A good share of the churches that call us are in towns most people have never heard of. A county seat of four thousand. A farming community where the church has stood since 1890. A mountain town that doubles in summer and empties by October. They have the same question as every other church, where do we find a pastor, and almost none of the resources written for them, because most of what is written assumes a suburb.
So here is what we have learned, walking with rural churches through searches that worked and a few that did not.
Why a Rural Search Is Different
Three things change. First, the pool is smaller. Many pastors, and especially their wives, will not consider a town without a hospital, a decent school, or a reasonable drive to family. That is not a judgment on them; it is a reality you should know going in. Second, the stakes of a bad fit are higher. In a city a pastor who does not fit can move to another church across town. In a small town there is no across town, and a failed pastorate is felt by everyone for a decade. Third, the church is often more than a church. It may be the only evangelical witness for twenty miles, the place the town gathers for funerals, and the one institution that still knows everyone’s name. The man you call is stepping into all of that.
Who Will Actually Come
The men who thrive in rural churches tend to come from one of a few places. Some grew up rural and want to go home; they understand that the hardware store is a pastoral visit and that you do not schedule a meeting during harvest. Some are seasoned men in their fifties who have done their city years and want to finish well in a place where ministry is personal. Some are younger men with a genuine burden for small places, often shaped by a seminary professor or a mentor who had one.
The men who struggle are the ones who see the rural church as a stepping stone to something bigger. The congregation senses it within six months, and so does the man. Ask every candidate, directly and kindly, why he wants to be in a place like yours. Then listen to how long it takes him to answer.
Telling Your Story Honestly
Rural churches tend to undersell themselves in their postings, and then oversell themselves in the interview. Reverse that. Your posting should say plainly what is good: the stability of a congregation that has worshiped together for generations, the freedom of a church with no staff politics, the real affection of a town that will adopt the pastor’s children as its own. Those are not consolation prizes. For the right man they are the whole point.
Then, in the interview, be honest about what is hard. The drive to the hospital. The school that may not have advanced classes. The fact that the last pastor left after three years and the one before him after two. A man who is called to your church can handle the truth. A man who is scared off by it was going to leave anyway, and better now than in year two.
Searching from a small town?
More than half the churches Premier serves are under 200 people, many of them rural, and we know which men will drive out to see you. There is no cost to an initial conversation.
What It Takes to Keep Him
- Pay him fairly for your region. Rural does not mean cheap. The benchmark has numbers for churches your size; a parsonage counts, and so does health insurance, which is often the deciding line item for a family.
- Give his wife a reason to stay. A pastor’s wife who is isolated in a town where she knows no one is the single most common reason rural pastorates end early. The women of the church can change that in a month if they decide to.
- Protect his study time. In a small town everyone knows where the pastor’s truck is. Agree up front on mornings in the study, and have the elders enforce it when a member complains.
- Let him lead. Churches that have been run by the same three families for forty years sometimes call a pastor and then will not let him pastor. Decide before you call him whether you will follow.
A Word of Hope
The Lord is not confused by population figures. Some of the most fruitful ministries we have seen are in churches that will never appear on anyone’s list of growing congregations, led by men who stayed twenty years and buried half the town. Those men exist. They are serving somewhere right now, and some of them are praying for a place exactly like yours.
Your job is to find them, tell them the truth about your church, and then take care of them when they come. That is not a smaller task than the one a large church faces. In some ways it is the more important one.