In Support of Organic Pastoring

And a look back over Greatheart's Table's first year.

I am happy to report to you that Greatheart’s Table is not dead.

Yet.

Why that would be news is not entirely obvious to most of you. When I began this newsletter, I committed myself to writing three posts each month for one year. With this, post number thirty-six, I’ve fulfilled that commitment.

But I’ve not finished the work.

I’ve written to validate the ministries of ordinary pastors, those whose deepest impulses are to preach grace and be with people. Since such pastors are not well-honored by contemporary church culture, someone needs to be reminding them that they are okay. You’re not inadequate or defective if your heart and gifting have made you a shepherd.

I’ve joked that if all I had to do was to preach and to visit those who want to be visited, pastoring would be a sweet gig. But that’s really no joke. Certainly there are other responsibilities, but this is the heart of it. I write to keep the focus of ministry where it needs to be in a world that tempts it to be elsewhere.

I was cautioned when I began Greatheart’s Table not to normalize my own experience. I’m not sure what else to do, really. Current ministry culture has normalized the entrepreneurial pastor and tended to marginalize the pastor whose gifts and passions are more, well, pastoral. Which vision of ministry ought we to normalize? I opt for the latter.

I knew in doing this that I was pushing back against the passionate pursuit of big that characterizes the American church. The American consumer, retail or ecclesiastical, is attracted by excitement and accessibility. Size and branding win the day. Main Street stores struggle to compete with Walmart and Home Depot. I’ve pushed back as hard as I’m able.

But if a writer beats a drum in the forest and everyone else is drooling over the latest successful ARC or Acts 29 church plant, does he make a sound?

Not much of one, I guess. And yet I find that Greatheart’s Table has appeared at a ripe cultural moment. Its vision is, I think, more relevant now than I could have imagined at the outset. Few have heard of Greatheart’s Table, but everyone has heard of Christianity Today’s The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. The size of the audiences aside, I think there is a relationship between the two that needs to be explored.

Mike Cosper’s excellent reporting on the pathology of the contemporary evangelical church through the lens of the Mars Hill phenomenon has stirred among some listeners a longing for an alternative vision of church, one that is more communal than corporate. Oh, big still rules, but I sense its rule fraying at the edges. Those at the edges casting about for some vision of church done differently might find what they are seeking in resources like Greatheart’s Table.

A doctor may try to persuade her patients that their unhealthy lifestyle is putting them at risk for heart disease or cancer. Obviously many of these patients will ignore this and still frequent Five Guys and Krispy Kreme. But some will hear and will want options.

Thinkers like Cosper have diagnosed a disease for which the smaller church just might provide the healthier alternative. Greatheart’s Table exists, then, to point to such an alternative. It exists to promote a vision for the church that is, we could say, organic and locally sourced. It’s less agribusiness and more family farm. Each plant has great value and its fields more polycultural.¹ The fruit, like the tomatoes we grow in our backyard and unlike those mass produced and shipped from Chile, may have more spots and bruises, but they are healthier and fresher, and in the end, more tasty.

When all we have known are the programs and glitter of the megachurch, smaller churches tend to have all the appeal of a breakfast featuring kale. But, I’m told, that once a taste for such foods is nurtured, one does not want to turn back. It’s to nurture that taste that has driven my writing, and I think I need to continue to do so.

In a world drunk on size we who pastor small churches can feel unneeded. In reality, we have the opportunity to build something unavailable elsewhere. You, pastor, are doing a good work at the right moment. Sure, your spots and bruises may be more visible, and your yield significantly less than the industrial farm across the way. But your fruit may be healthier. I write that you, and that I, might press on.

Thank you for being a part of this journey. It ultimately is you who has kept this vision, and this newsletter alive.

For a while longer.

1. I’m grateful to Covenant Presbyterian Church member Dru Fridsma for the word "polycultural." It refers to planting multiple crops in the same field. As she explained to me, “This type of land use (or regenerative farming) replenishes the soil, and yields healthier, more disease-resistant, and more nutrient-dense crops. That is a perfect illustration of what a healthy church should be!”