Is Your Church Responsible for Your Community?

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, Pastor TJ Freeman discusses the importance of recognizing who your church is accountable for. He shares his experience at Christ Church in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, and emphasizes the need for healthy rural churches to glorify God. TJ explains that churches are responsible for two groups: their congregation and the local lost population. He offers practical advice on mapping out your community to ensure everyone has multiple opportunities to hear the gospel. TJ encourages churches to mobilize their members to actively spread God’s word and partner with other like-minded churches to cover their regions effectively.

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Transcript

Who are the people God has made your church accountable for? Do you have an answer to that question? Well, that's what we wanna talk about on this episode of Rural Church Renewal. Stay tuned. 

Well, thank you for joining us and by us I do mean me for another episode of Rural Church Renewal. My name is TJ Freeman. I am one of the pastors at Christ Church in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, and I have for the last 13 years been a rural pastor. I came to this church when we were about 60 people, in decline, meeting at a little white church, in a community that's in decline.

The Lord's been really kind to bring some renewal here at our church and seeing his work in my heart to help me appreciate rural places, actually, to love them and to see some renewal in our church has just been a great joy, and that's led to some conversations like the ones we've been having here on the Rural Church Renewal Podcast. We want to see God's glory spread throughout the middle of nowhere, and that happens through the establishment and advancement of healthy rural churches.

So we wanna see a healthy church in every rural community in America, and you have a significant part of that because you're located somewhere that I ain't. But we are on the exact same mission. We want to see God glorified in places that the world looks at as the middle of nowhere, but we understand matter significantly for the sake of God's glory.

Which he happens to want to cover the earth as the water covers the sea. God wants his glory to be seen everywhere, and since the church is the most potent display of his glory, it is vital that we have healthy churches in places that the world has written off as the middle of nowhere. So what does that have to do with who your church is responsible for?

Good question. I'm glad you asked. Your church is responsible for two subsets of people. Did you know that there's the group of people that call your church home whether you've identified a strong membership process and you have meaningful membership in your church or not. The people that understand you to be their shepherd and the people that you understand yourself to be shepherding are your primary responsibility.

I don't care if you're on the church, you know, welcome committee. You're one of the pastors there at your church, or the only pastor there at your church. You're a bi-vocational or co vocational pastor, or you're the janitor. It that doesn't matter. You are playing a part in pursuing the health of your church in a small place, and it is so important that you understand who you're responsible to care for and the congregation who is there is your primary responsibility.

You are to make disciples of those people so that they are mobilized to go out after your secondary responsibility. And this is the part that I wanna drill down on a little bit, because often we don't think about this group. We have a general sense that our church is meant to make an impact on the lost.

Like the Christians in our church are supposed to witness. You're supposed to witness. We get that. We know that lost people are supposed to hear the gospel because there's a Christian in their life. The problem is, I think we generalize that a little too much, and we think about a globe full of 8 billion people.

We think about a country, if you live in the United States with 340 million. I live in Pennsylvania, I think about like 13 million there. I live in a county of 41,000 people in a town of 3,400. So we think about these big numbers and it's like, yes, Christians are generally supposed to reach the lost in all of those places.

What might help you a little bit more is to think more carefully about the geography or the, the area, the territory your church is meant to take responsibility for so that every man, woman, and child in that defined area, whatever it is. They have repeated opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the gospel because of the Christians who live there.

So here's how I would want to encourage you to think about that. On my wall in my study is a map of the state of Pennsylvania, and I have labeled every county. It's a county map. I've labeled every county with the population of that county, and I've taken green push pins. And I've shoved them right into the map, right into the wall everywhere that I know that there's a healthy-ish, generally healthy church in that county.

And I'm trying to figure it out for the whole state because I wanna know, as a resident of the state of Pennsylvania, what does it mean for me to play my part in taking responsibility for the lostness? Of that geography. Now, the heart of that for me is my county. I live in Tioga County, right around 41,000 people live here.

So I have more push pins in that map, that part of the map than anywhere else. I also have blue push pins. You wanna know what those are for? Those are for churches that I know about, but I really don't know if they're a healthy church or not. And I mean to go develop some relationship with the leadership of that church just so I can get to know 'em and see how can we help be a resource to each other.

I have yellow push pins. Those are places where there's a church that has reached out just to say, Hey. We know we have some needs. Could you help us think through them? And I just wanna give some special attention to them. And then I have red push pins. Those are the communities in each area, in each county where I don't think there's a healthy representation of the gospel through the local church there.

I. So they may have a church that's preaching a false gospel. They may have a congregation that is just kinda like hanging on, not really sure what they're doing. I just talked to somebody yesterday who said, yeah, the church right next to ours, the congregation literally said we'd rather die than change.

They're getting a red push pin 'cause they're not thinking about the heart of God. They're thinking about their own preferences and that's gonna confuse the gospel. Anyway, that's how I do this. But here's what I'm thinking of, and this is what we've talked about with our leadership team here at the church.

Again, starting with our elders, filtering down through our deacons through every member actually is aware of this. But specifically the leadership team is thinking, how do we mobilize our congregation to get after the 41,000? We're gonna partner with other churches who exist here who are preaching a faithful gospel where we have enough theological alignment to work together, and we're gonna try to all together, mobilize our congregation to go out so that they are taking responsibility for whatever little subset of the population God has entrusted to them.

So if they're in the Lions Club, they know a group of people that other people don't know. We go to the Chamber of Commerce meetings because that helps us to connect with our circle in a little different way. Some people work at the school, some work at the hospital. Some people work at the county jail.

Some people don't work at all, but they have neighbors in a, in a region. Some know the farmers, some know the folks who, you know, work at the factory. On and on we go. We, we also know, by the way. Businesses that you can go into, like barber shops, hair salons, gas stations, grocery stores. There are gonna be people there that you can begin to develop relationships with.

So we're always thinking about how do we as people that God has entrusted the gospel to go out of this building we have here on the hill and make Christ known to people who don't know him, so that everyone in our geography has repeated opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the gospel. So what's your circle as a church?

What is the region that God has entrusted to your care for you to take responsibility for? I would encourage you to grab a map. Maybe you start with just your county map. This is how we did it. We started with just our county map and we followed some of the roads around that act as natural boundaries between our community and other communities or places that our church has members and other churches don't.

And so we just looked at, okay, well we, you know, you kind of follow Route Six along here, or you know, oh, over here is Route 49. That's kind of a border. We just looked at that and said, okay, with 60 people. Can we ensure that every man, woman, and child, in that little circle we drew, has repeated opportunities to see, hear, and respond to the gospel.

If so, what's that going to take? And then we expanded a little bit and said, well, hey, our zip code is a good metric out here in rural places. That doesn't always work. In our place, it works. So who else is in our zip code that we can work together with? Let's meet with them. Let's pray. Let's talk about what it looks like to mobilize our people.

To go to them. The greatest strength that you have as a, as a church for reaching the lost isn't some program you make. Some activity you do, some invitation you extend to an event. The greatest tool you have is your people. So mobilize the people to go out as a spirit empowered group to their neighbors, to their friends, to the people in the community that they rub shoulders with and let them show Christ.

Let them explain the gospel as they build relationships intentionally toward that end. And as your people do that, your responsibility grows because in God's kindness, generally you're gonna see people come to Christ and they now are entrusted with the same responsibility. And you just keep going and you link arms with like-minded churches as best you're able.

And pretty soon you can say, Hey, our whole county. Has churches taking responsibility for making sure that 41,000 people have repeated opportunities to see here and respond to the gospel. You can start this today just by getting a map out and praying that the Lord will help you to think this through carefully and then just have some conversations with the leaders in your church about what does it look like for us to work together to mobilize our people to get after this.

This is what God wants for creation. He wants his glory to be made known through all of creation, and that happens in a significant way through the redemption of the lost and through the expansion of his church, which makes his glory known. Not just in your place, but all the way to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Suddenly, with that kind of an emphasis, you're not in the middle of nowhere anymore. You're in the middle of somewhere that God's glory is actively being displayed in a way, that is visible to Christians and to lost people in your community because of the way that God is working through the church. Listen. I don't care how small your town is. I don't care how far away the next church or community is. God has put you there, and if there's a handful of Christians gathering together to get after this work, that's what you need to be about.

The fruit of it isn't up to you. That's up to the Lord. The faithfulness to do it is the part that God has called you to, and he is gonna help you through the power of his spirit to do it just as he intends. So what have we covered today? We've covered two groups of people that your church is responsible for: the members.

If you don't have meaningful membership yet, but you're working on it, those people who call your church home and you understand them to be the sheep that you are leading. And then you have the lost people around you and you need to take responsibility for both. Your primary focus is gonna be on discipling those people who are following Christ, but your responsibility is to mobilize them to point other people, lost people to Christ.

And it's not the job of the church central to do that part as much as it is the responsibility of the church decentralized. Sent out. All around the community, around the county, throughout the state to make his glory known in your region. If you'd like to talk more about this or see a picture of the map on my wall or whatever.

Please reach out to me. My email address is tj@brainerdinstitute.com. I would love to talk with you more and just get to know about the kinds of things you are doing, especially if you happen to be in my region and I don't know you yet. I would love to get to know you because we are in this fight together.

So I hope this has been helpful and. That it compels you to go and think a little bit differently about the responsibility that your church has for the region. Thanks for tuning in. This is a ministry of the Brainerd Institute for Rural Ministry. We indeed want to see a healthy church in every rural community.

You are part of that, my dear friend. Thanks for listening and go serve Christ faithfully. We'll see you next time.