I didn’t drink coffee in high school. With the high energy of youth and a low workload, I didn’t need it. Yet, as is the case for many, coffee became a staple of my daily routine with the increased responsibility of my college years. Lucky for me, I spent my college years in a city center context surrounded by small-batch roasteries and third-wave coffee shops. Only after leaving the city did I realize that the rest of the world didn’t make coffee the way urbanites did. The coffee outside the city seemed a little more bland and a little more boring.

Those living outside of urban centers might see them as fast-paced places, full of flavor and richly colored by culture. By contrast, our lives in smaller places may seem a little more bland and boring. Pastors and those ministering in small places hear of church planters moving to the fast-paced, diverse city centers to take advantage of the unique discipleship opportunities the city offers. While we celebrate their callings and rejoice in the fruit God is working through them, we might silently wonder whether our ministry in smaller and slower contexts has the same worth.

While the city offers unique discipleship opportunities, small places have unique discipleship opportunities of their own. Though every small place is different, and exceptions abound, here are three discipleship opportunities unique to ministry in small, slow, out-of-the-way places.

Patience in Permanence

As centers of industry and education, many move to the cities for work and study. These masses arrive without deep relational networks. While some stay and sink their roots into the city, building friendships and starting families, many move on to other places when they graduate, retire, or change jobs. Cities are transient by nature, and while this offers great evangelistic opportunities for those ministering in the city, it can prevent urban churches from being able to patiently shepherd people along the long, slow discipleship process by which we all grow.

In my small town, I find that though some move here for work and study, most people have roots that run deep in our area. They’re not here because something brought them, they live here because they’re from here. This permanence allows our churches to play the long game. We have the privilege of patiently shepherding people over a long period of time knowing that they’re unlikely to move along with their next job change. As we patiently build trust, walk with them through significant life events, and inhabit their world, we have the time to allow God to work through his ordinary means to slowly transform them from one degree of glory to another.

Culturally Alert and Prepared

Waves of new ideas and cultural movements toss and froth in the cities and educational centers of our day. These waves send ripples out into the rest of the culture, eventually making their way to our small places. While rural places have never been the bubbles of blissful ignorance some might imagine them to be, each step of technological advance carries these new thoughts and movements more quickly to our towns. This fact has drawn many to minister in cities, believing that by reaching the city they will reach the culture. Yet, because the ripples rarely move from small to big places, those serving in small places might be tempted to believe that their only recourse to the changing culture is to sit, wait, and pray for the best.

Yet being on the receiving end of the cultural ripples gives the alert pastor time to prepare himself. He has the chance to thoughtfully engage new ideas before they begin to manifest themselves in our small communities. He has the benefit of reading the reflections and responses of faithful brothers in urban centers who have already had to respond to these cultural changes and consider how these ideas will sit in the minds and hearts of his people. We may not nurture ideas of shaping the broader culture from our small places, but with prayerful alertness and discernment, we can shepherd our people to think well when the ripples come.

Church Discipline

The automobile changed the shape of the American church. All of a sudden, people who attended a church in their town had the opportunity to easily drive to other towns and find other churches that better suited their preferences. The introduction of choice, though not altogether wrong, has had several negative impacts on the overarching culture of the American church today.

One is in the area of church discipline. When done properly, church discipline is a process by which a church sees a brother or sister walking in sin and seeks to lovingly steer him back on course. However, it’s not fun to have sin confronted. With the freedom to simply drive to the next church in the next town, it has become increasingly difficult to walk with brothers and sisters through this loving yet uncomfortable process.

This is a problem everywhere, both in big and small places. Yet there are three ways where the small places have a unique ability to perform this difficult but necessary work of discipleship. First, most small places have smaller churches. While a church change may allow you to escape accountability in the bastion of anonymity for a time, you will soon be known again and your sin will soon be revealed. Second, most small places have a smaller number of churches. This means that one can only move from church to church for so long. Third, there is a smaller population in small places, particularly the population of Christians. With strong relationships between members of different churches, mutual friends on social media, and a smaller number of natural crossroads, people in small towns cannot simply disappear into the nameless masses. This allows us, as loving shepherds and friends, to continually pursue and care for straying sheep.

Pastor, ministry in the big places can seem fast-paced, colorful, and full of unique discipleship opportunities, but ministry in small places has unique discipleship opportunities of its own. See those opportunities and take advantage of them as you shepherd the flock for the good of the sheep and the glory of God.

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