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How Does an Outsider Become an Insider? (w/ Ron Klassen) · Small Town Summits

• Ben Whittinghill: There were a lot of things that we actually grew to love about our rural community that caught us by surprise. We made some incredible relationships. Our kids had adopted grandparents who cared for them and ⁓ as well as any biological grandparents. So on and on I could go. While yes, we were giving up a lot of things, there were a lot of blessings that we received by being in our rural community, but nothing surpassed the blessings of seeing people come to Christ and Seeing changed lives. Welcome to the Small Town Summit Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Ben Whittinghill. Today I'm joined by Ron Clausen. Ron is the director emeritus of the Rural Home Missionary Association, and he has served in multiple pastorates. He grew up in urban Phoenix, and most of his ministry experience has been in extremely rural communities. And recently he contributed a chapter to the God of Small Places titled How Does an Outsider become an insider. And whether that's your story or you already are an insider in your community, I think that you'll glean a lot from this conversation about long-term faithfulness and love. So enjoy this conversation with Mont Blossom. Ron, thank you so much, brother, for joining me on the podcast. How are you today? ⁓ I'm doing great. It's good to be with you, Ben. You and I have been through quite a microphone journey to get here right now. So I'm just expecting for the Lord to speak and to move because, you know, we've been at this episode before we even got started for about forty five minutes. So now, without further ado, ⁓ we're gonna get rolling. So I would love for you to share with us a bit about yourself and ⁓ I'm looking forward to talking about your chapter that you contributed to ⁓ this book that is either soon to be released or just was released, The God of Small Places. Do you know the timing of that for people? Actually I heard just this morning it's available on Amazon. So yes, it was released late last week. Okay. So we're recording as of February sixteenth. So You can get this copy of The God of Small Places anywhere you find books, and you were kind enough to contribute a chapter, which I'm looking forward to talking through. But first things first, we'd love to get to know you and hear a bit of your story, your conversion, ministry, whatever you'd like to share. Well, I I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home and attended a church that had a clear gospel presentation. Which I responded to as ⁓ as a child. Later as an older teen, I reaffirmed my childhood decision, ⁓ making sure that it was my faith and and not my my parents' faith. During my child or during my formative years, I admired an uncle who was a pastor. He was very compassionate, he was kind, he was caring, and I just remember thinking often that I wished or I wanted someday to to be like him. When I was ⁓ a junior in high school, I discovered that something had been missing from my Christian experience. I visited a church where the pastor opened his Bible and he preached his way through a text. And I thought that's what oughta happened on Sunday morning. And ⁓ from that moment I I decided that I wanted to find out where that pastor went to school. I wanted to learn how to preach the Bible like he preached the Bible. It was kind of a simplistic approach, I think, to deciding where to go to seminary. But through that I ended up at Dallas Seminary and then found myself in pastoral ministry. Wonderful. And then along the way in ministry, so I this is these are genuine questions 'cause I actually don't know. Like where where the pastor is taking you if you served in one place for a long time or in multiple places. And then I know that you're the director emeritus for the RHMA. So I'm curious about that and your role with them. So share with us a little bit about your ministry. Yeah. During seminary we anticipated that we would end up in a multi staff church situation. And ⁓ kind of just learn the ropes through that process. But when we got to our last year in seminary, we found out that there were very few multi-staff options, but there were lots of solo pastor openings. And ⁓ our placement director said, Let's have a cup of coffee. I told him I'm not ready. He said, Well, if you're gonna wait until you're ready to be a pastor, you're you're just never gonna be a pastor. And and then he said, actually that solo pastor at smaller churches are great places to cut your teeth on ministry. He said they tend to be more relational, they tend to be more laid back, they tend to be more forgiving. And so with that, we found ourselves ⁓ candidating at a a rural church in the sand hills of of Nebraska. It was ⁓ really remote part of our country. There were twenty-one people in Brewster, which was the town, six hundred people in the entire county. There were no gr ⁓ gas stations anywhere close by. So ⁓ gas was delivered to tanks that sat on everybody's yards. Groceries were an hour away. So it was it was a very remote setting. And ⁓ that weekend as as we candidated, we we got to Be with a few people. We got to kind of take a look at the the countryside. But by Sunday, we were pretty sure that that was not a place that we wanted to call home. But Sunday morning was actually a game changer for us. ⁓ we, as we interacted with the congregation, we found ourselves falling in love with the people. And we had several in the congregation that just pleaded with us, asking us to come. ⁓ saying we want a pastor here who will preach and teach the Bible. And it turns out that the history of that church was very much like the history of my church growing up. And so that really struck a nerve with me. And so God did a work in our hearts, and that was where we began ministry. ⁓ a small church in in Brewster, Nebraska. And While we were there, we I guess we kind of went with sort of a a ⁓ Mayberry perspective, like, you know, rural places are bastions of values and good people. And and ⁓ and while there's maybe some truth to that, certainly in some rural communities, we looked up and down the road from where we were located there in Brewster. And we just saw a lot of spiritual need. We saw a lot of communities without Bible teaching churches. And ⁓ Roxy and I were we were, it was just the two of us back then. We didn't have any kids. And we would sit at the kitchen table by the hour just saying somebody ought to do something. We were just absolutely shocked, I guess, at the spiritual needs that we were seeing in in our part of the country. And you know. At some point, and I couldn't tell you exactly when, but we started looking at each other and saying, Well, maybe God wants us to be two of those somebodies. Maybe we should actually stay in rural ministry, not look at as a stepping stone to that multi-staff church, but actually just stay and and commit ourselves to to rural ministry. So that was the beginning of our rural journey. And we've been in rural ministry now for ⁓ about forty four years. ⁓ the Lord took us to a church in Oklahoma. It was a really a fantastic church. Our our first church, we had some real struggles because it was the farm crisis years of the eighties and ⁓ people were going bankrupt all around us, including two out of our three elders. It was a really, really challenging time for ministry, though our people did grow cro closer To each other and to the Lord. So it was also a time of God really working in our congregation. The Lord moved us to a church in Oklahoma, which was just a really healthy, vibrant church. And there I think we we caught a glimpse of how impactful a rural church can be in its community. We we absolutely loved pastoring that church. And to this day, I would say the hardest thing that we've done in ministry was to leave that church. But the Lord had been working on us and and giving us ⁓ a heart for rural America at large and not just one rural community. And we've been doing a bit of writing and speaking and and ⁓ talking to different people, putting some vision together. And ⁓ out of the clear view from from all of that, RHMA called and asked if we would consider serving as their executive director. It was not a call that we expected. We weren't seeking the call. Turned out that they had the board had called Dallas Seminary, asked them for a name, and Dallas Seminary gave them our name. And that's how we connected. And we had a ⁓ time together with the board here in Morton, Illinois, where our HMA is headquartered, and our hearts just kind of blended together. And the mission of R HMA was a good match for the vision that ⁓ the Lord we believe had given to us. And so ⁓ back in nineteen ninety we actually came to RHMA and sort began serving as the executive director. And it's been the privilege of a lifetime. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. The Lord's given us a wonderful team here to work with and he's graciously allowed us to have ministry that ⁓ has touched quite a few lives, quite a few churches, and ⁓ we're just very grateful. That's wonderful. How how long were you serving in that role from nineteen ninety until now you're in a different capacity now, correct? I went into kind of semi retirement two years ago. ⁓ I still have a small part time role that I fill with R HMA and and then ⁓ part of my time I'm on faculty at Dallas Seminary, so I do some teaching for them. And then I just have some margin in my schedule to do a bit of speaking and do some writing and and a few other things. So it's it's proven to be a good season of ministry actually to be sort of retired. I don't even know what to say. I'm not really retired, but I guess I sort of am. You have a little bit more control over your schedule while you're still giving it all to the Lord. So this is this is remarkable. Because I did read and hear you say that you're originally from this city area. Is it suburbs of Phoenix? Is that right? No, it was actually Phoenix proper. Okay. So City Slicker actually your first password, did you say the town had twenty six people in it? Twenty It had I I believe either twenty or twenty one people, and that was after we moved in. Okay. So, you know We laugh because ⁓ I'm sure you've seen this dynamic at R HMA gatherings, but there is kind of this kind of badge of honor among small town laborers of like who actually serves in a small town. And they'll hear like Steven and I both minister in towns of twelve thousand people. You're from Atlanta or you're from Phoenix, you go to a town of twelve thousand people, you're in a small town, but the people will tell you, Well, that's not a small town. But nobody can tell you that you were not in a small town. You officially win twenty people. So and then and then on top of that, going in in the midst of a farming crisis in a farming community, I just can't think of somebody better suited for how does an outsider become an insider and actually thinking through those things. You lived it for a long time. So that's the title of this chapter you contributed. And I'm always curious when asking about the different authors contributing different topics, is that a a title that and a topic that you selected? It was just a a topic that was near to your heart because of your experience. How did you land on that of the topics that you could have you could have written a lot about small town ministry? So then that's what you went with. Yeah, fortunately our editors, Jeff and and Glenn, ⁓ gave me some freedom to choose my topic. I I so I had quite a bit of say in the in the topic of of ⁓ you know how an outsider can become an insider. It's it was a topic that was close to my heart that I really wanted to write on and I'm glad I had the opportunity. Wonderful. Well I'm I'm looking forward to getting into it because I'm thinking about I I opened the chapter and I think the word that stands out to me the most at the beginning, like while you're kind of sharing this this hook of these different experiences that you've had, this is a repeated like There's different, different, different. And that's what you feel that coming in from the outside, that this place is different. We come from different experiences, different cultures. And ⁓ you you list some of the surprising differences. ⁓ I I describe it as kind of like a culture shock, right? This is like, okay, I'm not I I went from suburban south to rural north. So I was getting whiplash of the differences. And ⁓ so I I'm curious what were some of those most meaningful differences that you found and what might be the hardest to you. And I have in mind really maybe two or three different audiences. I think that some could be listening in and they could be intimidated by the differences and considering a a kind of a small town move or ministry. We've actually had guys listening in to the podcast considering whether or not God was sending them to a small town. And ⁓ I think from listening in they were thinking, okay, okay, maybe this is something that God's doing. So there's there's that audience. But I think there's also could be guys that are that are laboring in a new town or a new hard context and might just resonate with some of the things that you've been through. So what kind of differences were most surprising or hardest to navigate for you? Well, I think there's probably no better example of differences than the use of a car horn. Back in Phoenix. A car horn was almost always used because you're angry with somebody, you're upset, you're you're blaring your horn at them. In small communities where we've been, a car horn is almost always used as a friendly greeting. So it's it's like a hundred and eighty degrees difference. And ⁓ I've often wondered how many of our approaches to ministry might be a hundred and eighty degrees different as well between city and and rural. People in Nebraska dressed differently than us. While we were still in Dallas, we had heard that our prospective church was in ranching country, which made me think of cattle, which made me think of cowboys, which made me think of Westernware. And I decided that maybe we should take a trip to a Western store before we actually even go and candidate, thinking, well, at least maybe we could look like them, at least to to some degree. So ⁓ we got to the boot aisle in the Western store, and ⁓ I noticed that boots came with either rounded or pointed toes. And I looked at those pointed toe boots and I thought, those do not look comfortable. That's not the shape of my foot. And so I bought a pair of of rounded toe boots, and sure enough, I was right to some degree when we showed up. In Nebraska, especially that Sunday morning, I noted that there was not a men's dress shoe or casual shoe of any kind. Everybody wore boots, but I was the only one that wore boots with rounded toes. One of the ranchers took me aside and he said, You know, a good boot will kill a cockroach in a corner. So they dress differently than us. They talk differently in some ways. They almost had their own. Language. For instance, dinner was the noon meal, supper the evening meal. And interestingly, lunch was a between meals snack. So they might say, you want to come over for lunch, and it might be three o'clock in the afternoon. We learned there's a difference between pickups and trucks. ⁓ we learned that there's differences between among cattle. I thought ever they were all cows, but as I was driving down the road with a rancher. ⁓ just trying to make conversation, I I looked out in the field and I said, Well, those are sure some nice looking cows. And ⁓ he told me they weren't cows at all, that they were they were steers. So we had a language to learn pretty quickly. I tuned in to Ag Radio, which ⁓ helped me to kind of learn to understand their languages. And ⁓ speaking of ⁓ in our community, it was farmers and ranchers. So the work was vastly different from anything that I was accustomed to in my growing up years. Shortly after we were there, one of our one of the ranchers in the community, not in our church, invited me over to help work cattle with him. And I had no idea what what that meant. But I was eager to make friends. And so I gladly agreed to to come and found out that. Several ranchers will get together. They'll all work cattle together, helping each other out. And ⁓ so there I was and he gave me the job of ⁓ wrestling young calves into the chute where they could be branded and and ⁓ given shots and so forth. And it sounded easy, so I hopped into the pen. I went after my first calf, I grabbed him around the middle, tried to wrestle him toward the chute, and quickly realized that this was not going to work. So A cowboy showed me how to wrestle calves. And ⁓ you do it by putting one arm underneath the neck and the other hand, you grab the tail, and then it's actually pretty easy to wrestle a calf. But probably the hardest part for me was there are like six or eight cowboys leaning against the fence, ⁓ enjoying the show that I was providing for them. So there are some maybe humorous moments when we're trying to navigate our way through. cross-cultural ministry. I think the the most difficult actually difference was that they played different than what we were accustomed to. So their idea of recreation was rodeoing on someone's ranch, maybe on a Sunday afternoon, shooting clay pigeons, going hunting. I had never even shot a gun. So all of those things were completely foreign to me. So it genuinely was cross-cultural ministry. I think up to that point, I would have said you have to go across the ocean to get to a cross-cultural ministry. The people have to look different than you. They have to speak a completely different language. And so it was kind of a surprise, I guess, that I I felt like I was almost in a foreign land. Some time ago I met a pastor in North Dakota who had actually been a missionary in Iranjaya. And he said, you know, the cultural differences that I've had to navigate in North Dakota have been every bit as challenging as the cultural differences in Iriangia. ⁓ he said the the difference though is that I expected to have to navigate cultural differences in Iriang Jaya, and it came somewhat of a surprise when I had to do it in North Dakota. So, and sadly, I think sometimes we don't recognize that we're dealing with cultural differences and it can lead to some real conflict either in the community or or in our churches because we don't see it for what it is. Yeah, I remember ⁓ so small communities have just this very strong sense of place, right? They've got their the way they do things. It's a sense of pride if you're parents or your grandparents or how many generations have actually been from that place. That's how it is in Vermont, anyways. And ⁓ I remember people talking to me about that reality of cross-cultural missions and there being this missionary dynamic. Like it's going to take you eight months to a year before you even feel like you've gotten over the is this going to be okay? Am I actually going to settle in? And ⁓ almost like that homesickness, something shifts. But I'm curious how long you found for for things to begin to shift in the hearts and minds of the people that you shepherded. Because ⁓ and maybe some maybe some of the content from your book that we're about to get into could speak to some of this. But I think for people that do have a understanding that they're doing cross cultural work, they may not know if they're ever going to be considered an insider, you know? Is that is that a thing? And so I'm curious how long it took for the ⁓ the men of that church to begin to take you seriously or to begin to respect you or or receive you into them as as kind of one of them, ⁓ or at least to tolerate you as an outsider among them. So what was that process like for you to being received and respected as an outsider? Yeah, I would say it's on a spectrum and sometimes it's two steps forward, one step. Back, you may feel like, ⁓ I'm really making some progress here. I feel like I'm more one of them. They're accepting me. Maybe something happens where I'm just really encouraged. And then maybe something happens and you realize I guess I'm still an outsider. And I I really think to some degree, like we've been in in our present community here in Illinois for 35 years. We feel very much like insiders, probably ninety percent of the time, but I would say there's still that 10% where it's pretty clear that we're not fully insiders. Like when we retired, people expected that that we would be moving. They just assumed that, well, this is not your home, so you're gonna move. Well, at some point it became home for us, and we had no desire to move. We want to stay here for the rest of our lives if the Lord. permits. So it's a process, I would say, very quickly in some ways we were accepted. I would say within months, even in a lot of ways we were accepted and the people, you know, loved us well and and ⁓ treated us so well. And it went from that initial acceptance to making progress from there to some degree while also recognizing that we were not completely insiders and probably never would be I think for us there's almost like these benchmarks of progress in people's mind, even subconsciously, because I think people had come into our town and tried to start a church or they came in for a little bit and then they would leave. So it's almost like once you subconsciously, once you got past the point where people would normally eject and leave, then they kind of set in a little bit more. And then We bought a house instead of renting, and they kind of settled in a little bit more. There was a kind of this progression of sinking in for us. So you say in in your chapter that a high cultural IQ is necessary as you're seeking to have a a fruitful ministry and minister Christ in this new place. And you highlight that there's specifically three different cultures that need The attention of the rural minister. Can you help unpack this kind of cultural IQ concept and how to understand the culture of the new place where people are ministering? Yeah, I'd be happy to. ⁓ I think first of all, there's our personal culture. So when we pack up our belongings and move to a a new community, we're not just taking our stuff with us, but we're also taking ourselves. ⁓ we're taking how we think, how we function, how we relate to other people. And our personal culture was was ⁓ came from from where we've come. So it comes in part from where we've grown up. It comes from where we've lived. if we've lived in a number of different places, it comes from the size of our family and our community. Maybe our parents' education, their occupations, their social economic status. A lot of things play into our our personal culture. ⁓ so for instance, some of us maybe are more blunt, more direct in how we relate to people. And we would feel very free to express ourselves with with our car horns. Some of us get along more easily with certain segments. Of the population. So ⁓ though I've worked behind a desk for more than 40 years, I am very comfortable with blue-collar workers because I grew up in a blue-collar home. So there's that part of personal culture that's actually been with me for all of my life. Second is community culture. So now we find ourselves in a new town, and the chances of our personal culture. Aligning with our new community's culture is probably pretty rare. And so that means it's important that we get to know our community. ⁓ we need to ask a lot of questions. How did this community come about? Who were the early settlers here? ⁓ what kind of symbols does the community have? It may have a courthouse, it may have a factory smokestack. It It may have a historical marker. It may have a grain elevator. So all those things say something about the community culture. ⁓ what are the magnets of the community? How do people play in this community? What are the economic drivers here? So on and on it goes. There's lots that we need to learn about our community culture. And as we learn these things, then it contributes to our understanding, which then contributes to our assimilation into the community, helping us to become more of an insider. So like one of the things we might learn in a community are just its rhythms and its patterns. So for instance, Friday night football in the fall was a big thing in in both rural communities and even now where we serve here in in Illinois, ⁓ morning coffee gatherings. were were a big thing. So things like these are key connectors for ⁓ someone when they're moving into a community. And if as you learn about the history of a community, ⁓ you learn about the community itself. So for instance, maybe it's a community that has fought school consolidation for a lot of years. Well that tells you that these people don't necessarily think that big is is better. If you have a large segment of the population that works with their hands, then that may explain that they don't think that a person who works behind a desk is really doing work. It's not real work. If you have people who are kind of jacks of all trades and masters of none, then that means that they're probably not going to be perfectionistic in how they they do things. If you have a lot of small business owners, or farmers, they're used to making their own decisions, then that tells you that their method of decision making that's comfortable to them is is very grassroots. ⁓ they expect to be a part of all the decisions. So ⁓ that one really got me in church. I remember initially I found out wow, we have pretty frequent congregational meetings. And in our congregational meetings, they make decisions about virtually everything in the church. And that one really threw me being from a big church and and not seeing that kind of thing happen. So a lot of things you learn from your community and a lot of these things help you understand the culture, which then helped you minister, I think, more effectively. For instance, we were in an agricultural community. So ⁓ you had a lot of things happen that were out of their control. So weather market conditions, crop failures, things like that just out of their control. So that helped me understand why they were ambivalent toward long range planning. Well, from a city background, I would expect long range planning is something that is important for a church to do. But I was kind of met with ambivalence. They had unreliable income, which meant that they were pretty ambivalent about budgeting. So A lot of community culture helps you understand people and helps you understand some things that come into the the church. So there's personal culture, there's community culture, and then the third thing is church culture. And I think we have to be really careful about assuming that the church culture will automatically align with the community culture. I would argue that you can find rural churches in cities. And I think you can find city churches out in the country. And it's also interesting how subcultures sometimes find each other. So you may have a community, for instance, that is predominantly white-collar, but there might be a church in the town that is predominantly blue-collar with its workforce. They just kind of find each other. Or you may have a community maybe that's rather stoic in how they express themselves. But there might be a church in town that is very expressive when it comes to their worship. So you can't just assume that a church culture is going to line up with the community culture. And so it's important that we get to know our church just like it is to get to know our community. Ask a lot of questions, make a lot of observations, and just to get to know the culture. And are you saying, I mean, I think for one. You're saying you need to pay attention and listen and don't just assume that because this is the case over here, you automatically know the condition of your flocks because of what you've observed in the town. Are you also saying, too, is that that just an observation, or are you saying that those churches are potentially like tone deaf to their community? So I'm I'm I'm for one curious what a urban church in the rural setting would look like, but also are they trying to are are they missing something contextually, trying to do things the way that they do it where they came from and then they're not reaching their community because they're trying to have a an Atlanta what works in Atlanta in southern Vermont, or you're not saying that. You're just saying, No, no, no, the church could just this specific church could be different than this community, and that's okay, but you just need to know both. Yeah, I think ⁓ you definitely have to know both because the community in some way or another is in the church because the church people are in the community. So ⁓ there is some overlap, but there may be some unique characteristics of your church that you would say are not necessarily general characteristics that you would find in the community. So that might then prompt you to refine some of how you do leadership in the church based upon who's in your church rather than who's how they might the the characteristics that you might find in the community. I hope that that makes sense. I was trying to think of like if if we go back to the concept of long range planning, it's true that agricultural people plan. They make plans. They kind of know what's in their future or what they hope is in their future, but they hold those plans a lot more loosely. They're not necessarily as public with those plans. And they're very much in tune with the fact that those plans may not happen because it just kind of depends upon how the Lord scene is is going to work. So they just take a much more informal approach, maybe. To long-range planning than perhaps putting together a formal vision statement and rolling it out for your congregation and putting a timetable to it and all of that kind of thing. Well, both kinds of churches are doing long-range planning. And certainly the pastor can do some long-range planning in his own heart and mind for what he would like to see happen with the church, but just how that plan is put together in the church, how it's communicated and how it's rolled out for the people to participate in it. I think it it could be quite different in a in some rural contexts at least than you would than it would be in others. I think those cultural breakdowns are are insightful and helpful just for people thinking about how how people's place shapes them and how people are formed. Their whole life is is lived out in a context and you need to understand those factors that make people who they are and give them the values that they have and know how you can best reach them, how to best communicate with them. You talk in the book about building bridges from maybe what you're used to, your personal culture or maybe the cultural context that you come from and now you're coming as an outsider into a different context and you're trying to build bridges. To be able to to minister to people. So what have you found most helpful in building those bridges? What does that look like? Or what has it looked like for you? And then maybe where are some of the the roadblocks that you've seen along the way that have stopped that bridge building work? Yeah, I would say in my early days in rural ministry, I spent a lot of time in the scriptures just trying to figure out how to approach ministry ⁓ in our Context, how to be a good shepherd for these people who are so different from me. And from that came some, I think, important ways that we can bridge from our personal culture to the culture in the community and church. I think a real important bridge is just having a wholesome attitude about your community and church. The Apostle Paul tells us that. Attitude is a choice. So we should think about on things that are honorable, things that are lovely, things that are commendable, things that are are good about our community and our church. ⁓ we can choose to be negative, we can choose to be critical, or we can choose to think the best of our circumstances and and the people that are there. I was really struck ⁓ some Time ago, I was talking with a pastoral couple who moved from Pacific Northwest. It was beautiful mountain country, maybe like you have there in Vermont. It was ⁓ lush, green. And ⁓ they moved to the the Lord took them to the Arizona Desert, very isolated community, impoverished town. And ⁓ one of the things that They decided as they were moving into that community, they were very intentional about was they said, we're going to like this place, even if we don't. And I think that says a lot about a person's attitude. And I think our inclination, at least often at first, when we're first moving into a community, is to to not like it, to find fault, to see shortcomings, ⁓ to fixate on things that we find rather difficult. about our new surroundings. ⁓ so we really need to be intentional, I think, about having a just a wholesome attitude. I think ⁓ a second bridge is just loving our people, just an unconditional love for our our people. And sometimes people are easy to love and sometimes it can be challenging to love people, especially people who are very different from us. And The words of Christ here, I think, really ring true. He said that ⁓ you know, the best kind of love is when you're willing to lay down your life for your friends. And, you know, one way we can do that is to die for people, or another way we can do it is to to live for people. And ⁓ so we can choose to live for people in a rural context and demonstrate our love through our living among them. A third bridge builder would would be the willing our willingness to give up some things. When we were early on in ministry, First Corinthians chapters eight and nine powerfully impacted us. In those two chapters, Paul writes about just his willingness to give up a lot of things in order to take the gospel across Culturally. One example he would give was food in that chapter. He had to give up eating his kosher diet. Just imagine how challenging that must have been for a devout Jew. He went so far even to give up having a wife and family. He gave up a regular income. He he gave up a lot. And, you know, we may not be called to give up the same exact. Things. But ⁓ undoubtedly, when we move into cross-cultural ministry, we're going to be asked to give up some things. One of the things may be having extended family nearby. Maybe it's just having some of the amenities that we were accustomed to when we were growing up, restaurants close by, target store, whatever. So there's there's things we have to give up a ministry. I find it striking that Paul is quick to say. That there are also a lot of blessings that come when we're willing to give up things. So there's somewhat of a paradox here that somehow giving up, in our giving up, that we actually gain some things, that as we sacrifice, that we receive blessings in return. And ⁓ I think some of those blessings can be temporal. And certainly some of those blessings are eternal as we have see the blessing of. people coming to Christ and ⁓ see the blessing of changed lives. So there are a lot of things that we actually grew to love about our rural community that ⁓ caught us by surprise, perhaps in in some ways. We just made some incredible relationships. Our kids, though they didn't have biological grandparents close by, we that we had adopted grandparents who really cared for them in a As as well as any biological grandparents. We we were blessed by our people. ⁓ they used to fill our freezer with steaks. We had never eaten steaks like that before in our life. That was a rare thing. For them, it was just common food. So on and on I could go. There were, while yes, we were giving up a lot of things, there were a lot of blessings that we received by. Being in our rural community, but nothing surpassed the blessings of seeing people come to Christ and ⁓ also seeing changed lives. A third or fourth bridge, I think, is just our willingness to adapt. So one's new culture is probably not going to adapt to us. So we have to adapt to our culture. And ⁓ also in First Corinthians nine, Paul says to the Jew, I became like a Jew. He says to the non-Jew, I became like a non-Jew. And then he kind of summarizes that section by saying, I became all things to all people, so that by all means I might save some. So Paul learned to become like the people in his church. So it just makes sense that if we have hunters in our church, it's great to become a hunter. ⁓ if you have kind of laid back, more folksy kind of people in your church, then that maybe, maybe needs to be considered as we're planning worship services. Maybe they should be more spontaneous and maybe just a little less polished. So there are all sorts of ways that that we can become as we try to build bridges to an unfamiliar culture. And then the last bridge is simply to be teachable. I find it very striking in Luke chapter two that we find Christ sitting among teachers, listening and asking questions. And then Luke, kind of as a commentary, he says, Jesus increased in wisdom as as that was all going on. So there's a theological question for us: How can the all-knowing Son of God increase in knowledge? How can he enter? his new culture as a learner, I guess, you know, for us that should mean if our Lord did that, if he postured himself in that way, then should we do any less? So I think it's very good for us to posture ourselves as students in our new culture and to allow our community and our church people to be our teachers. And you know they love that. They love receiving your teaching from the pulpit. Maybe in other ways, but they also love being the pastor's teacher. And that's a great way to to bridge into a new culture. It's also beautiful. You know, I I really resonate with the third that you said coming from the outside, I think if you come even from a a Christian subculture, you might have a lot of one anothering that happens across churches, across communities, across friendships that you've made. I was in Atlanta for almost thirty years before coming here. So a lot of my Christian friends weren't always in my my the big church that you were a part of, you know? And it was really in coming here and being away from family and being away from some of those other supports that we were used to that we really saw the life and the reality of living together as a local church come alive for us because we needed the body more than we ever did before when the body was what we had. And ⁓ that was a real unexpected blessing. Living further away from a target can be an unexpected blessing too. Yeah, for sure. And just said your wife may not think it's a a blessing, but ⁓ yeah, that could be an unexpected blessing as well. I would say a huge blessing for us is when our church became like family. Just what you're describing. And yes, we missed our family. We had some pity parties when we couldn't be with our family, especially at some holidays or whatever. But in so many ways our church became like family to us, and that was a very significant blessing for us. Yeah, I think a lot of what you describe is there's no shortcuts to becoming an insider. It's a lot of time, a lot of love. Dying to yourself and like really meeting people where they're at. I'd love to give you the final word of encouragement. Maybe people who are laboring in the community, they still feel like outsiders or maybe people that are considering a potential ministry in a new place. How would you encourage them in closing? Yeah, I would just simply say that ⁓ there is cultural deliverance, that ⁓ you can make some real progress in your culture, ⁓ that you can come to enjoy your culture, ⁓ that you can come to the place where you feel at home in your culture, a place where you achieve cultural competence and ⁓ and feel very comfortable. So it it does take some time and And it doesn't happen overnight. But if you persevere, if you're patient, then you will work through some of those initial kinds of challenges and difficulties and get to a place where your family is healthy and happy in their new culture. And I think more important, all of this helps set the table for a thriving and fruitful ministry. So That's the goal. I think we should never forget that that's the goal. We need to remember that Paul says in First Corinthians 9 that I become all things to all people, so that by all means I might save some. So that's why we want to be culturally connected, culturally competent, so that we can hopefully be effective in our new culture and be used of the Lord, not just for. the present but for for all of eternity. Amazing. Well, thank you for your example in it. You said First Corinthians eight and nine, it made me think of Second Corinthians, same s section, same area of his Corinthian letters where he's talking about our Lord doing the exact same thing, leaving heaven, embracing our poverty, so that we through his poverty could become rich. And you've modeled that in multiple communities in leaving behind what you knew, what was comfortable, what you could have kept in order for that community to be pastored or that community to be reached with the gospel. So thank you for your example. Thank you for the labor of love in writing this chapter. Everyone listening in, do go out and get a copy of The God of Small Places. You'll enjoy it. Ron, grateful for you. Thanks for your time. Thanks for this opportunity. I've enjoyed it very much. Lord bless you. Thank you again for listening to the Small Town Summit Podcast. We hope that it was a blessing to you, and if you are interested in learning more about the Small Town Summit Ministry, check out our website, smalltownsummits.com. We also want to let you know about an exciting opportunity to join us, the Rural Home Missionary Association, and Desiring God, at a new England wide conference October 5th through the 6th in Newberry Port, Massachusetts. Our speakers, Dave Mathis and Scott Hubbard of Desiring God, We'll be helping small town pastors and ministry leaders remember that Christ is our treasure and goal in gospel ministry. For more information, visit STSfallconference.com. Again, that is STSfallconference.com. We hope to see you there.