I have been noticing more and more that churches are integrating the traditional Children’s Christmas program, into an inter-generational event. Our church has never intentionally done it (I and others have had to fill in when a child came down with the flu on the weekend of the program), but it sounds like a fun way to do things. Have any of you done this before? What were the benefits? Drawbacks? I’d really like to know as we look forward to Christmas 2011.

God bless, Dan

My uncle was a farmer and did a lot of work with the Dairy association until his retirement. He once told me, “Dan, farmers could become the most powerful union in the world, if we would only work together.” Then he’d smile and say, “But it will never happen. We’re too independent.”

I see a lot of that rural pastors. We tend to be more independent and do less with other pastors, than pastors in more highly populated areas. Why is that? Is it because each parish has a different set of issues they are dealing with than say a neighbor church fifteen miles away? Is it that the pastor takes on the characteristics of the people of the parish who tend to be very independent? Do people drawn to rural ministry go there because they are more independent in the first place? Are pastors more independent because they have wear more hats in the parish than larger churches where a division of labor takes place?

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I think it is true. I’m not sure it’s healthy, but I think it is a reality. And what to do about it, if anything is anyone’s guess.

Want to weigh in with a guess?

God bless, Dan

I got away for a few days of vacation after Thanksgiving. We stayed at a hotel. I love watching people. When I sat by the pool, I watched people. The window in our room which overlooked the hotel’s lobby gave me a great vantage point in this hobby of mine.

One thing I really noticed this time was how many people walked with a limp. Young men, older men, young women, older women, even some children, favoring one leg over the other. I wonder what caused their limps? I wonder what life lesson they learned from that their limp (like Jacob)? One thing I took away from this insight is the fact that life can be really hard at times and none of us will walk through life unscathed.

As a pastor who works hard in the area of a person’s spiritual life, I also wondered what condition their soul’s were in. Were their souls as beaten up as their physical bodies? Do their souls need some healing?

I talked with one man at the hotel. He was around 60. He walked with a profound limp due to a bad hip which he attained after years of working on the farm and milking cows. He was a member of a small rural church near where he lived. He said he liked worshiping and always felt better after church.

His church probably can’t always do much with a person’s physical disabilities, but it was helping him in the healing of his wounded soul. For that, I say, “God bless you church, for all that you are doing for that man.”

We have a job to do in our communities. We have a lot of limping and wounded people around us, and spiritually speaking, we are called to be their doctors.

The experience of watching people limp this past weekend, has helped me get my focus back as a pastor. We need to help bring healing to people. For opening my eyes to this, I thank the Lord. And I thank all of you for the doctoring you do inside and outside your church.

God bless, Dan

Our area clergy met with our Bishop last night. During that time, the Bishop asked us to share some of the things that our churches are doing for the people in our communities. We were a small gathering, but we found no shortage of things to share. By the time we were done, I had to stand back and exclaim, “Wow, all these small acts really add up!”

The Bishop concluded that portion of our time by saying, “Thank you.”

On the Eve of Thanksgiving, the Bishop’s message has extra meaning. We not only have a lot to be thankful for, but we also are doing many things for our neighbors in the name of Christ that they are thankful for. I really appreciated the way the Bishop ended his time, with a simple yet utterly sincere “Thank you.”

I’m not a Bishop, but I hope you who are reading this, can feel my total sincerity, when I say to you on this Thanksgiving Eve: “Thank you all for the many ways you bless the people in your church and community. Thank you.”

God bless, Dan

I was reading a book about a pastor this morning. In it she was sharing how as the church she was at grew and grew – from one service a Sunday, to three – an emptiness in her soul, and her body began to feel fatigued under the demands of the job. And you know what? Instead of feeling her pain, I felt myself growing angry at her. I found myself saying, “I wish I could find out what that kind of growing pain feels like.” In my mind, I even told her to quite crying about it.

I was jealous, no hurt that the church I am at, after almost 19 years, is still at one service a Sunday. Nor do we have building plans in the making (unless you count our contemplating buying another acre for the cemetery).

After putting down the book and beginning my prayer time, I found one phrase capturing the moment. I think it was from God, because for the next fifteen minutes as I thought about my ministry here, all I was saying out loud was: “Make this about you Jesus, make this about You.”

I have since apologized to the author of the book and am hard at work right now in the office: in the church I have been called too; to minister to the people I have been called to minister too; in the community that I call home, and they have been kind enough to call me a brother and our family, kin.

Ministry, so often I need that reminder: “It’s about Jesus. It’s all about You.”

God bless, Dan

Our church just finished up a study on prayer. We used Maxie Dunnam’s book: “the Workbook of Living Prayer.” I am not a fan of canned material, but I have to say this was a very good study and well received by those who took part in the study.

But (isn’t there always that!?), over the course of the six weeks we met (once per week), the number of people gathering after the third week three, began to dwindle, and we kind of limped to an end. It gets me frustrated that each study seems to go that way.

I kind of feel like the sower in Jesus’ parable – some seeds grow, some start and die and some don’t even root. Is there a way to help lead the group through from beginning to end without losing some on the way? It’s a question I really ask you people because I’d love to get some insights into keeping people all they way to the end. Is there any suggestions and help out there?

God bless, Dan

P.S. If you are looking for a study on prayer, I recommend that you look into this book. It has good material and is easy to work with. And if you are interested, I’d be happy to send you the notes I used with them that seemed to help the group.

In the fall issue of “Leadership,” Brandon O’Brien has an article about being a minister in a small church. One of his points is that because most of the church events for pastors are run by mega-church leaders, we too often lose the ability to see the church we are at clearly. We begin to think that our church should look like their church, and when it doesn’t, we become discouraged and angry at our parish for failing to meet these expectations.

He writes: “Many ministers have surrendered their judgment about what constitutes ‘the authentic church experience’ to expectations shaped by experts. These experts write books, speak at conferences and typically lead large and influential congregations. Because of their success, we imagine them to be great pioneers who are part of something we have never seen – the ‘real’ church experience. Over time, the experts … have made it difficult for us to appreciate our own experience apart from theirs. We have lost the ability to see and experience and appreciate ministry for ourselves. All we can see is the disparity between what our churches are and what they are ‘supposed’ to be.”

What Brandon goes on to tell the rural and small church pastor, is that we have to open our eyes and see what we have. Then with clear focus – seeing the church as it is, what it has to offer, and in the context of its unique setting – the leader can then begin to lead the church appropriately and fulfill the plans God has for that particular church.

A lot of wisdom there! God bless, Dan

In my denomination, we are asked to do 25 hours of continuing education a year. I think it is a good idea, but I have to admit that I am not getting close to that. Why? One of the reasons is that being a solo pastor in a two point parish, I don’t have any staff to cover when I am gone. So far this year I have signed up for $300 worth of continuing education events, only to have someone in the parish die. The money is non-refundable. Because of this I find myself not signing up for things until the very last minute. But when I don’t sign up in advance, my schedule gets so filled up with things that when the time comes, I talk myself out of going. I know that is my own fault, but it is the reality I find myself in. Also living out in the boon-dox makes it harder to get to events. Are some of you other pastors facing the same difficulties when it comes to con ed? One help I have found is ordering continuing education events that are on CD’s or tapes. I can then run off to a hotel and listen to them and get some hours in this way. Not ideal, as it isolating, but at least if an emergency does come up, I don’t lose my money. What are some of the ways you get your continuing education in? God bless, Dan.

P.S. Had some trouble with the web site and lost some people’s comments. I don’t know what happened. Thank you for your replies. If you’d resubmit them that would be great.

Tomorrow we celebrate All Saints Sunday, I am going to be sharing some of the lessons I have learned from the many saints I have encountered in my almost 19 years in Argyle. The point I want to get across is that even in a small town and small church, the Lord provides us with an abundance of spectacular witnesses.

Too often we get caught up in the saints business and think saints are “big” people; well they are, but big doesn’t mean famous.

God bless and send up a word of praise for the saints that have blessed us so much. Dan

P.S. Thanks for the comments. I will keep going with this site. But please feel free to send me things that you want to talk about, or would like to see. And feel free to send me your own comments and I will print them as a blog giving you the credit. I really want to make this a dialog.

This site has been up for almost two years now. My hope was that it would be a place where rural ministers could share ideas and feelings. What it was never intended to be was a blog site to see what Dan Bohlman was thinking. What I find is that the latter seems to be what this site has become.

For those of you that are reading this, would you share with me what you would like to see at this site. What could I be doing so that this site could better meet your needs? What things could I change so that more people would add their idea’s and feelings about the many issues rural ministers and people in rural churches face?

Like we all know, some ideas seem so good, but for one reason or another, just don’t work. I’m wondering if this is one of them. But I do continue to believe that rural ministers don’t have much of a support system and if this site can help in anyway, I’m more than willing to do what needs to be done. Please let me know what you are thinking.

God bless, Dan