Serving the small church - Uncool but rewarding!

The larger university and suburban churches and their church plants have little difficulty in gathering together an army of young graduate ‘apprentices’ looking for ministry experience. But smaller parish churches in the north of England, such as ours, find it much more difficult to recruit even one person.

We were unable back in 2003 to recruit anybody and I had to return the money charitable trusts had very generously given. By God’s grace we got a young man in 2004 who had seen our advert in St. Ebbe’s, Oxford. The Ebbe’s-based 9:38 network, which runs conferences for those considering full-time ministry and encourages apprenticeships in local churches, had kindly displayed it.

Attractive big churches

Inevitably, young graduates are going to be attracted to a thriving, happening church with a dynamic minister. Small churches cannot compete on the ‘cool’ stakes. But by God’s grace we can provide tremendous opportunities for a young person to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and gain experience in what are typical ministry situations in the Church of England. These churches are often elderly, with little background of Bible teaching and evangelism, and a keen Christian young person joining them is a huge encouragement. There are great opportunities to help kick-start children’s and youth work.

Small church dangers

There are spiritual dangers for a young person coming into a small church — they can be a big fish in a little sea and that can go to their heads. If the church has been previously non-evangelical, then they can be potentially recruited through flattery by the old guard and used to fire bullets against the evangelical minister. So the person does need to be reasonably mature. It is not helpful if the larger churches send us people they are doubtful about.

Clearly, one disloyal person can do a lot more damage in a small church. Of course, it is damaging if an apprentice becomes disloyal or arrogant in a larger church but it is easier to dilute their negative impact. It is important to stress that large church ministers face many challenges and burdens and complexities that we do not face in the smaller churches, so I do not wish to plead ‘victim status’ at their expense. But too many resources being concentrated in the larger churches is not helping the cause of the gospel overall in the United Kingdom.

Leave the comfort zone

Acts 8.1-4 describes the positive ‘diasphora’ that occurred when the Jerusalem believers were scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria and as a result the Word of God progressed. The great persecution following Stephen’s martyrdom was responsible for this positive diasphora, so arguably that is a requisite for doing what we would not naturally do, namely leave our comfort zones. If my exegesis is correct, that is very humbling.

As one privileged to be the minister of a small northern parish church (http://www.oughtibridgechurch.org.uk), I would be grateful for the prayers of EN readers in our attempts to recruit a person for 2009.

Julian Mann,
vicar of the Parish Church of Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire