Latest / Small Town Summits / Is There Hope for Our Dying Churches? (w/ Kyle Bueermann)

Transcript

Is There Hope for Our Dying Churches? (w/ Kyle Bueermann) · Small Town Summits

• Ben Whittinghill: The point of you seeking after the heart of God is not to grow your church. The point of seeking after the heart of God is that then you can lead your people to seek after the heart of God. Lead them to transform their relationships and be able to share the gospel and see men, women, and children come to faith in Christ Jesus that will change destinies for families and change entire communities. The point is not to get as many people in your church on Sunday morning as you can. The point is to see the gospel take in. Welcome to the Small Town Summit Podcast. I'm one of your co-hosts, Ben Whittinghill. Today I'm joined by Kyle Beerman, who serves as a rural specialist with the North American Mission Board's replant team. Kyle recently contributed a chapter to the book titled The God of Small Places, and his chapter concerns is there hope for our dying church? This is a really encouraging conversation for Churches or ministers who are in a place where they feel like they're in a place of decline or they don't know what to do, or maybe even you may feel like your church is dying. Is there hope? And what should we do? I hope this conversation is richly encouraging to you and that you can pass it along to someone who would be helped by it. God bless you as you listen. Kyle, welcome aboard, man, Small Town Summit Podcast. It's good to have you with us. How are you? Hey, thanks, Ben. Yeah, it's great to be with you today. And I really looking forward to talking about rural ministry and and ⁓ seeing new life come to rural churches and and diving into as as you mentioned ⁓ as we were talking before, ⁓ is it biblical for a church to die? That's gonna be a great conversation piece on this as well. Okay, well we're gonna get there. So Kyle just wrote and contributed a chapter to Glenn Damon and Jeff Clark's edited book, The God of Small Places. We've been talking to some different authors who have contributed, so thank you for your contribution, brother, of Is There Hope for our dying church? I think that that's gonna be greatly relevant and helpful to people listening in. But I'd love to start by getting to know you a little bit and Discovering your story, how you came to Christ and why small town ministry is important to you, what's your experience in it. So ⁓ tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, so ⁓ my name is Kyle Beerman. I serve as a rural specialist with the North American Mission Board, which is part of the ⁓ Southern Baptist Convention. So kind of the ⁓ primarily known as the the domestic church planting arm of Southern Baptists. But ⁓ we also work with church replanting and revitalization. That's kind of where my where my focus has been. primarily in rural areas. So I grew up in a little town called Tokyo, Texas, about two thousand people. My dad was a cotton farmer and lived there my whole life until I graduated from high school and went to college. Graduated from Wayland Baptist University, a small Baptist school out here in West Texas, where I met my wife and we got married there in the spring of ⁓ five. So so coming up on twenty two years and then bounced around as a youth and music minister for several years. before going and pastoring in New Mexico for almost nine years and between two churches there and then came on board full time with with the North American Mission Board in May of twenty one and moved back to West Texas and and that's where we kinda have our is our base of of operations for for our family. So my wife and Michelle and I have two kids, Noah, ⁓ who is eighteen and a senior in high school, and our daughter Hayley is a ⁓ sixteen and is a junior in high school. And so ⁓ Yeah, we've got pretty pretty busy life on top of ministry and yeah, so it's ⁓ it's a joy to get to serve Southern Baptists all over North America, ⁓ and to get to do it from from home here in West Texas. Yeah, that was gonna be my next question is you know, how how broad your vantage point is if you guys are doing that by region. Are you you're serving the whole North America for rural ministry? Yeah, it's rural period. Okay. Or so ⁓ there there's really two of us that that are comprise the the rural team. We have some some support staff that we share with the replant team, but ⁓ a guy named Andy Addis, who's a pastor in Hutchinson, Kansas, is the director of rural ministry and then I I work alongside him. Yeah, we cover rural period. So Southern Baptist rural work all over North America. Wow. And are you doing that full time now? Yes. Yeah, yeah, thankfully. That that is definitely a full time sounds full time. Yeah, you said he was a pastoring in Kansas I was like, whoa, are you doing this and pastoring? Yeah, he he pastors full time and then works for us part time and then I'm I'm full time and and I serve as a volunteer at our church here in Lubbock as the discipleship minister and and I'm currently to coaching my daughter's high school tennis team. So I I I have s several irons in the fire, ⁓ but yeah prime primarily my my full time job is spending a lot of time on on the phone and then video calls and then traveling all over North America. Yeah, no, it sounds like you have a pretty v broad vantage point. So ⁓ I'm gonna lead into our conversation around the book the same way that I've been I've been talking to these other guys and it sounds like Glenn and Jeff gave guys kind of an open like, Hey, what do you want to write about? I'm curious, how did you get connected with them? And then from your vantage point, so you see rural North America and and you were led to write about Is There Hope for Our Dying Church? So How did you get connected with these guys and how did you settle on the topic that you did? Yeah, so Jeff Clark works for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention as as kind of their rural guy. And so honestly, I don't even remember. Like we we connected through an event or something where we realized there's there's a guy doing kind of what we're doing on the the international side of things. So yeah, we got connected there. And then Glenn I I think my introduction to him was through his first book, ⁓ The Forgotten Church. ⁓ then then as I was reading that and got connected with Jeff, then found out he wa he and Glenn were kind of both part of this rural church institute out of Wheaton College in the Chicago area. And so yeah, that just started that relationship which led to ⁓ the opportunity to write this book alongside a whole lot of other rural folks ⁓ cross denominationally and ⁓ think it so this Getting this book kinda out into the wild has been a long process. It was it was over two years ago that we first like were approached about writing this book and and writing the chapters in it. And so memory serves, I they kinda had like a list of topics, kind of just very broad ideas like, Hey, here's like we wanna talk theological foundations, we wanna talk kind of myssiological foundations. And so, you know, within those, you know, what where's your heart? And so hope was is a big deal. for rural churches, right? For for pastors who walk in and look around on a Sunday morning and and just think, Man, like, can can God do anything here? You know, can can God work with these people that I have? Can can He do anything with these people? Can He do anything in this community? When so often from the fleshly side, like like it just seems like we're you know, rural pastors can be spinning their wheels, right? Like like kind of running on that treadmill, always busy. ⁓ and never really getting anywhere. And so that was really my that the the pastor that I had in mind, 'cause I've been that pastor before, right? Like walking in on a Sunday morning and going, Man, I I don't know that anything that I say is gonna make a difference here, right? And just wondering, is God really at work? Can he do something spectacular in this place? Yeah, man, ⁓ well, it's encouraging. I think that you know, that perspective comes from you having a pulse on that, from experiencing it yourself, but then also witnessing it Abroad and I was just listening to a message from a buddy, he was exhorting church planters, but I think it's a lot the same with revitalization or replanting work. He he got counsel from a planter saying, like, what's the number one piece of advice that you would give me as I head out to go plant this church? And he was like, Be on guard against every form of discouragement and like identify it and nip it in the bud because without faith it's impossible to please God. It's the whole like work that we're doing, the enemy's gonna try to come underneath and like cut out the legs from what God is doing. And if he can tempt you to a a hopelessness or a yeah, just get you mainly to fix your eyes on something that's discouraging, then that can lead to a lot of hopelessness down the road or or even wipe out your effectiveness. Yeah. Absolutely. I and I love that. Be on guard against every form of discouragement. Man, I I've I've never heard it put that way, but that is solid. advice knowing that that that's one of the key tools that the that the enemy will use for pastors, for church members, right? ⁓ I mean, you know, you can be as a pastor, like you can be excited and have a vision and and you know see what God wants to do. And I mean just a discouraged church member can can just be like a wet paper bag on that thing, right? Like just, you know, no, we're not gonna do that here. And so absolutely, you know, see, understand what God's heart is for your community and for your church and passionately pursue that and and help share that with others to to get them on board with what God wants to do too. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, amen to that. So it it seems like you have in mind not just general hopelessness, but specifically you've got or is there hope for our dying church? So what who did you have in mind? What kind of audience are you thinking to engage with as you're writing this. 'Cause I think sometimes people I hear dying church, they have something that comes to mind, you know? Like maybe they just picture a a church with like five octagenarians. But I I think it's probably broader than that. So what did you have in mind as you're writing this? Yeah, so I I mean, as we look at the church landscape across North America, depending on who you read, somewhere between eighty to ninety church ⁓ percent of churches ⁓ across North America are either plateaued or declining. And so that means that almost every church, right, needs some form of revitalization. But when when we talk about dying churches, I mean the the churches you mentioned, the example you gave is absolutely true. Like five elderly people, ⁓ that that absolutely fits the bill. But ⁓ you're right in that it's a lot more broad than that because you might have a church of fifty people, but who haven't really baptized anybody in the last five or six years is not really engaged with their community. Like you you have folks that show up on Sunday morning and they they gather, they sing, but it's it's more like a kind of a holy club than a church that's engaging its community, sharing the gospel with its community. I think that fits the bill as a dying church, certainly from a spiritual side. ⁓ and so, you know, some of the questions that we ask ⁓ from the Replant team on on one of our assessments is No, are you are you trying to engage your community ⁓ through events, through outreach? Like like do you are you at least trying something, right? You're like you're you're seeking to engage your community with the gospel. If the answer is no to that, then okay, you th why not? What what's what's the problem? ⁓ another one we we would ask is, has your church become bitter or resentful towards the community because they don't respond like they once did? Right? So, you know You might look and say, Man, ten years ago we did a block party. You know, we had bounce houses and hot dogs and and and we just had, you know, dozens of people in some cases, some churches would see hundreds come in and the last time we did it we had twenty. Or you know, for a vacation Bible school, like we can look back and say, you know, we used to put ads in the in the local pa paper and put flyers up around town and we would have sixty kids and last year when we did that we had twelve. And so the the community's not responding the way that they that they once did. They just don't the community just doesn't care that we're here. And and that can lead again to a bitterness and a resentment towards the community. And it's really hard to love folks when you're angry with them, right? For for not showing up. Now the flip side of that is ⁓ it's not the j it's not the community's job to care about your church. I mean lost people don't know they're supposed to care about the church, right? And so again that goes back to are you seeking to engage them, are you seeking to love them? Are you seeking to build relationships and share the gospel with your community rather than just you know, putting out a flyer, hey we have this event, we'd love y'all to show up. And so th there's there's more those were those are kind of two of the big ones when it comes to a to a dying church too. Are you trying to engage your community at all? And if not, then then I would say you're definitely on the side of that declining, maybe even dying church. Even if you still have decent numbers showing up on weekly worship services. I would commend your chapter not just 'cause I I think considering hope for a dying church, then envelops even like if there's hope for a dying church, certainly there's hope for a declining church. So I love that you focused where you did. But I would just encourage guys that there ⁓ you're commending a kind of hope that would apply even to a declining church. Yeah. Even some of these things like ⁓ you know maybe you've gotten more pragmatic along the way because you've tried some things and they've not worked and you've just kind of adopted a utilitarian approach to ministry where it's like, look, nothing works here. Evangelism doesn't work here. I know a lot of people in New England they kind of feel this way. It's like, look, it looks different here, Kyle, than it does in Texas, okay? Sure. And you don't know how hard the soil is here and you don't know and it's all of like you don't know all of these different things that to the natural eye are impossible. But nothing's too hard for the Lord, and that's still true. And so There's a lot to be gleaned even if there's not direct comparison between a rural ministry in Texas versus a rural ministry in New England, there are there is hope for declining churches and there's hope for rural ministers. And I love that at the outset of this book, the outside of your chapter outside of your chapter, excuse me, you're not running from hard things. You're not you're not like describing a dying church and then yeah, these ones need to get laid in the ground, but there's hope for you if this is the case. It's like you're describing really hard settings in ministry and saying these are real, but there is hope. Yeah. And so you have a section at the beginning of your chapter and you titled it, Is it is it even biblical for a church to die? ⁓ how how can we even think about that? So ⁓ how does a pastor know? You spoke to this a little bit I think you can know if it's declining. How do you know the difference between all right, we're kind of had a an ebb season versus like, ⁓ man, this is a if we continue this way without change, we ⁓ we have a dying church and is that even a biblical concept for a a church to die? Y yeah, so I I mean quite quite frankly, when we get a call and ⁓ the pastor says, Hey, ⁓ you know, w we cannot pay our bills. Right, we we can't you know, we we got the electricity bill and we don't have the money to pay for it. That's kind of a sign that your church is dying. Right. Now now there were other signs for sure, but but if you're looking for like a really practical sign, like major change is needed when when you can't pay your bills anymore, that that's a that's a big one. And unfortunately a lot of times churches won't ask for help until they hit that point. Right? So, like, you know, when either, you know, they folks didn't have their You're on the ground and you know, depending on your your congregational polity and what that what that looks like, either folks weren't paying attention or they just kinda buried their head in the sand. But but we get calls pretty pretty frequently of, Hey, we you know, they're not gonna be able to pay my salary this month. What's gonna what what what should I do? Before that though, again, there are there are patterns, right? So and again it goes back to I mean, so much so much on the spiritual side, right? Like are you are you seeking to make disciples? Have you have you do you have stories of how your people are sharing the gospel? Have you seen anyone come to faith in the last year? Have you have you baptized anybody? you know, if if your church closed its doors, would the community notice at all? Would it would it make an impact whatsoever if if if your church was no longer there? Or would would it just mean that the five, ten, twenty people that that gather on Sunday morning have to go find another church? Like would that be the biggest impact? in your community. And so, you know, if you look at those things and and you say, you know, man, our our our community like doesn't have a presence in the church. Or in the in the our church doesn't have a presence in the community. And and if we closed our doors nobody would even notice, like, then that's a dying church, right? That that that is a church where there there is not there is not spiritual fruit being developed. And if and if something's not producing fruit, it's dying. And and that that's a hard realization, right? Nobody like wants to look at their church and think, Man, this thing could die. I th I think we from a spiritual standpoint, we we we would like to say, well, God would not let this thing die, right? And yet if you go and you look at Revelation two and three in in the letters that Jesus writes to the churches, that there's a couple that he he he not only says that they're gonna die, he actually threatens to kill them because they're not operating as as a ⁓ Church as a New Testament church. They're operating as a social club, right? One of them, the very first one, the church in Ephesus, which has some good things going, right? I mean, Jesus says, I know your works. And I know that, so if you looked at that, at that church, you would probably say, Man, this church has some good things going. And yet, what does he say about it? You've lost your first love. And you've lost the one thing that really matters. And so if you don't recover that, He says, I'll remove my lampstand from its place. And so whatever it would continue to be, a social club, a a weekly religious gathering, it would not be a New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it had lost the only thing that really mattered, and that was its love for Christ Jesus. So so when you ask, is it biblical for a church to die? Yes. Right? We I mean we see that in in the New Testament. As you mentioned, we see we we know that all the churches that Paul planted, as far as we can tell, none of them exist. tha there are churches in that in those places. The the churches that he planted didn't that don't exist anymore, right? And so churches I I think it's safe to say churches can have a life cycle like anything else, right? But they don't have to die. There are there are reasons that churches die. Sometimes there are even necessary reasons for a church to die, right? So in a rural community if you have a spot where the community is drying up and there's no longer people there, Then it doesn't make sense to have a church where there are no people, right? There are churches that die because the community around it has has died. But what what we've seen across North America is we close eighty percent of our churches, at least in the Southern Baptist Convention, of the eight hundred or so churches that we close every year, eighty percent of those are in communities of more than fifty thousand people. So so we're we're not closing churches because the people aren't there. We're closing churches because churches are losing sight of their neighborhood and have forgotten the reason that their church was planted in the beginning. Man, I really appreciate two folk eats number one, those churches revelation so helpful to consider because if the Lord Jesus came to our churches, he would have things that he would commend, Lord willing. Yeah. And he would have ways that he would be calling us to repent. And I think it's really important for churches to hear, even through your diagnostic questions, because a church may not feel like it's dying Or would self identify that way and then hear some diagnostic questions and say, Okay, we at least have some diseases or we're at least sick in these ways. And you don't you don't have to stay sick, you know? And some of these so the Lord Jesus would look at these churches of Revelation and say, This is a terminal illness if you don't repent. Yeah. And I will remove your lamp stain, and if you were to come back, I know you said you visited New England, you should come back, we'll host you. We could take you around. There are Very many places where there are still physical gatherings with no lampstand. Yeah. And it's kind of like ⁓ an epidemic here. And then there are places that are being are being replanted or they've being revitalized and there's like this Hezekiah life from the dead kind of moment where there's repentance and there or there's new life being infused. But I also love learning from natural revelation and looking at these natural life cycles and saying, Okay Your your church could die from natural causes, you know. And it could have served its place, but Lord willing, it's not just dying without having reproduced itself and having a whole wake of life that have flowed from it, where you have multiple children and all these disciples and all these resources and things that you've left to the next generation to that you've multiplied out. Instead of Yeah, you got this terminal illness, you didn't have to, but you stopped believing in the power of God, you stopped sharing the gospel, you stopped walking in faith and by God's spirit and just kind of dug your heels in and didn't ask for help. And I've I fear for that up here, we're rolling out this coaching initiative and ⁓ we've got experienced pastors offering help for churches that feel stuck or they feel maybe they listen to this, they feel like they're declining. They can reach out to David Pinckney and this STS coaching initiative to get help. But it's hard to do. It's hard to ask for help. Maybe especially with that kind of either northeastern or midwestern like Well look, we'll give help. But it's very hard to ask for help. And also we don't really feel like we need it, but we don't trust that people will understand our dynamic. Right. And and so your diagnostic questions come in hopefully to say, Hey, you need to ask yourself some of these questions. And if you have these diseases, they're not they don't have to be terminal, but you might need help. You need read this chapter. You may need to have some action steps that source from it. Yeah. And and and that's a big deal, right? Don't don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to to say Just simply look, ⁓ you know, I'm facing some stuff right now that, you know, i I mean nothing we do is working. I'm kinda beating our head against a wall. You know, I I'm getting frustrated in the work, my people are frustrated with me. Like where do we go from here? You you don't have to do that alone. You know, through the the beauty of technology we we have the opportunity to do these kind of calls online and be encouraged. And if you if you're not in a spot where you can easily meet with another pastor or a mentor in person, we we there there are resources to be able to share those burdens so that you're not walking through it alone. But because again, I think one of the strategies of the enemy is if he can convince you that your church is experiencing struggles that no other church is experiencing and that, you know, no no other pastor would be making the mistakes that you've made in in leadership and that that's one of the key ways he's d he discourages us, right? You you're all alone in this. Nobody else would understand it. And that's absolutely a lie. A hundred percent a lie. And so, you know, I'm encouraged by the work y'all are doing in New England because I mean that that's where New New England has such a rich history of evangelicalism, right? And and and of the gospel spreading from New England around to the rest of the country. And and we d we cer certainly I think it's important for us as an entire nation not to lose that gospel influence and that gospel witness in the place where where really it it originated here in our nation. Yeah. We're praying for it, man. ⁓ so I love guys that ask questions and then go to the Bible for the answers. So I was really happy that you are one of those guys. So this this language of a is there hope for a dying church reminds you of God, can these dry bones live? And so you spend a lot of time in Ezekiel thirty seven. So I would love for you to share some of your findings and encouragement that you found from the book of Ezekiel for A church in a in a dry or declining season. Yeah. So so God takes Ezekiel up on this on this hillside overlooking this valley, right? And everywhere he looks there's dry bones and we're told that that was an army of Israel. And so as he looks out over this valley, everywhere there would have been a reminder of what once was, right? This one time this was a great army. And so imagine like you don't have just have bones, but you have shields and spears and helmets and armor. And in this completely lifeless spot, there's a there's the there are these painful reminders that that that wasn't always the case, right? And so w as as I was thinking about that, I thought, man, how how similar is that to so many of our church buildings, right? That that we walk through the hallways and and everywhere there's a reminder of what this place used to be. So, you know, if if you pastor at church or l or part of a church that's been around for any amount of time, ⁓ folks probably have stories of when the nursery was full of babies and when the children's classes were full, ⁓ and when the there was a full choir in the choir loft. And and a lot of churches act almost as a time capsule, right? I mean, like you walk in and and in some like there's still the same toys that that we would have that I would have played with in the mid eighties, right? When I was a when I was a kid. And the the chairs are still in the choir loft. And so for for folks who've been a part of that church for a long time, they walk through and everything is a reminder of what once was, right? And and so then God simply asks Ezekiel, right, can can these bones live? To which the very obvious answer is no. Like they're dead, they're dry, like they've been out there for a long time. No. But Ezekiel knows better than to tell the Lord no, right? So his response is simply, Lord, you know. I'm not gonna say no, but I mean, you you're you're the only one that can do it, right? And so then God gives Ezekiel this almost insane command, right? I want you to speak to the b I want you to preach to the bones. And so Ezekiel's out there, I mean, just imagine like he's standing on the hillside in the middle of nowhere and going like, Well, all right, you know, and and and God tells him to to speak to the dry bones and and so he begins to proclaim the the word of the Lord to the bones and and as he does Stuff starts happening. The bones come together, flesh comes on them, and suddenly where where there were only dry bones, now there's at least what looks like life. It looks like there's an army. But there's still something missing. And this is where I think it's it's really important. We can do a lot of things in church renewal, church revitalization to make it look like there's life. And in fact, this is what ⁓ again, what Jesus tells the church in Ephesus, right, in Revelation two. I know your works that he says your chapter two verse two, I know your works, your labor, your endurance, that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apol apostles and are not. You have found them to be liars. I know you have persevered and endured hardship for the sake of my name, and you've not grown weary. So so they have some good things going on, and again, if you looked at that church from the outside, you'd probably say, Man, this is a church that stands on truth, this is a church that that believes the Bible, this is a church that that loves its people. And yet they were missing something. And and the the valley of dry bones at this point would have looked like an army, but it was missing something. Because Ezekiel 37 says, But there was no breath in them. And then God commands Ezekiel, He says, Speak and tell the breath to enter them. And and the Spirit of God moves through the valley, and breath enters the bones. We can do a lot of things that That would look like activity, would look like a vibrant church that can be div completely devoid of the spirit of God. And the the thing that makes those bones live, that makes them come to life is the spirit of God. And the same thing is true for the local church. We don't want to just be going about activities, we don't just want to keep be be keeping ourselves busy. We want to be places where the Spirit of God is active. And and that only happens through a move of the Holy Spirit. And through us surrendering to to his leading. And so as we've as we traveled around and done a lot of events, ⁓ we we've had our our team has had the privilege to work with Richard Blackaby. His dad Henry wrote the experience in God material, ⁓ years and years ago. And one of the things that Richard has said at at several of our events is ⁓ he said ⁓ Jesus is under no obligation to resource your plans for his ministry. So so in other words, like we can come together and plan out what we want to do and And and make our calendar and and say, okay, here's here's our our events for the next twelve years or twelve months, here's what we're gonna do. Now Lord bless it. He's under no obligation whatsoever to do that. But he will spare no expense under heaven to resource his plans for his ministry. And so if we seek the leading of the Spirit, he will bless what he directs. So our job then is to get to a place where we're hearing from him and following. his direction, not just asking him to to put his blessing upon the things that we think will work. Right? So I'll never forget they wrote a book called Spiritual Leadership Together. I think Yeah. Yeah that's right. ⁓ and he and so he talks about this idea with this church that they they get this burden from the Lord. They're seeking God, fasting, praying about what they can do to reach their community and then God gives them an idea and then they're pouring they're rallying people to the idea and they're pouring prayer and resources into it and then by the grace and kindness of God it goes really well. Yeah. So then they annualize it. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is what churches do. It's like, hey, we're gonna rely on the Lord and then when the Lord does what only He can do, then we're gonna be like pragmatism breaks in and we're like, Yes, okay. So that we're now franchise it and we'll we'll try to replicate it, yeah. Without seeking God again. until I mean they would, but like at a surface level and not with the same desperation and prayer and dependence as they had in that first year. And let me say this to to wrap up kind of the Ezekiel thirty seven passage as well. what happened in that valley is something that only God could have done. Right? That was a that was a valley that was dead and lifeless and decaying. There was no life there. But the Spirit of the Lord brought New breath and new life where there was none. And he can do the same thing in dead, he can do the same thing in decline and in dying churches. It it is but but church revitalization, church renewal is always an act of the spirit. Right? So so pragmatically you can do some stuff to get people in the pews, but if you really want to see church renewal and and to I mean to use an old word revival, that that it only happens Through the the movement of the spirit resurrecting what was once dead. And he will do it. We see clearly in scripture, right? God loves bringing new life to dead and dying things. But it requires a supernatural dependence upon him. It doesn't mean that you're off the hook to just sit back and not do any work. You know, I'm just gonna sit in my office for forty hours a week and and trust that God's work. That's not how it works. He will use you to do that. But But that that kind of renewal and growth only happens through a movement of the spirit. Yeah. And I wanna ask you, I guess, two follow-up questions. One is because I think I don't want pastors to hear they could be in decline or could feel in a discouraged place. And actually their seasons just like entirely providential and from the Lord. They haven't they haven't been abandoning every they've been doing everything in a way that has been good and godly and according to the word. And it's just for whatever reason in God's wisdom He's ordained this dry season. I think he's probably doing something in them and in their people. So I'd love for you to speak to and encourage those guys in the season, but then also maybe there are guys listening in, they think, Man, I've lost sight of desperation, dependence. I've gotten tired of trusting God for a new work. And you might speak to those guys. So kind of two different audiences in my mind of what God might be doing in the midst of a season he's ordained, and then how you would encourage guys to go about that exhortation to the church at Ephesus in Revelation two. Yeah. Yeah. So so if you're in one of those dry seasons and and and you you you can recognize that, you know, this is not a this is not a pattern, right? It's not we're we're not we're not abandoning the first ⁓ the first love. It's just a season. It's it's one of those dark night seasons, right? Don't don't get frustrated. Don't again don't don't be discouraged. ⁓ understand that that the Lord is is at work to grow your faith, to grow your trust in him, to deepen some relationships, and find some somebody or a a group of folks that you can be just raw and honest with. You know, and so I mean if if the Lord feels distant, you know, and you're You're still asking and seeking and knocking and you're spending time in word and in prayer, and it's and you know, there's not like some hidden sin that that's keeping you from the Lord. Like if you're just in one of those seasons, don't be afraid to be vulnerable, right? We see in the Psalms, we see David going through those. ⁓ if you study church history, Spurgeon dealt with deep seasons of discouragement and depression. And and these are people them whom the Lord used in a ⁓ Amazingly big ways. And so understand that you're in good company if if that's who you are. So that that's what to do if it's a season, right? And again, I mean look, if if you are in a place where you're just dealing with with depression, you know, sometimes going, I mean, don't be afraid to go visit with a doctor. I I I don't think you have to be afraid ⁓ of meds. That could help with that. I think those are those are some things the Lord has given to us. ⁓ but but don't give up seeking after the Lord in those seasons as well. And then yeah, if you're if you're in a church where I mean you look around and you're like, yeah, this isn't a season. Like, like this has been a protracted experience of of decline. Understand, first of all, that there's hope. I mean, we we see that very clearly in Ezekiel 37. That that in this place where there was nothing but death. There was still hope. Do a do a deep study of of the book of Acts and how God moved in the first century among the first churches and how men, women, and children experienced new life and came to faith in Christ. get if you if you're not already doing so, gather some leaders and maybe it's just one or two others from your church and just begin to pray on a regular basis. Pray and and seek the Lord's face. begin to ask him what his plans are. We have some resources for that. we our our teams produced a great resource called Falling in Love with Jesus Again, which is a a spiritual renewal resource for your for your church. You can find that I I believe it's just falling in love with Jesus Again dot com, I think. if you Google that you'll you'll find it just a free resource to help walk your church through a season of spiritual renewal. There are others I mentioned experiencing God earlier. Th there are all kinds of really good resources out there to help you seek the face of the Lord again. and and trusting that as you come back to him, he's going to bless immensely. Now, don't assume l let me caution here, don't assume that, you know, you can say, Okay, well we're gonna seek the face of God for a month, right? So we're we're gonna we're gonna have a spiritual renewal season for a month and then we expect there'll be a hundred people that show up in our doors after that. That's not the way it works. Right? The point of you seeking after the heart of God is not to grow your church. The the point of seeking after the heart of God is that then you can lead your people to seek after the heart of God. Will lead them to transform their relationships and be able to share the gospel and see Men, women and children come to faith in Christ Jesus that will change destinies for families and change entire communities. The point is not to get as many people in your church on Sunday morning as you can. The the point is to see the gospel take root in your community. Amen. Well, man, I'm thankful for your ministry and your investment into the church and writing this chapter. Just so people know, The God of Small Places released this week, right? We were recording this February seventeenth. I think it just came out this week. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we d ⁓ as we're recording this, I just got the Amazon link last night that that it's out. So it is it is available from whip whip and stock and Amazon li like all good things, it's there. Yeah. Okay, perfect. So man, thank you for your time. I w I wonder if you have any kind of encouragement that you would give to rural ministers, churches where they feel like it's it's declining or it's dead. You've given us so much good counsel, but I want to give you kind of the final word. Yeah, let me just say this. Rural churches don't often get a whole lot of press in our in our world. ⁓ I know in our in our own in our own denomination, we we we talk a lot about the cities and look, eight eighty percent of the population of North America lives in urban and suburban areas, we know that. But but God is at work in rural places. God is still at work in churches that have been in their communities for a hundred, a hundred and fifty in in New England I would imagine there's some that have been there two hundred plus years. And while it's fun to talk about church plants and and that's exciting and and ⁓ we should be excited when we hear about God doing a big work in a church plant. w we need to be just as excited about what God's doing in churches that have been a part of their community for hundreds of years. Yeah. And again, those those may not always make the big press stories. but just know that All throughout North America, God is working powerfully in churches of twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy-five people. And and so the the key, and l let me kind of part with this. You can have a healthy church of any size. And healthy churches can make an impact in their community no matter the size. We we see all the time churches of twenty five or thirty people that are Deeply invested in their community. And because of where they're located, because of some rural communities, that that church may never grow beyond 30, 35 people. But there are places where the gospel is proclaimed, there are places where disciples are being made. There are places that are sharing the gospel with their community. And so the goal is not to grow a bigger church. The goal is to have a healthy church that is loving one another well, that is proclaiming the gospel to its community. And so be encouraged. Seek after that. Don't get discouraged by the empty pews, but understand that that God can take a church of any size and make a transformational impact in its community. Awesome. Well, man, praying the Lord blesses the reading of this chapter along with the reading of his word. He would use it for the God of hope to fill his people with joy and peace, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, they might abound with hope. And thanks for writing it. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation. It's been a great conversation. God 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 in 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.