Help for the Small-Church Pastor

Rating:
Summary: Encouragement and guidance from one who has "been there".
Review: Within _Help for the Small-Church Pastor_ you will find that Steve Bierly seems to have firsthand knowledge of one's church and the true feelings one has about his or her congregation. As a pastor of a small church in the Northeast, Bierly speaks as one who has "been there." He does not offer various recipes for numerical growth. That is not the purpose. It seems his primary task is to encourage the correct perspectives and attitudes for the leader in the small church. One of my favorite quotes from the book is, "To be blunt, the sins of impatience, jealousy, discontent, and walking by sight instead of by faith are behind some of the frustrations that small-church leaders experience. We want what other congregations have and we want it *now*!"

He encourages such ministers to rejoice with even small progress, just as a parent does with a child. Pushing one's own agenda upon the small church, no matter how pure the motives, can result in a backlash of mistrust and resentment. The minister was not called to the church to apply "prepackaged, ready-made answers. Instead," according to Bierly, " the pastor is supposed to work with the family to find solutions that seem reasonable to everyone." The small church has a culture all it's own, and the smart church leader will be dedicated to learning that culture and becoming "one of them," as opposed to an outsider whose only desire is to change things, running over long-held traditions in the process.

Reviewed by Donald W. White, minister of the Lakeview Church of Christ