News travels fast in a small town.It went out over the police scanner that an
ambulance had been sent to the local funeral home.That’s not normally a place that EMT’s work
to save a life, but that day they were.The funeral director had suffered a heart attack in his chair on a
Sunday afternoon, and his life was in danger.He is a church member as well as a good friend, and I got the call while
I was in my office.I rushed down to the
hospital to be there and get an update, but upon sight of the family it was
evident I didn’t need an update.Roger
didn’t make it. I hugged his wife and grieved with his
employees, who were there to collect his body.I had the privilege to help them load the funeral director into a car
with name on the side.The gravity of
the moment was overwhelming.Roger had
grown up the son of a funeral director and had spent almost all of his life
around death.He himself had stood in
countless hospitals and homes around grieving families, not just to provide a
service but t…
I had a conversation with a pastor from out of
state at a conference. He told me he was from a small town in the Southwest.
“How small?” I asked, as I am always curious about small towns.“Oh very small” he assured me.“Only 15 thousand people or so.” Depending on your background, you might think
that is a small town too.Or maybe you
know some places to take that brother to show him what a small town really
is.That’s more people than live in the
whole county where I pastor.And my town
of 3500 is the big city compared the towns of 1,000, 600, or 300 around
us.Pastoring in rural communities has
it own set of challenges and difficulties as well as it’s set of pleasures and
privileges.Pastoring is a challenge no
matter the size of the community, but having the right set of tools can make
the job a little easier. It’s possible to drive a nail with a rock, but
it sure is easier with a hammer.It’s
possible to pastor a rural church without these tools, but your life will be
much easier if you kee…
Every month the men of our church gather for a men's breakfast. It's the typical thing that you would expect, lots of gravy, bacon, biscuits, another conversation thrown in. The conversation revolves around the things that you might expect to happen at a men's breakfast in a rural community. There's always talk of hunting, or fishing, or maybe working on cars or other manly type activities. Occasionally and gets in the politics, although we try to limit that. And the conversation is always followed up by a devotion, a reflection on scripture from one of the men and usually a time of prayer. It's something that I have come to look forward to as a pastor, both for the fellowship, the conversation, and the devotions. Last month the conversation turned to a new topic, the impact of technology and social media in society and how we as a church can help speak to some of those things. They were all types of opinions represented, some by people who don't have social …
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