Episode 11: Ministry in Your Hometown

The Rural Church Podcast. Two point up. Just a couple of pastors discussing life, ministry, theology, and the gospel from a local church perspective. Eddie, what's it time for? The Rural Church Podcast.

The Rural Church Podcast, episode 11. We're turning up to 11, Eddie. How are you today? I'm doing good, man. How are you doing? I'm doing good, brother. I'm Allen Nelson, the pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church.

With me is Eddie Ragsdale, pastor of First Baptist Church of Marshall. And this podcast will come out a little bit later, but we're still speaking just a few days after the infamous Goat Fest.

Goat Fest! Goat Fest! I've been telling everybody that I've seen this week that I've been to this called the Arkansas Goat Fest. I know you guys told me how many people there were going to be in Perryville, but I couldn't believe how many people there were.

I mean, I was standing there where people were coming into right in front of the highway, and the highway was just bumper to.

Bumper for hours. Yeah. How many people do you think were there? Well, I've seen estimates. I've.

Seen your dad posted something on Facebook with an estimate of like, was it like 20 ,000? No. Maybe it was 10 ,000. I don't know. It was a lot of people. My estimate was 5 ,000. I think it was.

More than that. Well, just being there, man, there's a lot of people I saw repeat. But we went there, we passed out gospel checks, we preached the gospel. Eddie, I think, was that your first time officially kind of open air preaching?

Yes. What do you think? Yeah, I think.

It was great. I think that obviously there are probably settings that are even more conducive. The thing about that setting is it wasn't at all adversarial. You know, you weren't, I mean, it wasn't like we were, it was just a place where there were a lot of people, and I think that was a good place for to get started, to get sharing the gospel.

I do think that there are probably opportunities. I just, whenever I think about open air preaching, especially where we're at, you know, in Bible Belt, Arkansas, I always think about the colleges. I always think about those places where supposedly people are there for, you know, for arguments to be made and for that kind of learning process to be going on.

I don't know that that's happening in our higher institutions of higher education these days,.

But that's what they're supposed to be. Yeah, I think that there, I think, you know, you say that it wasn't adversarial, but there was some pushback, you know. Especially on Gunner. Yeah, yeah, that's funny, but not, there wasn't, like you say, yeah, this was like an entry-level place.

I mean, almost anywhere you open air preach, there'll be some sort of pushback, but this is about the least amount of resistance that you could have, and it was a bit of, been a great place for anyone to try to get started.

In fact, there were two brothers, it was their first time open air preaching, you and also Jacob, you know, and it was only Gunner's second time, and so that was, all of that was encouraging, and I would say that almost everybody there, because we kind of, we kind of set up on some crossroads, and so people were passing a lot, and almost everybody there either heard the gospel or received a gospel track, you know, and someone might say, well, was it effective?

Well, Christ was honored, and I will say this, there was a handful of great conversations that we had that I wonder what the Lord might do, and you know, there were other people that were like, thank you so much for doing this, and I wonder maybe if something, you know, us doing evangelism like that, I always wonder maybe some of these people take that back to their church, and maybe it doesn't mean that they open air preach, but maybe it encourages them and pushes them toward more bold evangelism.

And you know, and even just walking around the festival,.

You know, had some good conversations. I talked to a couple of guys that were there, and something like a festival like that is a great time, because you can just walk up to somebody and be like, so what is this?

I walked up to these guys, they were over by the, you know, they had that trailer set up as a stage. We were doing some stuff, and I walked over there, and there were two guys, and you could kind of tell that they were, I guess, there to work or to help or to something, and so I walked up, I was just like, so what is this?

No, we don't know either, but we just started a conversation and got to talk to them a little bit about where they're, where they were at, you know, with when it comes to faith and share the gospel, and you get to have conversations like that.

Just, I mean, all you have to do is really start the conversation,.

And people are willing to talk. Yeah, and we were, when we were handing out tracts, one of the questions that we were asking is, are you born again? And that made some people stop and think, and some people said, you know, that opened up a conversation, and then others said, oh yeah, I'm born again, and so a follow-up question was this, how do you know?

And some people gave a good answer, but a lot of people kind of laughed and looked at us like, why would you even ask me that? Why would you ask me, how do I know, you know? And one guy was sitting in his chair, and he just laughed in my face.

He's like, oh, I know, and they say things like this, oh, I know, trust me, you know, and you're like, oh, okay, but the Bible does say that there is such a thing as self-deception, and we don't just know because we know, we don't just know because we really, really believe it.

Even, for example, in 1 John, we have some evidences of what it looks like to be born again, and so those were some things that, some conversations that we were just trying to have, because again, we're in the Bible Belt, might even say the heart of the Bible Belt, and you know, so many people said that they were Christians.

Now, one group of ladies said that they were Satanists, and others laughed and said they don't believe in God, stuff like that, but the majority of people that we talked to professed to be believers.

Yeah, and you know, something else that we talked about, maybe last week, or whenever we were talking about the, like, going to the fair and stuff like that, you know, Jeremy Williams had that sign for Goat Fest, are you a sheep or are you a goat, and directing people back to God's Word.

You know, that was really, you know, I stood there by Jeremy's sign for a couple of hours passing out tracks, and you know, almost any kind of festival, or gathering, or whatever you might have going on in your town, there's probably a spin on it like that, where you can direct people back to God's Word, and that was really helpful, because it was such an easy way to direct them back to Matthew 25, to what Jesus says about the sheep and the goats, and so there are ways that we can do that, because the Scripture applies to every part of life.

Amen, amen. Well, that's kind.

Of an introductory topic, because it was both on our minds and hearts, it just happened this weekend, and so what we'll transition to now is, what we want to talk about today is really ministry, and in your hometown, how does that look like?

What are some pros, and what are some cons? Eddie is not currently in his hometown, but he had pastored in his hometown. How long did you pastor? I was in Shirley for nine years. So he pastored in his hometown for nine years.

I'm in my hometown, and I've pastored here just about six and a half years, and so I think there are some unique advantages and some unique challenges to pastoring in your hometown, and so we want to talk about that a little bit in today's episode.

Eddie, you want to start? You want me to start? Yeah, well,.

The first thing I would say is, wherever you're going to be doing ministry, it's going to require your life to be, to some degree, planted in that place, and I know, like for myself, we don't live in Marshall.

We don't even live in Searcy County. We still live in Shirley in Van Buren County, and I tell people that, and they go, oh man, that's a long drive. I would say because we homeschool, that helps us because we're not tied to the local school district there in Shirley or even the Clinton School District, so that allows us to have a little bit more freedom to be involved in things in Marshall, and so we are very tied into what's going on in Marshall and Searcy County.

This is really, we really just sleep in Shirley. We live our lives here in Marshall, so wherever you're doing ministry, wherever you're serving a church, your life is going to have to be really, really grounded and rooted in that place, but when that is the place where you've grown up, I do think that there are some unique things that come with that because the people you're ministering to are people that you've known your whole life.

I mean, I remember there was one family in the church there at Shirley that the lady had, her and my grandmother were best friends my whole life when I was growing up, and they lived right across the street from each other, and so when I was a little kid, I knew this family and grew up around her, this lady's grandchildren, and so our lives were intertwined in that way, and it means that they knew you maybe when you done, maybe even before you were a Christian, they knew you, and they knew you when you've done some things or maybe foolish when you were younger, and I think sometimes those things can spill over into whether or not we really have the respect, maybe.

And one of the things I think that can really affect that ministry in the hometown is if you're trying to bring reform or change to what's happening in the church in your hometown. Honestly, when I went back to Shirley as the pastor, at the time that I got there, I was in the same place that they were theologically.

The biggest thing that had changed for me in the time that I'd been away from Shirley is I'd become convinced of expository preaching, of preaching through the Bible, but I still basically believed the same things as everybody in my church, and it was while I was there that I went through a reformation in my own theology, and really the struggles came when I tried to bring that kind of reform there because they were hearing what sounded like something new.

Yeah, I like what you said.

The first. No matter where you're at, especially in rural church ministry, it's different, isn't it? 20 minutes in rural church ministry is a lot farther than 20 minutes in the city. Does it make sense?

Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? You're like, oh, you live 20 minutes away from church? That's forever, and when you're in the city, you're like, yeah, I drive 25, 30 minutes to everywhere or whatever, but I do think it's important to be in your community to be involved.

One of the things I'm trying to do, I hadn't told you this yet, Eddie, it's two-fold purpose, but one of the things I'm trying to do this semester is substitute teach. I haven't got to do that yet. You got to fill out all the paperwork and all that.

It's in. It's just like everything else. It's like America is pending right now, you know? It's like, but being involved and getting involved in things and helping out in the community and plugging into the community, I think it's important without losing the status of who you are.

You're a pastor, you know, and I think I was actually going to say for me, I think that's one of the negatives of being in your hometown is for me, at least initially and even more recently, you easily kind of get sucked back into not old sins or anything like that, but because you're a believer, but you can get sucked into kind of worldly patterns like for me is coaching and stuff like that.

I still want to help coach my kids and those things, but boy, that can really drain your time. You can look up all of a sudden and say, man, I'm spending a lot of hours doing these things when I need to be spending more time focused on the ministry and focused on the local church.

Again, I'm not trying to say take away time from your kids or whatever, but at the same time, there are certain things, I guess, that you can get sucked into in your hometown that you might not get sucked into in another place.

Another thing though, I do think it's a tremendous blessing. There's so many people that you already know and you understand networks and you understand relationships, you understand people who are related, you know, all those things I think can be an advantage, but it's unique, you know, like preaching, open-air preaching the other day, like you didn't know anybody open-air preaching.

I did, you know, I did, like I saw people I knew, you know, I was like, oh, there's coaches, there's teachers, there's people I know, and I just.

Kept preaching. Maybe a little bit. I did see one couple from Shirley. Really? Yes. Yeah. Wow. I went over and talked to them. Yeah, actually, they had actually started coming to the church there in.

Shirley not long before I left there. Well, and to piggyback something else you said earlier, too, I want to go back to this. You know, you began preaching. The problem in the Bible, Bill, is so many.

There's kind of like a cultural type of Christianity that I would say I am grateful. This is going to sound funny. I'm grateful for this in many ways, in the sense of like, you know, I'm grateful for the politeness.

I'm grateful for the conservativism. I'm grateful for, what would you say, like the moral constraints, perhaps? Maybe we would say.

We're thankful for the common grace that is a blessing in our day-to-day interactions in the culture. However, we want that special revelation of the gospel to impact the hearts.

Of all. That's right. That's right. And for one sense, like, to my knowledge, for the most part, I'm not really fighting the battle for the Bible, so to speak. I am fighting battle for the Bible, but it's not for like, is this God's word or not?

It's really about, is it sufficient? Well, that is true, but also, is it really practically authoritative? For a long time, we said the Bible is authoritative, and we just focus on sufficiency, but I actually, I'm putting those together like sufficiency and authority are both practically really rejected, you know.

And so, we are fighting that regularly. And so, all that to say, I'm so grateful. I think I've belabored that point, but at the same time, the Bible Belt, particularly where we're at in Arkansas, it's very difficult to do ministry because it's almost like you have multiple versions of Christianity, and you're trying to call people back to biblical Christianity.

For example, Sunday, I preach a sermon called Why You Have to Go to Church to Be a Christian, and I specifically picked that title for a reason, you know, and I preached from a place that you might not think that you would prove that from, but it's Ephesians 4, 31 and 32.

We're finishing through chapter 4, and in that passage, Paul talks about how we are to put away all bitterness, and we are to be kind one to another. In other words, you could try to apply that outside the local church, and there is application, okay, outside the local church, but you don't really understand the weight of what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4, 31 and 32 apart from the local church.

That be kind to one another, that's inside the church, and to prove it back in verse 25, he says, we're members of one of another. So he is talking there about the local church, and so the point is this kind of concept, like what people think here is, so you don't have to say, is church important, because people will be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, church is important.

You should go to church, but in fact, people I see all the time are like, yeah, I need to be in church more. They know, you know, so you're grateful for those things, but it's hard when you begin saying, no, actually, if you consistently choose other things over the local church, what you're actually indicating is you're not a believer at all.

Well, and part of that is that we've made the Lord's Day, we've kind of bulled it down to whether or not you even show up at the service instead of how are we, we really ought to be thinking of it as the Lord's Day to be given to the worship of the Lord, you know.

Let's set aside that day, like so often I think people think, yeah, we can get through a service, and then we can go, like even if they do make a priority out, I'm going to make sure I go to church. I'll go to church, and then I can go do what I wanted to do that day, you know, but let me ask you something on this issue of thinking about ministry in our hometown.

When you first, when things were first looking like, you know, the Lord is calling you back to come to Prairieville Second Baptist, what did you think? Did you have any thought about advantages or disadvantages, or was it just like,.

Oh yeah, I want to go back to Prairieville. Well, the pastor had left in December, and I, this was a number of years ago, I guess seven years ago, the pastor had left in December, and I immediately. Was that December of 15?

Yeah, 2015. Okay, yeah, yeah. But his last Sunday, like I knew he was leaving, but like his last Sunday was, I think, like the first Sunday of December, something like that. Anyway, at that moment, there was a, during that time, like there was a pull, like I thought, well, what about pursuing that, you know, but I thought to myself, I don't want to actively pursue.

I'm not saying everybody should handle a situation like this, but for me, I don't want to actively pursue it because there's too much bias in the way, you know, and I don't want this to just turn out to be something I'm just trying to do, you know, so I decided I'm not going to, I'm not going to pursue this.

If they reach out to me, then I will entertain the opportunity, and so I think it was like February or March that they reached out to me, you know, and, and so it's gone like three or four months, because 1st December to the end of February, March, something like that, and so it was at that point that I really began praying and laying some things out, but like, like I told my wife, I want to lay some things out before I go, so like before I came, I said, this is what I believe about predestination.

This is what I believe about elders. This is what I believe about church membership. Like, I kind of wanted to develop a foundation, but I will say this. You also need to realize that even if you say those things up front, that doesn't mean that everybody fully understands everything.

Does that make sense? Like one thing I'm guilty of, and the pastors can be guilty of, is saying something one time, two times, 10 times, 50 times, and thinking, okay, they got it now. They understand, and, and, and that's just not practical.

That's just not how ministry really works in any church, but particularly, particularly in the rural church, things move slow. Rural life is slow, you know, and, and it's, and that's the way it is in the church, and so for me, and we, me and you were talking before the podcast, but for me, I've got to constantly keep in mind this long-term, you know, in six and a half years, this church is healthier than it was six and a half years ago.

I'm so encouraged by that, and I need to look back and be like, wow, look how much has happened in six and a half years. Now I need to look forward six and a half years and say, okay, okay, we can keep going, you know, we could be patient.

Now there are certain things that you might need to change faster than other things, but there really are some, some, some things that you think are a really big deal, and they are a big deal, but that you, if you will have a, a longer-term vision that you can work toward more patiently.

Maybe I'm just preaching to myself.

Well, no, I think, I think what you're saying there is really helpful because, you know, especially when we come to thinking about, you know, our hometown, you know, it's a matter of, we, we want to be clear with where we're at, but it still takes people a long time to realize, hey, he's saying this, and, and maybe I've always thought of it another way.

You know, when I, it was funny, I have a, it's kind of a funny story about the way that I ended up back at Shirley. They, they were without a pastor. They didn't have any staff, and I had, one of the deacons had been a former, I'd worked with him for Arkansas Electric years before that, and so he called me up on the phone, and he said, this is hilarious, he said, do you want to be our youth minister?

Well, another local church in Shirley, where my former pastor was the pastor, had, they had asked me a few times to be the youth minister at that church, and I had told them, no, I wasn't interested in doing youth ministry anymore, and so when he asked me that, I said, no, I've already told this other church that I didn't want to do youth ministry anymore, I'm kind of out on that.

The same conversation, we didn't even get off the phone, he said, so what about the pastor? And I'd kind of said, you know, I don't think, you know, I don't think it's a good idea to call a youth minister while you don't have a pastor.

He said, well, so what about the pastor? And I went and preached three weeks, just supplying in their pulpit, and then they called me as the pastor after that. But you know, at that time, when I was considering, thinking about going back to pastor the church that I'd been in as a teenager, and so it was my home church and hometown.

The passage that came to mind is from Luke chapter four, and so I'd just like to read it. Luke chapter four, verse 16 says, and he came, he being Jesus, came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth, and they said, is not this Joseph's son?

And he said to them, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself, and what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. And he said, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown, but in truth I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

And there were many lepers in Israel in the times of the prophet Elisha, and none of them were cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian. And when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath, and they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff, but passing through their midst, he went away.

And you know, before I went back to Shirley, that passage was all was on my mind, not because I'm claiming that you are our prophets, because certainly we're not, neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet, and certainly we're not in the place of Christ as he was, but the proverb is still generally true, right?

A prophet is without honor in his hometown, and so I was really thinking about that, and even now reading back through it and thinking how it started off in verse 22, it says, and all spoke well of him, and I think about how those first probably three years or four years at Shirley were really sweet.

They were really sweet, and then there was a turn, and I'm not saying that it parallels exactly what happened with Jesus in Nazareth, and I'm not saying that it has to be that way, because that would be really bad for you, wouldn't it?

But so I'm not saying that either, but I'm just saying that we need to recognize that there are some things that come along with, hey, this is little Eddie that we've seen grow up, and we've seen him do some silly stupid things when he was a kid, and how's that going to translate to ministry now as our pastor.

In the local church? Yeah, I definitely think there's some wisdom there, you know, and I think I don't think you should go anywhere without weighing out the options and praying through and being discerning.

I will say that, sadly, I don't like our system anyway. We did something a little bit different here. I preached what we call like a mini revival series. I preach like three sermons. Most of the time you interview a guy, he preaches a sermon, his best sermon.

You ask you a couple questions, like, yep, you're a pastor now, you know, and I think the membership process should be better than that, let alone the pastor. And of course, we know that we think a biblical model is raising up elders in your own church anyway, and I would say that in the New Testament, some of the pastors, like for example, on the island of Crete, you know, and he's telling Titus to appoint elders in the churches, you know, well, where are those guys coming from?

They're not coming from another town, you know, they're coming from that town, you know, and so I was just going to say, I just think in a healthy model, this would be a little bit more frequent than what it is right now.

And I think what would.

Make that work better than what we see now is that you would have healthy pastors growing up in healthy churches, and they wouldn't be trying to bring so much reform to those churches. Because honestly, whether it's your hometown or not, if you're pushing for a lot of reform and change, that's going to be hard.

Yeah, that's going to be hard. No matter, I mean, because that's not got so much to do with it being your hometown. That's got to do with we ain't ever done.

It that way. You know, today, we're recording this on October 5th. Today is Jonathan Edwards' birthday. How long was he at the church before they fired him over the Lord's Supper issue? I don't remember.

Do you? Oh, it was 20 years or something. I mean, it was a long time. And then he decided this needs to be changed, and they ousted him. And then they said, hey, we don't have a pastor. Can you fill in while we're looking?

Yeah. Whoa. So anyway, just let that be a lesson to you that change is difficult. But what this podcast is about, it's about the local church. We believe in the local church. We believe that it's worth giving your life to.

We believe that you're going to have some days that are gloriously beautiful and full of worship and gratefulness to God, and you're going to have some difficult days too. But all in all, what we're saying is it's worth it, whether it's your hometown, not your hometown.

The local church is worth it. It's the most beautiful place on earth. Isn't that what Dustin Benj's book is, I think it's called. So give your life to local church brothers and be willing. By the way, don't just if you're in a rural church, don't just use it as a stepping stone.

Don't just show up on Sunday, do your duty till you can go to somewhere bigger and better. Pray and give your life to it and see God use the local church, even in a small community. I'm not saying you can't ever leave, but I'm just saying if we have this longer term mindset and see God use, God doesn't need, but God uses the local church even in little communities to bring great glory.

That's one of my prayers here. God, why wouldn't you use Perryville, right? Because if you were going to use Perryville or Marshall, no one could say, oh, it was just the ingenuity of that great place.

No one knows where this is. So use it, Lord, for the glory of your name.

You know, and I think I'd like to close out with kind of piggybacking on that thought that you just gave, because it's came up a few times over the last probably week for me. But yeah, when you think about your local church, especially I would be saying this to my brother pastors.

Yeah, if you're calling and you're telling your church that they need to covenantally commit to the local church and they need to root their life in it, and then you're only thinking you're going to be there for three years or five years or till the next better thing comes along, then it would be hard for you to really fault them if they go to the church down the street when the more exciting stuff is going on there.

And so if we're going to call people to covenant their life to the local church, then we also ought to be covenanting our life to the local church and saying, like you said, is it possible that the Lord could move you some circumstance or some sovereign act of God could move you?

Of course that could happen. But as far as we know, we ought to be saying this is where the Lord has me, and I plan on being here, staying here, rooting my life here, and serving the Lord amongst these saints.

You know, Peter says to the pastors he's talking to in 1 Peter 5, shepherd the flock that is among you.

Amen. The local church is where it's at. Must have been a pleasure talking to you, brother. Thank you guys for joining us on this week of the Rural Church Podcast. Catch us next week. Say goodbye, Eddie.

Goodbye, everybody.