (at least in the PCA!) but what is strange, however, is that Keller interprets this question on demographical and topographical grounds, specifically with regard to levels of cultural (and urban) development, not spiritual considerations, prayer, the reading of the Word of God, the necessity of church discipline, ecclesiastical fidelity, doctrinal nonpliability, or the like.
Of course, the question is poorly framed! It lends itself to almost résumé builder status, but permitting the quote to do more than it was intended, it would be fair to assume that the people asking may be as inexperienced and in need of advice as their question expresses. However, the point is not that people ask bad questions, but that pastors often give bad answers.
Secondly, Keller’s statement, “Let me quickly emphasize the word “consider.†I would never insist that everyone must follow this path. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about. It was great for me,†concerns me. Either he recognizes the inherent relativistic nature of his advice, or he provided evidence of the sort of cultural elitism, which I suspect he is guilty of. I know this may seem harsh! What I am not saying is that Keller does not care about rural congregations. What I am implying is that Keller may view urban development in almost utopian terms—as the modernist views medievalism, with suspicion and relief; or as the postmodernist views religious claims of absolute truth, as though we have found a better way. The term “suburban†can have unintended (or intended) effects. It may come to be associated with phrases like “less,†“lower,†or “below†urban. This is, I believe, a connotation that has not been lost on Keller. This is the way in which I understand Keller’s post. As far as his use of the word “consider,†it is at least worth considering (ignore the pun!) that Keller might not have a high—or equal—view of ruralites.
If it is true that Keller views clerical positions on such a progressive scale, it would be safe to say that he might also view numerically smaller, rural congregations as providing ministry experience as important not only in developmental terms but preparative for more specific, numerically larger, urban congregational ministerial endeavors. I believe this is exactly what one finds: “My own pathway of personal development began with nine years of being the pastor of a small church in a small town. This equipped me well for church planting in New York City, because, when you start a church, you must be a generalist, not the specialist that large churches create.†It would seem that Keller has provided a “pathway†of “general†learning in rural ministry that “equips†one for more “special†urban ministry. I understand that this may seem overly critical of Keller’s blog post. I believe, however, that his rhetoric and reputation warrant such a reading.
As a PCA member I am less worried about Keller’s possible cultural pretensions as I am with his interdenominational efforts, which subtly erodes the character of denominationally, Reformed worship and his social justice (or cultural renewal) focus that tears at the historic fabric of Reformed soteriological thought.
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