During the Fall 2008 semester at Covenant Theological Seminary I decided to complete a Ministry Project (MA491) under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Bradley. This project was to look at the intersection of faith and life in rural Iowa. In essence, I hoped to lean my Seminary experiences, expectations, and expertise into the life of rural Iowa that I grew up in. To that end my wife, two young children, and I embarked from the St. Louis metropolitan area in late July and settled on the prairies of Ida County, Iowa in mid-summer 2008.
There are three required components to a Ministry Project (MA491). There is a reading component, a ministry component, and a reporting component. For each component there is a certain requirement of hours or pages. Below I have listed the requirements for a 2 credit hour Ministry Project (MA491) and then I report what I was able to complete for each portion:
A. Required: 400-800 pages required for 2 credits (200-400 pgs/credit).
B. Completed: 3,263 pages read.
Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008.
Hegeman, David Bruce. Plowing in Hope: Toward a Biblical Theology of Culture. Moscow, ID: Canonpress, 2007.
Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperOne, 2008.
Cochrane, Willard W. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis, 2nd Edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Orngard, Shellie, and Jan Joannides, eds. Renewing the Countryside: Iowa. Ames:
Sigler Printing and Publishing, Inc., 2003.
Sayre, Robert F., ed. Take this Exit: Rediscovering the Iowa Landscape. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989.
Sayre, Robert F. ed. Take the Next Exit: New Views of the Iowa Landscape.
Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2000.
Stetzer, Ed. Planting Missional Churches. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006.
Stetzer, Ed, and David Putman. Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church can Become a Missionary in Your Community. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006.
Keller, Tim. “The Missional Church.” Redeemer Presbyterian Church, http://www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/missional.pdf, June 2001.
A. Required: 150-250 hours required for 2 credits (75-125 hrs/ credit).
B. Completed: 581 hours completed.
A. Required: 20-30 pages required for 2 credits (10-15 pgs/credit).
[Reporting may include such options as journal writing, interviews, case studies, projects, analysis, etc.]
B. Completed: 30 pages completed (plus blog).
[www.prairiewhole.blogspot.com]
To say that I knocked the requirements out of the park may be partly true. I far exceeded the requirements for this particular course, but that’s because this is what I want to give myself to for the rest of my life. I think that I will look back at these past 5 months as extremely important and pivotal moments to my own calling and growth. To experience the Lord’s work and steady hand on me, in me, and through me as I tried to put together two longings that he has placed on my heart has been both quietly humbling and profoundly amazing.
The thought of this ministry project was birthed perhaps a year ago – last holiday season - while I talked with my parents and wife about where we were headed and what I felt the Lord was moving us towards. I remember drinking whiskey and smoking pipes with my dad out behind the Atherton Apartments and talking about the possibility of putting together a study or project in which I could both examine and experience a deliberate placing together of faith, church, and theology with the rural Iowa that I know and love.
What we have told people as we have tried to explain the purpose of this ministry project is that during our time in seminary we have seen much emphasis on inner-city missions (and rightly so) but we have often wondered how those same principles and theologies would translate or look as they hit ground in the places that we know – rural Iowa communities.
That is an accurate description to a point. But there is a lot more behind my dreams and desires to pursue this project. I suppose there were three spheres of growing interests and passions that had developed during my time in St. Louis at Covenant Theological Seminary (and before) that I wanted to purposefully merge into each other and then look at the connections and overlap between these three spheres of interest.
First, I was more fully exposed to the concept of a creation-wide redemptive mission of God in my studies at Covenant. We might call this “holistic gospel” or “holistic mission.” The belief that the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for all of a fallen creation – that Christ’s blessings flow “far as the curse is found.”
Second, I was pretty cynical about the Church as I entered Seminary. But through classes, study, and prayer the Lord re-ignited a love for His Church and a desire to serve her. The Church, as the People of God, is not just a group of pious worshippers awaiting Christ’s return. By and with the Holy Spirit, the Church is the instrument of our Lord’s present work in the world to bless and redeem as far as the curse of sin and death has reached.
Finally, I grew up in rural Pocahontas County, Iowa. I haven’t lived there for 10 years but that place and the experiences of my childhood there are the images that flow through my imagination as I work through issues of theology and of God’s work in the world. I did, throughout Seminary, wonder, “How would this look in rural Iowa?” It was a question that I didn’t deliberately or purposefully formulate in order to better process what I was learning. Instead, it just kind of developed at some point during my first semester and I continued to find the question poised and hidden between the lines of whatever text I was reading it seemed. I didn’t know that I cared all that much about the rural places of my childhood, but I couldn’t escape that question and eventually everything that I touched and encountered was funneled down to that one question, “How would this look in rural Iowa?”
So, perhaps I’ve stolen and then modified a similar diagram from someone, but I think the below diagram helpfully illustrates the three interests or passions that it seems the Lord has placed on me during this time - and then the overlap of the three that I hoped to both examine and experience during this semester-long ministry project in rural Ida County, Iowa: the overlap of holistic mission, church, and rural Iowa.
The reading and writing components of the Ministry Project went more or less as I had expected and planned. My in-laws have a large, white barn directly across a gravel road from their home (and our basement apartment). The barn is nearly 100 years old but for the past 15 years or so it has been vacant of normal and regular use in any farming operation. I converted one of the small rooms in the barn – a granary – into my “study” and spent many hours reading the 3,000+ pages I burrowed through for this project. I enjoyed my self-imposed reading list that gave me a nicely balanced diet of theology, rural Iowa issues, and missional church readings.
I enjoyed using the blog as an outlet for ideas and pictures of our life here. I didn’t try to be systematic in what I covered in the blog, but was able to keep a kind of stream-of-consciousness going and used images and pictures that expressed a bit more of our own experiences and thoughts than words alone could. Both the reading and writing components were good and helpful. I read (more or less) what I had planned on reading and I wrote in the blog (more or less) what I had planned on writing.
The idea was to pursue this project as a designated Ministry Project (MA491) because, unlike an Independent Study, there is a “ministry” component to a Ministry Project. My plan was to use these required “ministry” hours to survey the countryside: to interview church leaders and community activists, to talk with farmers and agriculture leaders, to chat with pastors and families about their lives in rural Iowa and how their faith might or might not affect their lives in whatever rural Iowa community they were placed. I was planning on using this “ministry” requirement by collecting stories of community cooperation, creation care, and congregational concern of God’s People and His Image-Bearers from across Iowa. But those required “ministry” hours (and many more hours than that) were completed differently than I had anticipated.
Instead of an academic “survey” of rural places, people, and churches in Iowa I drilled down in one place, with one people, and within one church. I got my hands dirty in this one very specific and local place. I was asked to preach at the Arthur Evangelical Free Church the very first Sunday that we were here. I gave a sermon on 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-11, “But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you…” From there on the pastor of this church kept pursuing me to take part in things that the church was involved in. And I kept saying, “Yes.” In a way it seems that I was preparing the way for my own ministry project with the sermon that I gave on living quietly and working with my hands. That is what I have been doing for the past 5 months – quite deliberately – as I’ve gone about this ministry project.
A survey of what is going on across Iowa’s many rural places would be very interesting, useful, and beneficial to many people – including me. However, it would have been academic and reliant on anecdotes with no history behind them. I would not have been able to get very far beneath the surface, at least to the extent that I would have liked. Instead of strip mining across the surface of the Iowa landscape I was offered the opportunity to drill deep in one place and I took it.
Many folks in Iowa’s rural communities are suspicious by nature. 5 months in one place is hardy a drop in the bucket, but with a more long-term investment in one place you start to understand and appreciate the connections in that place. People don’t readily talk about history, or connections, or community issues – you kind of have to experience them or pick up stories and begin to piece them together on your own. Many of these rural folks feel a bit uncomfortable when people start to pry because they are protective of themselves, but they are also protective of the people and places that they have know for their whole lives. It takes some intuition and problem-solving to begin to place together the history and self-knowledge of a rural Iowa community.
I’m not sure that 5 months gets you much below the surface, but the fact that my wife is from this community and this church helped. People want to know you and require some level of trust before they become familiar and open with you. I can’t say that folks are completely comfortable with my presence in their normal conversations, but I am fairly certain that more people are more comfortable and at ease with my presence since they have known my wife since she was a toddler and know her family. This helps them place me and begin to have a sense of knowing and trusting me.
I did not seek a level of familiarity in order to interview people or anything as formal as that. I was desiring and longing to sink into this place – to begin to belong to it and to the community and church that we were a part of. I feel that I have begun to belong here and have allowed myself to become rooted and enmeshed here more than anywhere that we’ve lived since being married. It’s been 10 years since I’ve lived in a rural Iowa community and it’s been that long since I’ve let myself sink into a place and let myself become local to a place and its people. Again, 5 months, to most of these folks, is but a day. If we’re here 5 years from now there will still be a sense in which we are new-comers, but my wife’s previous and continuing ties to the community and its history helps immensely as I have sought to become incarnated and enmeshed in this little community and church.
I have broken up my “ministry” hours into two different sections when I reported the hours above. They are: “Church Ministry” and “Rural Life Ministry.” Church Ministry is what I was able to experience and take part in with the Arthur Evangelical Free Church over the past 5 months. Rural Life Ministry is really the work and normal life of rural Iowa that I was able to experience and take part in as I worked with 4 different area farmers and community members in their fields, confinements, tractors, and machine shops. Rural Iowa is a place of work – much hard work – and I was able to experience my fair share of that this semester too as I worked side-by-side with these men.
I had hoped to do various things with the Arthur Evangelical Free Church and we certainly planned on worshipping there while we lived in the area. But much more came of it than that. The Arthur Free Church is located in Arthur, Iowa – a town of about 200 people. The town has a convenience store, a library that is open a few half-days a week, a volunteer fire department, 2 churches, and a small café (The Arthur Café). But that’s about it. The E-Free Church is almost 125 years old. It was originally a country church that met on a place – which is now a clearing with some mature trees among the cornfields – a few miles South of Arthur. Several of the men in the church still remember when they moved the church building to town in the early 1940’s. The original building continued to be used, but then the present brick building was erected. The original sanctuary was added on to twice through the years and a large metal building was put up next-door about 10 years ago that houses a gym and youth facilities.
Today the church averages probably around 130 or so for Sunday worship. The present pastor, Glen Lozier, has been there for a year and a half and is from upstate New York. The pastor before him, Norm Erickson, was there for five years. The pastor before him, Bob Lundberg, was there for 35 years. The pastor before him, John Aiken, was there for five years and then left for the Congo - but has since returned to the area in his retirement. The church has a thriving youth ministry. On Wednesday nights there are normally close to 200 people in the church buildings for AWANA and Youth Group combined.
The congregation is made up of a wide-range of ages. Many who still attend grew up in the church – along with their grown children and grandchildren. There are all sorts of connections as far as who is related to whom and how so-and-so came to start coming to the church. Unlike many churches in the area, the Arthur E-Free Church has quite a number of young families. They joke that there probably aren’t that many more families in the county with children 3-and-under that don’t go to the church there. No one says for sure, but that probably has something to do with the strong youth program that offers something positive for kids in a very rural place that really doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of youth programs or activities.
As part of “Church Ministry” hours, and all with the Arthur Evangelical Free Church, I:
All these kept me busy most weeks in one way or another. Again, this was not something that I had anticipated or even hoped for as we planned this project – but it far exceeded any plans or projections on what I might learn or gain from during this time.
I was able to drill deeply by working and ministering alongside so many members of the church in which I experienced and learned so much more of rural Iowa church life than I would have in any other way. But much more than that, I was also able to teach 13 different times in a variety of settings. The preparation that this took to both understand the text that I was teaching from – but then to anticipate and seek understanding of my actual rural Iowa context was so helpful in sinking deeper into what it might mean to live and minister well in a rural Iowa community for the long haul. I spoke to 5-year-olds in AWANA, 15-year-olds in Youth Group, 35-year-olds on Sunday Morning, 55-year-olds at the Gospel Mission, and 85-year-olds in the nursing home – and all sorts of ages in-between.
I begin to see such ministry in a rural Iowa church as so beautiful and sacred when I realize that this often enough has meant ministry to 4 generations of the same family – all of whom have grown up in the same farm house, on the same farm, in the same church and are seeking to follow the same Lord in their hard-working and ordinary lives. What a privilege to be a part of something so intimate, simple, honest, and sacred.
This used to be an area with a lot of farmers. Today the same amount of land is under cultivation, but with increases in technology one farmer can now plant and harvest many more acres of land than he used to. That is reflected in the church as well. There are a lot of guys with some land that they inherited. Some of these guys will farm that land, but then will have another job in order to make ends meet. Many of these guys rent out their land to the big operators. So, although there are relatively few full-time farmers in the church, all of the men in the church have farming running in their blood. As I mentioned earlier this is a place of hard work and many, if not all of the men in church, know how to work hard. Many of their “hobbies” (they wouldn’t put it that way) is to work more – maybe help out a neighbor during harvest, maybe have some livestock on the side, maybe farm their own 120 acres just because they like doing it even though they don’t make hardly any money.
The church does have a handful of full-time grain farmers. However closely tied to farming and the land, most guys in the church are not farmers. Many of the new families who have moved into town work in a profession whether law enforcement, education, engineering, counseling, or medicine. But almost all of the families who are from the area are their own bosses and piece things together as best they can (many of them do very well) whether that be sheep shearing, carpentry, odd-jobs fix-it man, some mix of farming and livestock, implement dealer, welding, dirt mover, hired man, and on and on. Many of these people own some land but at some point took on other jobs to supplement income. But as the margins got tighter and tighter they either started renting out their land or had to develop some other form of permanent income. This is a hard working bunch of men and families. Many work multiple physically demanding jobs.
I desired to sink myself into this local community and church of hard work and hard workers. I wanted to better understand the context and local world of rural Iowa ministry – at least in this corner of Ida County. In order to do so I needed to sink my hands deeply into this world of work and land, of calloused hands and pig manure, of tangible and physical work that is almost completely free of abstract ideas, nuanced doctrines or theological systems. There is something thoroughly satisfying about this sort of work. You know when you succeed. You know when you fail. It is very straightforward. When you reflect in the shower at the end of the day you know exactly what you did and can feel very satisfied for such defined physical goals and tasks. There is very little nuance. The job either gets done or it doesn’t.
I sunk my hands into this world of rural life and work by working for four different self-employed guys. The first guy I worked for was Tom German. Tom lives about 25 miles from our place, so is kind of in a different community circle. Many of the folks in the E-Free Church know of him because he’s a “good Republican” and so are they (which is another topic as well). Tom has 640 acres of certified organic pastureland. He has converted all of his land to pasture and organic certification. He is a very unusual farmer in this area because of that. Most people consider his organic practices to be his own business (and none of theirs), nevertheless you do get the sense that most people find it kind of odd.
Tom is well thought of and a very intelligent man. He is an elder at the nearby Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He is the third generation to farm the same land. Tom is the organic grass-fed beef guy in Iowa (and eastern Nebraska). If you start looking into organic grass-fed beef you will quickly run into Tom German’s name. He has a 200 head cow/calf herd. Tom practices Management Intensive Rotational Grazing across his 640 acres which means each day the entire herd is moved into a new 3 acre parcel of land that they then graze for the day. Tom also has about 200 egg-laying hens, 90 Ewes and their lambs, 5 horses, 2 milk cows, and a llama. Because he is so accomplished in this particular agricultural niche Tom does a lot of traveling, speaking, and consulting. That means he’s gone quite a bit – and that’s where I come in.
I did just about everything for Tom throughout the summer and fall. I moved cows, scooped manure, mended fences, fed chickens and turkeys, hauled logs, mowed fields, milked cows, and many other odd jobs that take place in a normal day on the farm. Tom and his wife Kristi have 3 grade-school age children and the whole family takes part in the life of the farm. They home-school and try to be pretty self-sufficient. I didn’t work alongside Tom all that much because I was filling in for him while he was out of town. We did talk quite a bit though. He is organic because he doesn’t like chemicals and doesn’t want to pay for them. He was a big Ron Paul supporter and is pretty much a libertarian. He mostly just works hard every day because he enjoys the work, loves the cows, and likes the fact that he doesn’t have to rely on anyone else to pay his bills or support his way of life. His faith is important to him, but he doesn’t talk very much about it. His kids love working around the farm and take a lot of pride in what they do. They are very active in their church and the kids actually talk to me about what they’re learning in church quite a bit.
I really liked (and like) working for Tom. He is a very hands-off manager. I call him when I need help or advice, but mostly he just leaves me a list and I’m on my own. I get to be outside driving the 4-wheeler across the rolling hills of Ida County (which is much less appealing when it’s cold outside) with very little distractions and only cows hollering at me to move them into the next field. I get to drive tractors a lot and manage my own time and work in whatever way I feel gets the job done best. I really like that. It is very satisfying work. I’ve spent many summer and early Fall days driving the ½ hour home from Tom German’s place with my arm out the window of my Jeep just enjoying the fields and the weather.
I’ve also worked quite a bit for Mike Bergman. Mike is a jack-of-all-trades. He is a deacon at the Arthur Evangelical Free Church, has built his own motorcycle and owns a Harley, has 4 girls, 1 son and a wife, home-schools his kids, never went to college, owns some rental properties, sells farm implements, employed a wood-worker full-time to refinish the interior of his grandparents farmhouse in solid oak so that he and his family could live there, built a hydraulic and cast-iron elevator in his home so that he and his wife could use all 3 floors when they get too old to use the stairs, and has a small machine-shop in an out-building on the farm in which he manufactures a tractor hitch called the “Agri-Speed Hitch.”
It’s out in the machine shop where I’ve worked for Mike. He does most of the welding but there are two other guys who work out there too when they are able. All of the other guys who work at Mike’s place farm some too so they pretty much come as go as they please. That’s what I’ve done too. Mike told me at church one Sunday that there was work out at his place anytime that I wanted some. I’ve done a lot of metal grinding to smooth out rough edges, dipped the hitch parts in paint, assembled and boxed the hitches, loaded the UPS truck with a fork-lift, drilled holes in metal, crimped metal, and many more things. It’s dirty in Mike’s shop because of all the metal shavings but it’s fun to be there especially when Mike is there because he is such an interesting guy.
He has built most of the things in his shop. If something needs to be done he just kind of figures out what needs to be done and then does it. Everyday at about 9:30 am it is time for coffee break. If Mike isn’t out in the shop that day he will come out from the house with a thermos of coffee and sit for 20-30 minutes with whoever is working and talk and drink coffee. He is intensely self-sufficient too. He doesn’t like people (or the government) telling him what to do – but part of this is because he is so incredibly creative that he can figure out a solution to most problems that he encounters. That’s why he didn’t like school and didn’t go to college. He thought that he had the answers and, frankly, many times he did. He is eager to help out and serve in the church and has many, many good ideas and truly desires to serve people. Mike teaches an adult Sunday School class at the Arthur E-Free Church and they are currently going through a book that matches up all these prophecies in Daniel and Revelation to current events and says that Christ is going to return any day. As much as I cringe at the subject matter and whole course of such a study, people love his class because he’s honest and you don’t know what to expect. Mike grew up attending the Arthur E-Free Church, his parents are members, and he has 2 grown brothers and a sister who also attend the Arthur Free Church with their families.
I’ve also worked for Gordon Goodenow as part of my rural life ministry. Gordon is a deacon at the Arthur Evangelical Free Church and grew up in a neighboring town. Gordon is a tall and fairly quiet man who, I’m told, was sort of a hippie back in the 60’s (or at least had long hair). Gordon’s hippie days are long behind him as he farms a substantial amount of acres that he both inherited and bought. He has a very large cattle herd that are spread out over a number of different cattle lots and pastures. Gordon and his wife, Susan, are joint chairpersons of the worship committee at church. Susan plays the piano and organizes the music and Gordon is a member of the praise team who lead the congregation in singing each Sunday.
Gordon and Susan have 4 grown sons – none of whom decided to return home to farm – and 1 adopted daughter who is a senior in high school. Gordon and Susan have also home-schooled all their kids. Gordon has 1 full-time hired man who works for him (a young and recently married guy who also grew up in the Arthur Free Church). He also jointly harvests with another guy from church. I’ve worked for Gordon on just a couple different occasions during harvest season. I drove tractor and hauled silage for one day until it rained. On several other occasions I’ve helped watch his corn be unloaded from the tractor into the grain bin – just to make sure that the equipment was working properly and nothing backed up.
Gordon is generally regarded as a good farmer. He does not spend as much money on labor or equipment as some guys do so his profits tend to be larger. That means that he has a very comfortable house that operates as sort of the headquarters for his farm. His wife cooks large lunches for whoever is working on any particular day – and they are delicious. A large lunch is not necessary standard for the guys working around here – but it is at Gordon’s place, and that’s part of the reason why it is fun to work for him.
Because Gordon spends less on labor and equipment he also feels like he is “behind” a lot. Over the long haul he ends up winning because his expenses are lower, but in the short term there are more stresses because he cannot be as flexible as some guys with huge machinery and a large number of people on the payroll. This stress means that Gordon can get pretty worked up, especially during harvest season. He is a tall man, prone to back problems anyway, and the stress of harvest took his back out for several days during this harvest season.
Gordon is also a very good man to work for. He works hard and sets the tone for work. He expects a lot, but is not normally overly demanding. He is very committed to the church. He did not grow up in the Arthur Free Church and none of his siblings or parents, although still in the area, attend church here.
I’ve also worked quite a bit for my father-in-law, Denny Johnson. Because we live near them and have daily interactions with them I’ve seen and experienced the work life of Denny more than any other guy. If he is anything, he is a hard worker. Denny owns 80 acres of land around the farm place here, but he rents out the land to a neighbor. About 15 years ago Denny had a large hog confinement built about ¼ mile up the road. For the past 15 years Denny has been breeding and raising baby pigs in this building. It is at this building that I’ve worked quite a bit for Denny during our 5 months here.
Denny runs the large AWANA program at church and is very involved there. He and his wife, Faith, have 2 grown sons and 2 grown daughters (one of whom I married). Denny’s had many ups and downs recently with the hog confinement. Because of low hog prices there are not many people interested in investing in hogs right now – and, while his confinement does seem large, it is quite small compared with many of the hog confinements that are in use today. That makes Denny unable to compete with many of the larger guys.
But he just loves the work. He loves managing the process and the pigs. He loves trying to tweak things here or there to get better results, and he takes a lot of pride in being his own boss. There are many nights that we stop upstairs and he is just plugging away at the computer on some spreadsheet or calendar working on his numbers and operation. Denny employs one full-time employee at the hog unit (besides himself) and Faith also works there – but not full-time. I move hogs for him, spray down rooms, castrate pigs, give shots, feed sows, and many other things. It is a very interesting place to work because everything is managed and there is a reason for everything. It is very satisfying work because the work is so measured and so clearly defined.
Each of these four different places that I worked as part of my rural life ministry offered very different work with different people in different places doing very different things. What an experience! I was able to spend quite a number of days over the past 5 months working side-by-side with some of the men who make up this rural church and community. I could have interviewed them and observed their operations, but by getting my hands dirty in actual work and by taking part in the normal life of work and conversation I think that I was able to sink in and intertwine myself a bit more into this world of life, work, and faith.
Reflections: Work Hard work is a normal part of life here. Perhaps the busyness of this place is different than the busyness of city life, but there is a constant rhythm of work and energy. No matter who I worked for or talked with that was true. A high value is placed on being productive and on getting thing done – very tangible and physical things.
The new pastor (still new after a year and a half) says that there are some serious issues about rest and Sabbath going on here – and I would tend to agree. While I so much admire the grittiness and no-nonsense ethic of work that is so interwoven into the contours and fabric of this rural Iowa community, I do wonder where and how rest and Sabbath fit into the picture. I think that many guys and their families do take a break from normal activities on Sundays. Many guys try to rest in some way when Sunday comes. But rest is not a priority on the other days of the week. In fact, many guys don’t really know how to be still or how to be at rest.
Again, I admire these men tremendously, but a lifetime of work that is strongly connected to a desire to work as unto the Lord with little space or relevance given to a lifetime of good rest that too is strongly connected to the Lord’s provision for us can result in a truncated life and, perhaps, a truncated understanding of and life in the Gospel. This idolatry of work is found in some more than in others, but is perhaps a cultural assumption in the rhythms of life around here.
But, certainly, the idolatry of work and of “getting stuff done” is not limited to rural Iowa communities. It is a much larger trend within the greater American culture. But much of the work done here is good, hard work. I had a conversation with one of the former pastors of the Arthur E-Free Church who has returned here to retire. He said that one of the most important things for a pastor to do here in his ministry was to work alongside his parishioners in their blue-collar physical labor. This former pastor said that a new minister coming in who just wanted to spend most of his time in his study and with his books wouldn’t last very long around here. He said, “Most men around here probably haven’t read a book in 30 years.” And that may be generally true. But what they have done is work – and anyone desiring an effective ministry here had better find some way and some time to work too. And to work hard.
The men who lead this congregation don’t discuss movies, or read books, or attend art shows, and there aren’t that many of them who are all that into sports. The men who lead this congregation work. Perhaps it is idolatrous at times, but if someone really desires to understand and come alongside this congregation and these men then they had better keep their mouths shut and work hard for quite a while in order to earn the right to be heard. Rest and Sabbath are important. Perhaps some of the work ought to change. But until someone has understood the realities and demands of this world and life by working themselves – a world that, in fact, does demand hard work because of extremely tight financial margins – they had better keep their mouths shut and their hands busy until they understand the true realities that make up the ordinary lives of these ordinary and extremely hard working men and women.
Reflections: Church My original purpose for pursuing this project had something to do with wondering what a missional church might look like in rural Iowa. I had found a renewed sense of appreciation and love for the Lord’s church and much of that was because I saw or began to understand what the church was called to do and what she could be. The church is to be the central agency and body through which the Spirit of Christ continues His work in the world today. Surely in many of the imperfect and painfully misguided ways that we have all experienced, but her call is a beautiful and majestic one. In a Fallen world, of course the church is fallen too. But that certainly does not excuse her abandonment. Instead that ought to cause me, and those cynical and discouraged members within her, to renew their purposes and passion within her – towards what she can be. Of course this will never be completely accomplished until Christ returns, but that does not excuse us from loving, caring, and investing in the church – that she might be the light to the world that she is called to be.
I was full of healthy and orthodox theology upon leaving St. Louis. Discussions and classes on the church were fresh on my mind. I had read some of the missional/emerging guys and was speaking their language – the language of a young generation of evangelicals who desired the church to be real, authentic – and active.
I thought that I might come through this ministry project with some fresh ideas of how the church in rural Iowa might be “missional.” I thought that this new and healthy theology that I was so enjoying would incarnate revolutionary and innovative paradigms of “church” as I pressed it into my rural Iowa surroundings. But it didn’t.
I was humbled and taken to task by my day-in, day-out experiences in the Arthur Evangelical Free Church. I had far more to learn and appreciate than I did to teach and instruct. Perhaps this is an area, again, where it really benefited me to be a part of one congregation for the 5 months instead of spending a day here and there in surveys and interviews. I gradually came to understand that this church was a “missional” church – although it certainly would never call itself that (too presumptuous, theological, haughty). I’ve been taking part in the work, life, and activities of a rural Iowa missional church for 5 months – but haven’t really realized that until a couple of months ago.
Of course, the concept of a missional church is rooted in missio Dei and brings with it a gigantic and paradigm-shifting theological system of creation-fall-redemption-consummation that I have so come to revel in. But, surely a possible starting point (and much more than that) would be the care for widows, orphans, and the poor that are so often mentioned throughout the pages of scripture. So, let’s talk about widows, orphans, and the poor as a doorway into a missional church.
There are many, many widows (and older folks) around here. Many more than there are young people. The elderly are remnants of another way of life – a way of permanence and a certain settled-ness. A family in the Arthur Evangelical Free Church saw the many widows in the area and began a widow’s ministry that is supported wholeheartedly by the church. Four times a year the church basement is turned into a banquet hall and the widows are invited to come and eat a meal. Most of them are probably able to make ends meet and don’t need food – it’s not like a food pantry or soup kitchen. What many of these women don’t have is companionship and regular care and contact. Many are lonely.
I helped at the most recent Widow’s Luncheon – in early November – and there were around 130 widows who showed up for the meal (and it had snowed that day). The basement of this tiny country church was packed with elderly women from an area that stretched probably close to 100 miles – the vast majority were not from the Arthur Evangelical Free Church. But the basement was not just packed with widows. It was packed with members of the congregation who came to do anything that they could to help these women who had spent their lifetimes caring for others.
I think that it’s safe to say that most of these women were at one time married to farmers – and the life of a farmwife is not easy. These women had spent their lives giving away themselves for the sake of their husbands, children, churches, community, and farms. They had milked cows and collected eggs, cleaned house and mended fences, washed ears and sang in the choir, baked cookies and hauled corn. These women, like the men, were women who worked.
There were between 25-30 members of the congregation who helped that day. That’s in a church that averages 130 for Sunday morning worship. There were men who took the day, or several hours, off of work to come and serve. The helpers were young men and women with little children, there were middle-aged helpers, there were retired folks. We parked cars and escorted the less-able along the sidewalk and down the stairs, we took coats and poured lots of decaf coffee, we brought dishes of turkey, stuffing, and gravy back and forth from the kitchen, we talked and smiled. A broad cross-section of the congregation comes out 4 times a year to help serve a basement full of widows.
In addition to the meal, there is a short devotional time in which the woman who began the ministry shares a short little message while the women eat. I thought her message was incredibly sensitive of who these women were and where they had come from. She talked about old farm-houses and continued to use that illustration throughout her devotional.
But it isn’t just 4 times a year that these widows are ministered to. The elderly woman who heads up the ministry makes regular contact with all of these women. She has a planner that is full of their birthdays and sends them birthday cards. She lets them know her phone number and encourages them to call her if they need anything. They can call her and she can help because he son-in-law’s business is taking care of these widows. He also does other fix-it and home-repair type work. But if a widow calls and she needs help with anything, he drops what he’s doing and goes to help her. I worked next to that guy on the day of the widow’ss luncheon and he clearly knew many, if not most, of the widows who came to our door. He joked with them and they with him. He helps with projects around their homes and things that they just can’t do anymore, but he also keeps them company and loves them in real and tangible ways when many have forgotten them. If the widow’s ministry – that is so heartily supported by the congregation – is not an activity of a missional church then I don’t know what is.
There aren’t many orphans in rural Iowa. But there are many rough homes, many single mothers, many alcoholic and distant fathers, and many troubled families. For the last 25 years or so the Arthur Evangelical Free Church has been providing Wednesday night activities to many of the children that come from these homes. We average nearly 200 folks in the church on Wednesday nights. Many, many of these kids do not come from the Free Church and many, many of these kids do not have a church home. We attract the roughest kids – and I’m not sure why – except that we will take them and they find a place that will have them.
There is an AWANA program in which many of the congregation participate. Many of the rough kids who grow up going to AWANA just keep coming to Youth Group. I’ve been working with the Senior High Youth Group these past 5 months and most of the kids there do not go to the Arthur Free Church. Many are rough kids, most are from broken homes, and many of them are in desperate need of hope in a school-system that has the highest percent teenage alcohol use in the state.
Our goal isn’t to create perfect little kids, but to love and care for those troubled kids who choose to come to our door. We have our share of problems – they are a rowdy bunch. We almost had a fight last week. But these kids need someone to care, they need a place that is safe, they need the Lord. I’m not sure what else a church could do to serve and love the orphans of their community.
The poverty rate is not high in this county. But there are not many who are well-off. There are many, many folks who just get by – but that’s about it. A doctor who recently moved into town noted how amazed she was at the low levels of income that were the norm throughout the community.
There are two large factories in town. Gomaco makes paving equipment. Midwest makes boat trailers. With the downturn in the economy Midwest recently permanently laid-off 82 employees. 82 families may not seem much, but in a small community as this that is a ton. That is a substantial amount of people who had some of the most secure and well-paying jobs in the community – and there aren’t many other jobs for these folks to turn to.
The church took an offering to provide food for these laid-off folks during the Thanksgiving Eve service. Enough money was given for about 2 large shopping carts full of food for each family. The church worked with a local grocery store and was able to buy the food at-cost. Several guys brought this massive amount of food to the church basement and we set up a little grocery store there. In groups of two, members of the congregation went through this church basement grocery store and filled up boxes and bags with food for each laid off employee who wanted the food. Then each portion of food (which would fill-up a trunk and backseat combined) was delivered by two members of the congregation to the laid-off employee.
My wife and I delivered to a woman about 25 miles away from the church. She didn’t realize how much food there was going to be and we just kept bringing in box after box. She was truly overwhelmed and didn’t know what to say. We asked how she was doing, if she needed anything else and what she could use prayer for.
The church isn’t sure how we can continue to minister to these people, but many are concerned and working through what might be the best way to help over the long-term if necessary.
These are just 3 examples of care for widows, orphans and the poor – but this church is caring (and has cared) for its local community in a very real and thoughtful way over many years. There are not Sunday School classes on how to be a missional church. There are not campaigns emphasizing the needs of those around the church. These are just very practical and hardworking people who take their Bibles very literally and straightforwardly. The Bible says to care for widows, orphans, and the poor. They see the needs of widows, orphans, and the poor around them. They don’t talk about any theological structure or about being “agents of redemption.” They just do something.
Are there more things that could be done? Of course. Could the church move even more in this direction? Certainly. Nevertheless, the real and present needs of the community that the church has been confronted with are normally (from what I’ve seen) taken very seriously. These are practical and no-nonsense people. From this foundation of Scriptural convictions and a life of action I think that it would not take an earthquake for these folks to be moved towards more action and more biblically-centered outreach and mission. Someone needs to present a thoroughly compelling case – not with big words or theological reasoning. But with clear and simple biblical basis, and then a clear and readily obvious community problem – from there substantial numbers of the congregation would get their wheels moving and looks for very practical and tangible ways to help.
Most folks in the church are staunch republicans who want little government, little welfare, and much freedom, liberty, and self-determination. That’s probably both a good and a bad thing as far as taking care and ministering to the needs of those around them. It’s positive because they don’t necessarily want to rely on the government to provide for the needs of the less able. A church leader could really leverage these right-leaning sentiments to get the church more and more active in providing for the needs in the community – instead of the tax-supported, bureaucratic mess of state assistance.
However, this same tendency could be a difficult obstacle – especially over time. These are folks who want to see action and want to see people pull themselves up and get it together. There is compassion – to a point. But really taking the initiative to care for truly hurting folks over the long haul might be difficult because anyone not working for long, or unhealthy for long, or really needy for long is going to be seen as lazy. I understand and appreciate the desire for people to pay and work for their own living. But there are complication and nuances – not to mention tragically and thoroughly broken people who a church (if she really wants to care for their community) is going to have to look after for a long, long time. That could be an issue for this particular congregation as it looks to be more and more of a blessing in its own local community.
Reflections: Theology This is a church that is thoroughly (without most knowing – or caring) dispensational and arminian in its theology – two systems of theology that I heartily disagree with. The good thing is that most in the congregation don’t know it (and could not even identify those words). It is what they have been taught from the pulpit for a long time. These are practical people who read their Bibles very straightforwardly and are nearly woodenly literalistic in their interpretations of text. It makes sense to me that a dispensational system that prides itself in such a strict literalism would find a welcome place here. Many in the congregation would not readily accept any sort of biblical interpretation that employs typology, analogy, poetry, allegory, or a sense of progressive revelation.
The makings of an even more thoroughly missional church would have to do without these theological underpinnings (at least for a while). I have heard many-a-person talk about heaven and “getting people saved” in the kind of stereotypical sort of way that we make fun of – but they are dead serious. I’m not saying that salvation isn’t an eternally and vastly serious issue – it certainly is and should be. But the goal of the Christian life is getting yourself and others to heaven – and not much else. I have heard that said in as many words. There is no redeeming all of life, Lordship of Christ, and certainly no creation-fall-redemption-consummation storyline.
It seems to me that the task of a pastor or church leader, in such a church setting, would be to move this congregation of true saints and steadfast believers toward a more Reformed and all-of-life theology and biblical hermeneutic. This would have to be done pastorally, sensitively, gradually, and subversively – and certainly over the long haul. This system of doctrine and theology is what one would find in most broadly evangelical churches (EFCA, SBC, LCMS, AOG, etc) in rural Iowa.
It seems that one way to move a church towards a more full understanding of their life and faith before God would be to tie what they are already doing back into The Story. In sermon illustrations tie their hard physical work back into what Jesus came to do – and what it means to be a Christian. Preach relentlessly about vocation (without using that word) and the true honor and dignity of their hard work and simple community care. It isn’t so much that this and other similar churches need to change their ways and become “more missional.” This and similar churches need to be moved over the long haul towards seeing their work, lives, and simple care as truly being part of God’s mission and His work of redemption.
Again, this would take a long time – perhaps several generations of subversive sermon illustrations and faithful preaching from the Word of God. The present theological systems within which most of this congregation is unknowingly operating do not offer the resources, scope, or biblical hermeneutic to get to the more entrenched and systemic issues of rural Iowa such as environmental care, methods of agriculture, and economic development.
However long it would take, these honest and hardworking people take their Bibles and their lives before the Lord very seriously. They desire to follow Him and to bring others to know Him. I am convinced that they would gradually become convicted and converted to a more all-of-life theology over much time.
Reflections: Belonging/Place More than anything else what that would take is time. It would take a commitment to a church and its people for the long haul without the condescending attitudes that are both all-too-familiar and summarily dismissed by the rural folks around here. It would take the sacrifice of love for theological discussions, coffee shops, slick church worship – and whatever else we hold dear. To really become a member of the community by incarnating myself into the midst of it by working hard and getting cracked and calloused hands, drinking (and enjoying) heavily watered down coffee, heartily singing and bringing my whole self in worship for songs (and arrangements) that I wouldn’t necessarily choose, and swallowing my theological elitism for the sake of love and sacrifice over many, many years.
It seems that most successful missional church ventures ought to take investment and time in a particular and local community seriously. But this is especially true in rural places where pastors come and go on their way to someplace bigger and better, and where there is an almost tangible sense of despair sometimes because of declining populations, infrastructure, economies, and communities. There are plenty of people and pulpits that offer trite words of optimism and comfort. Perhaps one of the deepest and most profound callings of a rural Iowa pastor is to offer and be an incarnated and permanent fixture of hope in a rural community and church. N. T. Wright writes of our call to be people who live lives of resurrection hope – believers who live as signposts marking the way towards the resurrection of all things. This is the hope that I’m talking about. It means belonging and placing oneself and one’s family. It means being rooted and established – that this resurrection hope might take root in the lives and imaginations of those with whom we live and worship.
The Lord has refined my sense of calling through this ministry project. I see the needs of rural Iowa more than ever. But these 5 months have given me a renewed sense of hope in what the church is already up to. The Arthur Evangelical Free Church is perhaps rather unique – but the people of that church are typical rural Iowa folks who any congregation would be filled with.
We would love (love!) to stay in this area, find work somewhere, and continue in this church and community for the long haul – seeking to live lives of resurrection hope by living un-expectantly and surprising lives. By restoring the old barn across the road and praying for a way to use it to serve the needs of the community, by having a harvest party in which we deliberately celebrate the Lord of the harvest, by opening our home for costly and sacrificial hospitality for a long time, by teaching a Sunday School class, by whatever else the Lord might bring our way. We would love for Him to call us this way.
But, while we wait and pray for His provision of work and finances to stay here, we are pursuing different pastoral callings in rural Iowa churches. We would enjoy that call and would feel so privileged to minister in such a way. Whatever course the Lord provides for our financial stability we believe our foundational calling to be the same: to live a life and provide a place of resurrection hope in a rural Iowa community for the long haul.
Ministry Project (MA491), supervised by Dr Anthony Bradley · Covenant Theological Seminary · 16 December 2008