July 27, 2017 Show with William F. Hill on “The Challenges of Pastoring & Belonging to a Small Church”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's.

Our host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the

planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 27th

day of July 2017.

I'm going to be discussing an issue today that I have never addressed,

at least not as a full -length program before, and the idea came to me

from my guest when I was at the Banner of Truth conference that you all heard me

announcing for quite some time a month or two ago and I

was at the Banner of Truth conference and there in the darkness on

a patio there were a group of Presbyterian pastors conversing and relaxing with their

pipes and some of them with cigars and I heard somebody yell out to me, hey why don't you do

a program on small churches?

And I thought that was a fascinating idea and that that voice came from the mouth of Pastor William F

Hill who is the pastor of the Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North

Carolina which is a congregation within the PCA, the Presbyterian

Church in America.

He is also the former host of the Confessing Our Hope podcast which is the

podcast of the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina,

and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor

William F Hill.

Yeah Chris, thank you.

It's a great pleasure to be on the program.

And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And hello, it's good to have you along.

And we have the Presbyterians outnumbering the Reformed Baptists again which always makes me uncomfortable.

You'll probably get even tomorrow though, the program's going to be about cigars, right?

And we could do a program like that later if you'd like.

I don't know why I would be getting even because more Presbyterians, I think, smoke cigars than Baptists.

But anyway, so today we have a fascinating discussion.

In fact, I don't know how many of those of you listening would think it's fascinating.

But I find it fascinating because I think it is a very prominent struggle.

It's a struggle filled with conflict and challenges that I hear about often

from men in the ministry and even members of churches.

But before we even get into the subject of the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a

small church, I'd like you to let our listeners know about the Landis Presbyterian

Church in Marion, North Carolina.

Sure, I'd be glad to.

Originally formed in the 1920s, eventually connected to the Southern Church,

the peace had declined and moved away from

central

issues.

Landis went through a great struggle and has

been in the PCA.

The history of work in Marion.

And grew.

Its membership reached in the upper 80s and 90s, nearing 100 at its peak,

about eight years, seven years.

A thumbnail sketch, it's located in a small town in Marion, North Carolina, as you've already mentioned.

7 ,000 people, give or take, in the town proper.

25 ,000 in the county of McDowell.

It's also located in a town with another PCA work downtown.

And the other one is thriving, struggling

to maintain itself.

A thumbnail sketch, and with that comes all the...

Yes, and I have a feeling that I may be speaking to the only pastor of a small PCA

church on the planet Earth.

Well, as far as the South especially, I can imagine a PCA church in New York

being small, or especially like in...

Other than Manhattan, of course, there's a well -known one there.

But there are many places in the inner city of the Northeast.

I would expect PCA churches might be small, but not in the South.

But we'll find out more about that later.

In fact, I have an email that I'm looking at from a mutual

friend of ours, Pastor Bill Shishko, formerly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of

Franklin Square, now a domestic missionary for Reformation Metro New York,

a ministry of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination.

And Pastor Bill Shishko says, in reference to you, good man, give him my

warm greetings.

He's a New Yorker, even though he's from upstate.

Well, Pastor Shishko has been always near and dear to my heart.

And I'd like to know, before I get into your own background more a bit, I'd like to have you

tell our listeners something about Confessing Our Hope, the podcast that you formerly

hosted with the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina.

And you could also let our listeners know something about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary itself.

Oh, sure, absolutely, I'd be glad to.

Confessing Our Hope

was a—and he had

to sleep, but he's

really good at doing

it.

But I was glad to do it, similar to what you do on your program,

to engage.

I try to—.

Christian Week,

sitting in the pews Monday through Friday, or sitting in the pews on Sundays and working,

was primarily to highlight and

promote time at the summit.

From that

podcast, again,

you can

write in any theological questions,

and he addresses them on air, live.

In my opinion, it's

one of

the

best—we

hear

that

all

the

time.

Yeah, I've had the honor to interview a number of the faculty members of Greenville Presbyterian

Theological Seminary on my program over the years, including Dr. Piper on several occasions.

And Dr. Piper was kind enough to write a very wonderful endorsement for this

program years ago.

And one of my favorite guests that I've had on a number of times is Ryan McGraw,

who I have really thoroughly enjoyed interviewing.

He's quite a brilliant young man, and one of those guests on a

radio program where there's no dead air.

I mean, he's asked a question, and all of a sudden, like a computer, he starts spitting out information.

Well, that's just—that's how he is in the classroom, too.

And

we

also

have

something here in common with you on Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio today.

I know that you happen to be a mutual friend of Deckard Stevens, who is not only

a friend of mine and has been on this program, but he's also the assistant pastor of the congregation where

my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, is a member.

That's right.

That's great.

He's, in my opinion, he's one of the best preachers out there.

Again, I'm biased

because

he was

also

while I was in

Summit

Middle.

I think the Reverend Buzz Taylor wants to say something.

Well, yeah, I was going to say, with your permission, I'll pass your greetings on.

Please do.

And tell him to call me because he never calls me.

All right, we'll do that.

Well, I know that he is quite a busy man ever since he came here to Carlisle,

and he is definitely filling a lot of shoes over there, I think, at the—.

He is, and not only that, he's not only that as of today.

I hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag.

Oh, praise God.

Was that Ryan McGraw's child?

No, that would be his son, David, and his wife.

Well, I can't remember, Nick Carley?

I think that's it.

But yeah, so a brand new baby, a grand—.

Well, I will congratulate him and tell him where I got that news.

No, I'll probably get yelled at by Sylvia for saying that on the radio.

Everybody in the world knows it now.

Well, I don't think that they would mind having something like that announced.

And I'm going to give our listeners our email address.

It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at

gmail .com.

And please give us your first name if you write in a question, your city and state

and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

If you have a personal and private question to ask about it, which this kind of a topic would definitely

lend itself to the possibility of individuals having personal and private

questions or questions on personal and private matters.

So you may remain anonymous—.

Easy for you to say.

—if that's the case.

But please, if it's not a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name,

your city and state, and your country of residence.

And I'd like to know a bit, before we even go into the topic, I'd like to know

a summary, as I usually do when I have a first -time guest.

I'd like to have a summary of your coming to Christ, about the providential circumstances in

your life that our Sovereign Lord used to draw you to Himself and save you, even

going back to the early childhood experiences you've had, what kind of

religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and all the other steps that the

Lord brought into your path that led you to Him.

At

the

Awana

Faith

Church, I was

raised a

Christian.

I knew,

and I

don't—.

Yeah, why not?

And what were the providential circumstances that arose in your life that made you

realize that you had received a call from God to be a pastor?

I distinctly remember this.

Seventeen years old, I was still probably in my rebellion, frankly, and probably not a believer.

I mean, I prayed a prayer when I was eight years old with my mom.

Seventeen years old, our youth group had the opportunity to do the youth,

and that meant every member of the youth in the worship circle,

like in the

offering play, nobody wanted to do.

So I worked on building

that night for me.

See the tape laying around here somewhere?

When I came out of the pulpit that

night, one of the deacons—.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm seventeen years old.

He says, you need to go into the ministry.

I said, yeah, well, I don't think so.

So I rejected that.

I began

to feel evangelical, free

church, mentored me, helped me.

Why do you want to be in the ministry?

He told me, he says,

if that's what you do, and he said, well, of course, that's—.

I do do that.

But is that your reason to be in the ministry?

And I said, well, that—yeah.

Look, if you don't love God's people, you're not really a servant.

And I really had to take a walk through the course of 20 years

working in the retail industry, managing numerous people and dealing with many different issues and

problems that they had in their lives, and they would come to me and ask me for help.

And I began

to—that began to—

it wasn't until 2011 when my church, Emanuel

Presbyterian Church, he came up to me one day

and said, I'd heard you mentioned it.

But apparently he found out somehow.

Well, we'll test

your—quite

behind

me and encouraging me, not only emotionally—.

And yeah, you've answered it very well.

And let me ask you why, immediately, when I had

been walking around on that patio there at Elizabethtown College during the Banner of Truth conference, during that

evening break where all the pastors were hanging out, and you immediately, when I was starting to

introduce myself to people and told folks about my radio program, you immediately said,

why don't you do an interview on small churches?

Why was that like an immediate response as soon as you found out who I was?

Yeah, well, first of all, I've known of your program through a mutual friend, and

so I knew probably more of you than you knew of me.

But anyway, I think primarily because I am a small church.

In my case, an aging elder who's a godly man, but just because he's aging, it's—.

And I feel that every—

with that, that's

the reason and

to answer you,

they are in this position.

That's right and good, but the

guys that

are seeking a

way to—.

And Reverend Buzz Taylor has some—.

Yeah, yeah, this is just reminding me, I don't have statistics.

Maybe you have better statistics than I do, but I'm just reminded through this conversation that

years ago when I was— well, we discussed my theological journey before we went on the air, that I

had been through charismatic circles and all, and one of the churches I went to was a rather large,

very progressive church.

In fact, my pastor then had actually worked with Paul

Cho to start the People's Church in South Korea,

and seeing all these church growth seminars and things that came through, one of the things that I remember being

said was that— and they gave a percentage, and I just don't remember if it was, you know, 80, 90, 95 or whatever, you know,

but they were talking about the percentage of people that are in church today are actually in churches of

less than 60.

And I, you know, you wouldn't think that when you see these mega churches, but that is— most

of us are in small churches.

Yeah, I think, you know, unless you live in a large metropolitan area, like the nearest one to me, it would be

Asheville.

The second nearest one to me would be Charlotte.

Unless you're actually within striking distance of these major metropolitan areas, you're living in a

small town, and if you're living in a small town, it's likely that you're either driving one town over or two towns

over.

You attend a PCA church, or any church for that matter, that is

very small because of the demographics, because of the region and the

area you live in.

Chris mentioned earlier about this.

I think the inverse would probably be true.

I think you'd be more likely to find stronger, larger PCA churches in the north than

you would in the south,

and primarily because by 7 to 8,

over

against

the

president,

they have them

out, but that's

just—.

We have to go to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S

-A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

You may remain anonymous if it's about a personal or private matter.

We already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you,

Pastor Hill, so we will get to as many of them as we can in the following 90 minutes.

And we are going to be hearing a word from our sponsors now, so don't go away.

God willing, we'll be right back with Pastor William F. Hill and our discussion

on the challenges of small churches.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns, and if you've just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go

is Pastor William F. Hill, who is the former host of the Confessing Our Hope

podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

And he is currently the pastor of Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina,

which is a member congregation of the PCA, which stands for the Presbyterian Church in America.

Today we are discussing the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please always give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA,

unless you are remaining anonymous due to a personal and private question.

We have a listener for the first time.

Well, I shouldn't say that I know that he's a listener for the first time, but he's a first -time questioner

from Centerville, Massachusetts.

His name is River.

And River says, I enjoyed immensely the Greenville Presbyterian

Theological Seminary podcast during the duration of Pastor William

F. Hill's career.

I think he was also in radio in the past, too.

Here's a question for him, my first question on the show.

To avoid burnout, you need a strong and active session and or help from servant

-hearted lay.

People.

In small churches where there may only be one or two elders and one or no

deacons, how do you cultivate the flock to equip lay people to step up and serve?

And how do you handle all the responsibilities of shepherding while being understaffed

in the meantime?

Excellent questions by River in Centerville, Massachusetts.

Yeah, River, great question.

Thank you for the kind words.

It speaks to your understaffed.

What do you do in that situation?

The sheep can't suffer regardless of the

lack

of—we

don't on this

first either train up a man that's already currently in the

congregation and bring him to a place.

Timothy, how a church shepherds

and deacons, the Lord and

the way he ordered the church.

With that being said, if you have a pastor, you

have the gaps

to be a deacon, and that

means being

responsible for all the finances of the church.

You should never be doing that.

But in my situation, it was a

friend of mine

who said, and I decided that for the good of the

church and the people, I would just hand—made it easier because I

could organize it in such a way that it didn't take a lot of my time.

But on me, every single week,

being and preaching and shepherding the people.

One part of it is the people, the lay people, I

think, those—to

remind them that they do have

those—to love one another, to

preach on this

subject,

meeting the

needs of others

to begin, and if

it doesn't—and then not

only preach, but the

reality is that—and

I have worked 70 hours a week since I've been here,

over a year, and I'm like,

well, but when I was working in retail, I did that every week,

so it didn't seem like 70 hours a week.

And the way to deal with people who

are not working on sermons and paying

the bill, TV and talk,

use them—me, I watch

baseball games, some of the

Yankee fans, me.

So I try to do that as a downtime, and take advantage of

myself on Mondays, and I try

to—and love the Church, and

I need it, and

people will—some tiny

issue—remind

me, Christopher.

Yeah, I think you did cover it.

And I thank River for being a first -time questioner today.

And River, you have won a free New American Standard Bible, since you are a first -time

questioner.

In fact, he says, here's my address for the NASB if my question

gets asked.

I've been waiting a long time to get one of those from the show.

Well, now you've finally sent in a question, and we appreciate it.

I'm going to write in my own question for myself, so I can get one, too.

I'm just kidding.

And keep listening, River, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and beyond.

In fact, I think River is only one of two people I've ever heard of with that name, one being the

actor River Phoenix.

I don't think I've ever met anybody or heard of anybody named River other than that listener.

We have a listener from all the way in Slovenia who

says, Dear Brother Chris, thanks for being creative and innovative in choice of programming

topics.

Well, actually, I've got to give the credit to my guest, William F. Hill, for that.

We are blessed by the rich range of issues you bring to us each day.

Just a few days ago, I was conversing with a minister friend who serves in a large megachurch

about the topic of church discipline.

I was quizzing him about how seeker -sensitive, actually, he says seeker -sensual churches

that are heavy focused on doing everything possible to get the largest number of

people through the door and into the seats could possibly practice anything

remotely resembling church discipline.

The overarching paradigm of doing everything possible for church growth militates against the

whole notion of holding the members accountable to even the slightest degrees of personal holiness.

Setting out specifically to become as large as possible inherently means avoiding anything

that will jeopardize keeping warm bodies in the building.

In this type of setting, attempting church discipline will potentially result in losing a member, something that is

anathema in church growth models.

Those in megachurches who would experience discipline can always go down the street to

join another megachurch, which is all too happy to boost their numbers by taking just about anyone into

membership.

Under these circumstances, it seems to me that only small churches who aren't focused on

growing larger for largeness sake can actually function as real churches because they

can practice church discipline without violating one of their core values.

Please discuss this idea and critique my assumptions and conclusions.

Thanks so much for blessing us today.

That was Joe in Slovenia.

He actually has a very similar point of view to a dear friend of mine, a very close

friend of mine who is now in heaven.

I don't know if you ever met or heard of Dr. Robert J. Cameron, Pastor

Hill.

I haven't, no I'm sorry.

Robert J. Cameron was one of the very few pastors

of the African American community in the PCA and then he later

joined the OPC where he was a pastor until he went home to the Lord.

It was at that time Mount Carmel Church in Somerset, New Jersey and I don't think that

the congregation exists anymore or if it is, is it?

But anyway, Dr. Cameron was a dear friend and he used to tell me that he didn't believe that a church could be,

should ever become so large that it was incapable of properly shepherding the flock and he

believed that those churches should give birth to baby churches and they should

automatically, when they reach a certain size, plant another church.

But what is your thought, what are your thoughts on what Joe from Slovenia had to say about.

This?

Well I agree with your friend.

In fact I'm probably going to say Dr. Piper multiple times throughout this program because he's not only been a

professor of mine but a brother and a mentor and one of the things I remember him saying in a class, I don't remember which

one, I probably get for not knowing which class, and

when you get to 200 members you should probably seriously start thinking about planting another church.

And I hold that view personally.

It would be my preference for the reasons and

care.

My only point in agreement with your friend is

that it's not always

easy in a small church either.

It has been my model throughout my year in a class.

I, you know, I understand, I think I understand what he is saying.

We practice church discipline as outlined by Matthew 8 in Matthew 8.

I guess that's temptation for a smaller church.

It's greater for us.

They already don't have enough people.

That

would

mean

of

our

98 now.

And the Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say.

You also, of course, I've pastored small churches so I definitely need to chime in here,

but it isn't just that you lose two members.

You could cut a church in half if it's a small church because everybody's related and

I have found that they're not always united behind the pastor either.

And, you know, I had a situation of church discipline where the prevailing attitude was who are you

to judge them, you know?

Yeah, no, you make a great, you make an excellent point.

And because of the interconnectedness of a small church, it's almost like a family.

And so you, so Johnny, the

youngest gets disciplined by mommy and daddy and Susie and Sally think mommy and

daddy were, you know, kind of went over the top.

So not for at least a season.

No, I think you make an excellent point.

And that is it like that.

A large church couldn't also experience that.

I mean, down with the

elders, people start talking, it could be cancerous and it could affect 40, 50, 60 people down the road.

So we have to go to a break right now.

If you want to continue your thought when we return, you can, and that would go for both you and Reverend

Buzz Taylor.

But we're going to take a break right now.

If anybody else would like to join us and get online to have your question asked and answered, our email address is

chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And before I return to our guest, Pastor William F. Hill, and our

discussion on small churches and the challenges that come from pastoring or belonging

to small churches, I have some special announcements to make from some of our sponsors.

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And now we are returning to our discussion on the challenges of pastoring and belonging to

a small church.

Our guest is William F. Hill, former co -host or former host, I should say, of

Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

And he currently pastors the Landis Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina, which is a

congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America, more commonly known as the PCA.

And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And I wanted to make sure, Reverend Buzz, that you and Pastor Hill had completed what

you were saying before we had to go to a break.

Well, I wanna start by just, if I can quote Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, because

this is bringing back, thank you for bringing up such painful memories.

And while you're at it, why don't you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?

There, now they got that out of the way.

But I have found, you can comment either yay or nay on this, but in small

churches, many times there's a different mindset that exists there than

they don't see in some of the other churches.

There may be some reasons why they're small because of some of their expectations.

I remember hearing people saying things like, oh, we're a nice little family.

I really don't see why we need to grow.

Or, you know, they put an emphasis on, you know, the most important thing to the pastor is how many

visits does he do a year and that kind of thing.

Yeah, I haven't had the applause

since we're on radio.

And I haven't had the pleasure of those comments,

experience that.

But I think the danger, there can be an ethos,

pervasive circle the wagons,

they've

closed up, may not

answer who are

you and what are you doing here?

Now, with that said, there's danger on the other side,

it's life, it's reality.

And what happens?

They get overwhelming

them with love.

And even a chloroform -soaked rag across the mouth.

I'd like to be a visitor and

then

give

them,

feel their way through and

the

member

needs

to let

them

do,

make our lives.

Yeah, I can remember, I don't believe that I was born again yet.

But when I was going through a period of searching and the Lord was drawing me and I

was visiting different churches and one church where I started to visit was

this little tiny Pentecostal church on Long Island, a

member of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee congregation.

And I can remember that church was small and I can remember, even as an unbeliever, having

the really palpable impression that the pastor was desperate for

people to remain there.

And I can remember when I would like leave and walk out the door after the service was over, he'd be calling out to me,

please come back!

We hope you return!

Oh no!

Don't stay away too long!

You know, that's a living example of what I'm talking about and the pastor's doing it.

So, oh boy, yeah.

But, and also, I want to say one more thing in a negative fashion, but I don't want people to accidentally

tune in late and think that they're listening to Andy Stanley on my program that we're bashing small churches.

Oh no, not at all.

Who have made those ridiculous comments that people were sinning and being selfish in regard to their

children by being in school.

Yeah, no, I think those people they genuinely desire people to come.

So, you know, this is a teaching opportunity for a pastor.

They leave with a

good...

And one other thing, before I move on to some positive things, I think we should be talking about as well, and we have mentioned

a couple of positive things, but I have found in my own personal

experience, not that I have been a member of a church like this, but I know people who were

intimately involved in a circumstance in a church like this, where you can

have a church that is small by design, maybe unconsciously by

design, but it is the fact that there is a heretical

or dangerous teaching that this congregation has, and they are

very suspicious of newcomers, and they drive them out if they have a different point of view.

The one example that I'm thinking of immediately is there was a church on Long Island

that I became very familiar with because the pastor was...

Who was the pastor of that church when I first became acquainted with the

church became a friend, and he was at that time theologically sound,

but then this man drifted gradually into extreme hyper

-preterism, and the pastor

retired, and he asked a young pastor that he knew because the

young man was actually saved in that congregation before the congregation became hyper -preterist,

and for our listeners that is a view that Jesus Christ

finally, for all time, returned in judgment to the earth on

the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, and there will be no future

physical, bodily, visible return of Christ, and there will

be no future resurrection of the dead, and that's just a couple of the major heresies of this group.

But when the pastor who retired called upon a young man to

take over the pastorate there, even though he knew that that young man did not believe

in the tenets of hyper -preterism, I guess he had reached a point of desperation and he couldn't find anybody that

was a cookie cutter of himself, but then when this young man took over the pastorate,

and he tripled the size of the congregation, I believe, but none of those

two -thirds of the congregation were hyper -preterist, and they eventually fired the

pastor and drove all of those people out because they did not agree with the hyper -preterist tenet.

And I know that that can be a problem that exists when you

encounter a small church, but then I do, I want you to comment on that, but I do want to move on to some positive things.

Yeah, personally, I haven't really experienced that.

I'm sure

that the open is right, and

you've got to avoid, we don't want

to be sectarian,

and I had a repentance of my own attitudes against my Baptist brothers in town and other issues.

They're preaching the gospel, and people are coming to Christ in great

nuance.

I mean, we did first be in heaven together, and with that said, you

know, we want to be careful when we have different ideas.

We want to listen, we want to be patient.

They may not be the greatest ideas or the greatest views, and they need to be dealt with.

There's too many elders to do that,

but you still want to deal with that.

Or three in the middle of the congregation.

Unfortunately, the membership can create that ethos, and the pastor, the whole loving and kind and gentle and doing all the right

things, just gets outnumbered by the people.

I mean, in a Presbyterian church, that is not likely to happen.

This can't

be done, but

it's a

return bodily.

I'm a ponderous.

Yes, so am I.

Yeah, so I think the judgment occurs.

I understand that.

Well, I actually did not know that they taught or teach the bodily return at 80 -70, but I

do agree that he returned in judgment in 80 -70, but that's why I emphasized

once and for all.

Yeah, right.

And the future coming of Christ in our future.

Right.

And going back to something that I believe it was Joe in Slovenia was saying,

when it comes to a large megachurch not wanting to discipline anybody because they don't want to lose them, I think

it's probably from what I have heard from people who have belonged to megachurches more

that it's just impossible to oversee them, especially since many of them do not have enough

elders to do the overseeing compared to the number of people that exist there.

And you can easily hide in a megachurch or a very large church

as opposed to being in a small church.

You can't really hide if you're living a scandalous life or if your sins are

known to the outside world or to those inside

the walls of the church.

And people like to hide in that mass of humanity.

And I've met a number of people who are members of very, very large churches and I've asked, oh, so how is

Pastor so -and -so?

What kind of a man of God is he?

Well, I don't really know because I've never met him.

I think that that's really where you've reached a point where it's going to be.

Well, to me, that's just tragic.

Speaking, John, just from the...

I do think there can be the

case.

It's training the elders to do the office,

but you are not my master.

Well, with that said, if they're being trained properly in their office and understand the expectations,

most of the large churches,

a wonderful

way

of

doing

hiding.

I might never know it, even if I visit them 15 times in their home,

hiding from things.

The challenge for the...

maybe to...

And one, before I go to the break, perhaps you could ponder on what I'm about to say, is

that there are many unsung heroes out there

who are pastors and members of tiny, tiny congregations.

And providentially, those tiny congregations are tiny because of the fact

that they have stood firm on truth in the 21st century, where more and more churches

are caving in to leftist, repulsively wicked

ideas and ideologies and becoming more and more resembling, if not

becoming apostate churches.

And you have these tiny churches, depending upon...

It might have something to do with the geography where that little church is, but they may be so surrounded

by extreme leftism that God has, so far,

preserved that tiny group as a remnant of true believers.

And we'll have you respond to that when we return from our final break.

So don't go away.

We'll be right back at willing with more of Pastor William F. Hill and the challenges of pastoring

and belonging to a small church.

So don't go away.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the Pastor's Study every Saturday

from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio,

www .wlie540am .com.

We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in

with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study because everyone needs

a pastor.

Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnsen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes in the next 26 minutes or so

will be William F. Hill, former host of the Confessing Our Hope

podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and current pastor of Landis

Presbyterian Church in Marion, North Carolina.

We are discussing the challenges of pastoring and belonging to a small church.

And by the way, I don't know if you saw this, Pastor Hill, but I forwarded you a question from a listener

in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania that was kind of lengthy, so I wanted to have it in front of you.

Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania wrote a fairly lengthy question, so I emailed it to you or forwarded it to you.

But before we go to Jenny's question, if you could respond to what I said in our way to

applaud those faithful men, that faithful remnant of pastors and

believers who are living perhaps in areas of the United States and even other parts of the world

where the gospel has been so barren or

the areas have been so barren of the gospel that they're small because the people in the

area have been in mass conditioned to hate the scriptures, to hate

the gospel of the scriptures, and to hate the Christ of the scriptures.

If

you raise

an

interstice

word

as the

central thing,

the possibility is real

that

they

remain

things.

And of course, the key words you used is if it's for that reason, because obviously there could be some folks

who are lazy and they just don't evangelize.

They don't ever invite anybody to church.

They might be either hyper -Calvinistic or hyper -Calvinistic in practice, even if they're Arminian.

You know, there are Arminians who act like hyper -Calvinists.

You're right.

I mean, you could have a church in a situation where, you

know,

they're

not

willing

to do those things and we remain small, then you

could hear of

them.

And a very, very quick joke, six men on a lifeboat after a ship capsized

and the lifeboat eventually makes its way to the shores of an island.

There were two Jews, two Catholics, and two Baptists on the lifeboat.

When they got to the safety of the shores of the island, the two Jews built the synagogue, the two Catholics built

a cathedral, and the two Baptists built First Baptist Church and Second Baptist Church.

I'm glad you said Baptist.

That was the voice of experience there with Chris.

And we go to Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania's question.

I attended a megachurch for a number of years.

It had 22 ,000 members and was in the top five megachurches here in the

United States.

And though I enjoyed the vastness of worshiping with so many other saints and seeing the success of

all the many different missions of this church, in the end, I realized that it may not be

biblical since there was no sense of community.

After all, every pastor was known by everyone, but in no way can the pastors know each and every one

of the 22 ,000 members.

What is your opinion on this matter?

Should we be in small churches and drawing more closer relationships among the saints?

Excellent question.

We kind of covered it to a degree, but perhaps you could reiterate.

Yeah, well, let me just first

commit it to the ordinary means of gracing the

people, albeit their sin.

And I would say that

determines whether it's biblical or not.

I just think practically, and this is the issue you raised, is what kind of sense of

community can you have?

Now, here again, it's possible because you can have

pockets of people that have a great deal of community with one another, while they may not know a lot of other people in the

church.

They feel community to one another and connectivity to one another in the church.

So while gentlemen may never, ever

be intimately in that kind of community,

I think community can still...

This is, again, just my opinion.

I think when a church does reach a certain size, it ought to think about planning

or maybe needs a church.

And that, I think, takes some thinking through.

I don't know that we have to be in small churches

and giving

them

resources

that he hasn't given to the small church.

He's the king ahead of the church and he puts people where he puts them.

And I'm thankful for my

avenues,

but be that as it may, I should

be in a large church providing their integrity to

the weak at it.

I don't know if I answered your question.

I think I did.

Yeah, I think you did.

And, of course, I hear this directly from the lips of many of my Southern

Baptist friends in the pastoral ministry that you could have a church with 22 ,000

members on the membership roll, but in actuality only 1 ,000 are coming to worship, sir.

And Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment.

I'm in agreement with you on if a church gets very large, I think it would be better

for the people and for the church to divide up into separate churches.

But I will also say in their defense that a lot of your larger churches are

built on small cell structures where I saw in one particular case

where there were hundreds of pastors in a church, and they worked

harder than a lot of pastors of smaller churches in reaching to the

people in their care.

So we can't say just because a church is large that people's needs aren't being met and that they

don't have that social structure that you can get in a smaller church.

Well, thank you, Buzz.

Yeah, there's a false dichotomy that we want to avoid.

You know, we don't want to leave this program and leave the listeners thinking, OK, large church is bad.

It's a

very real reality that most of the members, there's a unique struggle

from my own experience for

the right reasons.

It's up to the Lord

to do that.

And I have to remind myself of that all the time because I sometimes start thinking.

It's up to me.

To get out there and evangelize the community.

And if I do, it's not up to me.

It's up to me to be faithful.

The Lord builds smaller churches and

they reach a point

because they just

don't know the law and they're not

great visitors

or men at all.

Amen.

And also thank God for recording devices and sermon audio where eventually those sermons that were

in front of a live audience of four can reach countless thousands.

Lord willing.

Yeah, and I want to make sure I try to fit in as many of our listeners as possible here.

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who says, first of all, I'd just like to thank

Bill Hill for the great encouragement he gave many of us many years ago in the reformed

rooms in Paltalk.

So glad the Lord is clearly using you.

May he continue to bless you and make you a great blessing to others.

And his question is, Acts chapter two, verse 42, and they continued steadfastly

in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers.

Would you say these four things, teaching, fellowship, Lord, supper, prayer, are the major things that every small

church should be practicing?

I would say those.

Yeah, I mean.

Small or large, you know, I think the kingdom of God would be taken by

God's people.

Amen.

And we have just small churches.

Yes.

Amen.

And we have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

How, if at all, does traditionalism create challenges in a small congregation?

By this, I mean the attitude of that's just how we've always done things.

Well, I came out of 30 years in the business world,

and

that

phrase,

you know,

the

reason is.

And we have Daniel in San Jose, California.

Hello, brother.

One question I have for Brother William Hill is, would you consider one challenge of being a pastor of a

small church to be sin amongst members?

For example, in a small church, most people know each other.

So when someone within the church gossips or commits another form of sin, everyone

seems to know about it.

Not only do people know about it, but multiple people could be affected because of that

sin.

If so, what would be a good solution to this all -too -often problem?

Again, I don't think we can.

Well, for everybody knowing about it, it might be more unique, unless it's so public.

It runs to the surface pretty quickly in a small church.

How do you deal with that?

I think, you know, you deal with it biblically.

Thinking through that question, if that were to happen

it's through the ordinary means of grace.

And

let the,

I think, even in a larger church, while it may not have the...

And by the way, you can look up on the Iron Sherpins Iron radio archive if you go to ironsherpinsironradio .com.

And if you type in the search engine in the archive, where it says podcast or older broadcast,

type in the search engine Grimaldi, G -R -I -M as in Michael, A -L -D as in

David, I, Grimaldi, you will see among several interviews I did with my former

pastor, my most recent pastor before moving to Pennsylvania, Mark Grimaldi, he wrote a

book called Gossip the Church Killer.

And it's an excellent little book.

It's brief enough where churches can order it and put it in their track racks.

And it's also large enough where it thoroughly examines the issue.

So keep that in mind.

And I hope that some of you or many of you order that book.

Now, of course, there are people, there are churches, there are pastors, and there are

congregations who rightfully are longing for church growth because they can't

afford to adequately pay the pastor.

They can't afford to adequately keep up the building, the maintenance.

There's many things that they want to do.

But isn't first and foremost, the goal to be to draw lost sinners to Christ

as far as the reason why you're longing for church growth?

And secondly, should there not be many pastors and congregations

who are just, who should be just content with the size that they are, as long as they're not

foregoing their obligations to evangelize those around them, and leave it to

the Lord to grow the church?

I mean, we're supposed to be planting the seeds and watering, and it is the Lord that gives the increase.

Shouldn't this desperation that many churches have to grow for the sake of growth, isn't that a dangerous

thing?

Because then that also leads very often to compromise and all kinds of

gimmickry and things that really dilute or damage the gospel message.

Well,

dangerous,

but yes, I

mean,

with whatever

circumstances,

that, you know, it's, but, you know, men, the pastor, they got to pay

their bills.

Yeah, and I know a number, I know a number of pastors who were forced to make that decision.

Yep, well, it's not, it's never an easy decision.

Many of you know,

I live in a

large

church here, my wife,

but I love the church.

Well, I want to make sure that I have all the contact information necessary.

First of all, the church, until Monday, where my guest is pastoring, that website

is landispca .org,

landispca .org.

And we have the podcast of the Greenville Seminary.

That website is confessinghope .com, confessinghope .com.

The Greenville.

I'm sorry, confessingourhope .com shows you I need glasses.

Confessingourhope .com, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary's website is gpts

.edu, GP for Greenville Presbyterian, TS for theologicalseminary .edu.

Do you have any more contact information, perhaps even the new church where you are called to be the shepherd?

Now?

Yes.

Yeah, it's Fellowship Presbyterian Church.

It's in Newport, Tennessee.

And the website's not up yet, but that's

being developed.

In fact, I've been working on that search in

Newport, Tennessee.

All right, great.

Well, I want to thank you so much, William, if you could hold on the line, because I'd like to schedule another interview with you.

And I want to thank you for being our guest.

I want to thank the Reverend Buzz Taylor for being our co -host today.

And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who submitted questions.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.