On Monday evening I spoke at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. My first of three “speaking engagements” at the school was about social media and ministry. The audience was 25 seminary students and pastors. It was a fun group of people, mostly 20 and 30-something men who were furthering their education by taking classes one day a week while working full time ministry in some capacity.
After the class, I had dinner with one of the students. His name is Ben (name changed). He’s 31. A husband. Father of 4 children (all under the age of 6). And he’s a pastor of a small Baptist church in what he called “the poorest county in the United States.”
The day-to-day ministry that Ben engages is much different than the ministry of many modern pastors, at least the ones who “shine” in culture’s spotlight and get asked to speak at conferences. His biggest issues don’t include satellite campuses or multi-colored light shows or praise and worship services or second and third services… he told me, “I’d love to have any of those problems.”
And then he smiled. “But I’m here for a reason.”
On a weekly basis, Ben’s ministry worries include battles over racism, finding the time to visit members of his aging congregation in the hospital, and trying to encourage the high school students in his church to stay in school. And then there’s his sermon preparation: Sunday morning sermon. Sunday evening sermon. And also Wednesday evening sermon.
To some, his form of ministry is simple minded. To others, it’s boring and un-engaging. It’s definitely not sexy.
“It’s hard,” says Ben, “And it doesn’t help that I’m a people-pleaser. Plus, it’s just me. I don’t have any full-time help.”
“How do you stay healthy?” I asked.
He smiled. “I don’t really know if I do stay healthy.”
The people he serves are poor, set in their ways, older, passionate about God and truth, and not always the easiest people to be around.
But Ben and his family serve them to the best of their ability.
I’m inclined to think that most of the ministry happening in small towns across the US looks more like what Ben is doing in Mississippi than what Rick is doing in California or Ed in Texas or Perry in South Carolina. It’s a simple ministry. Out-of-the-spotlight. Hard. Sometimes mundane. Performed with little-to-no budget. Old school.
The next day, I had coffee with Ben’s professor. “Ben’s a good soul,” he told me. “He works for God in a difficult county, that’s for sure. But sometimes God asks us to go to the ugly places. Listen, ministry is hard and overwhelming anywhere. But how many of us would do hard, overwhelming ministry without the big building, a staff, in a poor segment of the United States?”
I just nodded at him.
Would you do ministry for God that isn’t sexy? I’d do short-term non-sexy ministry for God. I would definitely do that. But full time?
I don’t know if I could/would.
Just being honest.
I commend people like “Ben,” for they are the salt of the earth.
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nice article – great comments – but is the pastor’s name Wes or Ben?
love this question.
I ask myself this often when I take roadtrips and pass through small towns.
Its good to always be able to ask “would God asking me to do it be enough or do I need there to be motivations like pay and notoriety?” …I hope God asking me to do it is always enough.
Interesting post..
I would say that the ministry I am involved in is not sexy.. while many people out there think that Youth for Christ workers have the coolest jobs/most fun/sexiest jobs out there, I mean, we get to hang out with kids, skateboard, go cliff diving, things like this.. I, like Ben, live in a small county, with not much money.. most of my students are drug addicts, they come from really shitty broken homes, where the parents sell drugs, and the kids peddle the drugs for them.. I don’t have a building of any sort, when I do any kind of trip, I almost always have to find sponsors to pay for the kids to go, because the kids can’t pay for it..
would I trade this job? Not for the coolest, most sexiest ministry in the world.. these kids need help, they need Christ.. and, while I’ve been here for 4 years, pounding my head against the wall, and seeing VERY little fruit, I still feel as though I’m needed here.. there is something bigger that God has planned, I have no idea what it is, or when its going to happen, but, I want to be here when it does happen.
Well… in Canada… there really is precious little else outside of the major centers. And even then, we nothing that is truly nationally (or really even regionally) reaching.
The reality is that this IS ministry for much of Christendom. We had a guy from our church recently get in his car in Brantford Ontario and drive south… and didn’t stop until he hit the bottom. His goal was to see what “the church” really looked like
He pulled into cities and towns across the US, central and south America and looked for a church. He told them about his journey and most welcomed him in, had him share about his journey, fed him, found a place for him to sleep…
What he found was that there are many many many places in our world that contain churches and it’s all shockingly similar. The function is different… but the small church and the bigger churches are more the same than we think.
This is a great question. I teach Christian Leadership courses to ministry students in Houston. They serve ministries in and around a HUGE city. City size does not necessarily equal “sexy” ministry opportunities. There are little pockets here and there all over this metropolis.
I engage students often on this very topic. We go where God tells us. If we compare to others, we run the very real risk of failure as we try to ctrl-c, ctrl-v their ministry vision and context into ours. We have different people, different needs, and a different church culture. We must be unique – even if it is prude and unsexy.
Great post to ponder and think about even more.
Honestly, I have more respect for pastors like Ben who pour themselves out in the invisible counties than big-name pastors who run fancy, Disney-ified churches like the ones in my backyard here in SoCal.
Thank you for shining the spotlight on this, MPT. And warm hugs to Ben and his family.
Elizabeth Esther
some big churches can be non-sexy too. trust me.
Jesus’ ministry would be considered “sexy” or “unsexy”? Hmmmmm.
He did it all, in grueling situations. Sexy or unsexy, both bring with them issues.
i can’t tell you how true this is. god bless that guy. and every other nonsexy church loving pastor.
big tv evangelists make everything look so easy and beautiful, and its not. i wonder how many of these guys would go to these places and love on the unlovable and get their “hands dirty” so to speak if there wasn’t a camera on them. not many, i bet.
So good! Thank you for these encouraging and challenging words. And thank you for being honest…the Church needs more honest voices!
I like this post, and I thank Ben.
But I’m really interested in what Dave Carrol said up there about big and small churches being more alike than it seems. Perhaps more on that…?
This is probably my favorite post of yours to date…not that I don’t enjoy the funny stuff (I do!) but the truth of this just really hits home.
My church that I’m involved with sounds much like Ben’s. I don’t get paid, I volunteer, working with youth. There is a paid youth minister but he can’t do everything alone.
It’s funny…I have friends who attend “sexy” churches who say they are bummed out when they visit mine. Yet a lot of my fellow churchgoers are some of the most friendly and Christ-like people I have ever met.
Thanks again for the post. It’s interesting to see the contrast between the two types.
As one of those seminary students myself, I’d like to thank you for coming to the class and sharing with us. I know Ben and I know that his struggle is one that many of us in this part of the country deal with every day. I’m sure we’re not alone in that fact, but po’ Mississippi often makes it feel that way.
Excellent post. I’m glad I checked it out. I was even inspired enough by your talk to start my own blog. Even blamed you for it… Thanks for coming and shaking up the status quo.
I think that my friend’s observations where mostly about how everywhere you go… people are people. Christians (he found) are generous and welcoming.
He sat in Bible studies in big and small churches in English and Spanish and even tiny Peruvian monasteries (literally) and when they stopped and prayed… it was clear that everyone in the circle was a brother somehow.
He said after a while… the church just became the church.
I used to be a youth pastor in a “sexy” type of church for a while, and now I find myself in the small, unnoticed pockets…unpaid and unrecognized. Two of my heros are pastors in my town, making very little but showing a Christ-like love that has captured me. One has to have another job and still can’t make ends meet. These guys have struck a chord in my town and slowly, it is catching…and oh, they are some of the happiest, joy filled people I have ever met.
These guys need to speak at conferences.
I think our ministry at LifeChurch.tv is sexy to many on the outside. But to those of us on the inside, it’s work. A lot of it.
So maybe all “sexy” ministries are only sexy to those looking in from the outside and are just plain work on the inside?
My two cents. But maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about 🙂
Cindy: I’m sure it’s a ton of work, but it also gets noticed. Your pastor speaks at conferences and gets many accolades…thousands of pastors flocking to him for advice. There’s nothing wrong with that and it doesn’t devalue the work you put into it. But I think the “sexy” that MPT is referencing is the ministries that get the attention for their hard work; and these ministries are typically cool on the outside, normally generating a budget large enough to make it really sleek, which typically attracts a lot more people. It doesn’t mean it isn’t work or it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t a wonderful impact for many, many people.
I just think there is something to be said for the pastors who put the same kind of work and energy into their ministries…who will never get noticed, who will never get a book deal, who will never be invited to speak at a major conference to give other pastors advice, who may watch most of their congregation slip away despite great love and work.
MPT and all,
Thanks for sharing this post. Like someone else said, it’s my favorite so far, too. I have had the unique experience to see both sides of this issue first-hand. My dad has been the pastor in a small, rural, country church in the poorest county in the state of New York for 23 years. Same church. Same town. I went to college, got married and lived in big city America for eight years before moving back to small town America.
We went a few weeks ago to a big city for a big rally with a radio (“sexy”) preacher with all the singers, lights, cameras, etc., etc. As encouraging as it was to hear God’s Word in that venue with several thousand believers, I did think about my dad and his ministry as I sat next to him through the event. He will never be on tv, on the radio, on a webcast or a simulcast. Does that mean one is more valuable than the other? Does one get more heavenly rewards than the other? These questions and many more were running through my mind as I was praying for the “small” guys in that audience to not be discouraged by the “big” guys. I’ve seen the struggles firsthand for the past 23 years. It’s not easy. I’ve done short-term mission work (a year in Chad) that some might consider “sexy” just because it was another continent. The church is the same the world over…..same people, just different names and faces. 🙂 It’s hard. It’s just plain hard, hard, hard no matter where you are or what your role is in the body.
Like others who have posted, though, I do agree that God is doing a work in rural America through His men and women who are continuing to stick with the stuff….the TRUTH of God’s Word. I’m thankful that God has not forgotten those of us who live in small-town-USA.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post and the opportunity to share.
Thing is, if everyone in a congregation is participating in an ‘unsexy’ ministry, then the Church will appear ‘sexy’ because of the Spiritual Fruit it bears.
“From [Jesus] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as *each part does its work*.” (Eph 4:16)
Thanks for saying it. I’m a small church pastor just outside of Atlanta. Most of the books I’ve read and the conferences I go to seem to be selling “sexy ministry” when very few of the ministers I know are doing this kind of ministry.
As one of my mentors put it, “It’s like selling Buicks, not Ferraris.”
I can totally understand Ben’s thinking. We do fun things, but it is so small scale, and goes unnoticed by most. Thanks for the Ben’s who make the Jae’s and the Ike’s feel as if they are not alone.