From the pastor’s desk...
Text Box: Pastor offers up a small-church manifesto By Norman Tippens Enough already. Is it just me, or are mega-churches the only Christian congregations worthy of mention in the media or for discussion in religious circles these days? These congregations with 2,000 or more in attendance for regular weekend services (by accepted definitions) have started gobbling up the scenery like Sylvester Stallone in a Rambo flick. Is this small-church pastor shell-shocked, or have we reached a point that if you don’t have drop-down screens, a rock band, a stage and a see-through Plexiglas pulpit in the sanctuary, you’re no longer considered church? Churches today are either mega-churches or mega-wannabes. Therefore, I offer this “Small Church Manifesto”. We will no longer purchase any teaching videos and books produced by mega-church pastors. I recently completed a well-recommended video series in which the deeply tanned mega-church pastor related how he won a member of his yacht racing team to the Lord. Ill give that a shot as soon as I gather my 2005 Buick LeSabre racing team. We will no longer feel guilty that our 1897-version sanctuary is not suited for today’s contemporary worship services. I appreciate the expert advice on this, but we have not plans to rip out pews just so folks can jump around. The backs of those pews have been worn smooth by countless burdened folks pulling themselves up to sing “Amazing Grace” one more time. I think we ought to keep them around until the Lord returns as testimony that we at least tried to live as we ought. We will no longer feel that pastors of small churches are inferior just because they haven’t led trips to the Holy Land or walked through AIDS-ravaged villages overseas and sent streaming videos back (to play on those drop-down screens). Additionally, we believe that just because a pastor doesn’t know how to turn on a lapel mike does not mean her theology is unsound. Neither we believe, is a pastor’s theology suspect because he doesn’t wear his shirttails out and sit on a stool while preaching. We will no longer feel that a sermon is lacking something if it doesn’t include a video clip from a major motion picture. We believe that any sermon with two or more video illustrations has ceased to be a sermon and has become a film festival. We will no longer use any statistics produced by religious research groups that are paid by our denominational contributions used to predict our extinction. We will no longer feel envious when we carpool to a special event and find a bus- I mean a real “Greyhound” sized bus- with the name of a mega-church painted on the side parked at the curb spewing fumes in our faces. We conclude that mega-church folks travel in buses because they are all strangers to each other. Besides, it is much easier to pull a car into the Krispy Kreme parking lot on the way home. We will no longer feel like second-class Christians because the offering we took to send mosquito nets to Africa is minuscule compared to the amount trumpeted by the mega-church. We believe that an offering increases in important in direct proportion to the amount of time and effort it took for one of our seniors living on Social Security to fumble around in her pocketbook for that quarter she knew was there somewhere. So I say to you today, small churches, we must no longer allow ourselves to be dismissed like last year’s cell phone. Let us demand our place around the ecclesiastical table. Join me in mailing road maps to our churches to our leaders who have forgotten us. But, what do I know? I’m a small-church pastor who spent over $50,000 (in 1980s dollars) to get a theological education so I could lead a congregation that averages over 50 folks each week. That doesn’t look like much until you consider that on one recent Sunday, when I asked for prayer needs and began to write them on the back of my bulletin I later counted 20 from a group of about 40. If I believed in using statistics (which I don’t) I’d say that if 50 percent of your congregation asks for prayer one Sunday morning, you must be meeting a need. Tippens was at the time of this article pastor of Memorial United Methodist Church in Hampton. This article is a good reminder for us at Mount Pleasant that we are an important part in the kingdom of God and let’s not forget that!! Blessings, Pastor Barbara

Dr. Barbara M. Filling

Phone: 804-829-5015

 

Office Hours:

Tuesday 10:00am-1:00pm

Wed 5:30pm-8:00pm

Thurs 10:00am-1:00pm

Sunday 9:30am-12:300m

 

Email: bmfglf@va.metrocast.net

or

pastor@mtpleasantbc.com

 

 

Mt. pleasant Baptist church

Proudly serving Charles city since 1776