I came across this true story told by Max DePree, it really speaks to rural and small town pastors as we sometimes struggle with the numbers game.

He writes: “My brother-in-law came off an Iowa farm and went to seminary when he was around 35. He pastored white Protestant churches until he moved to Bushwick, New York, where he pastored a black church for many years. Then he retired and moved to Grand Rapids where he bought a church building in the heart of the black community.

“The primary thrust of the church is the after-school program for the children of the neighborhood. Over 100 children show up. He recruits many people to teach sewing, accounting, remedial reading – whatever is needed. Then in the summer, he leads a day-long, six-week course concluding with graduation exercises. He’s doing all this – even the janitorial work – though he’s now in his 70s.

“But every Sunday he holds a service and preaches a sermon. At the most, eight people attend. One day somebody asked him, “Isn’t that kind of hard, preaching to only eight people?”

“Nothing hard about that,” he said. “The Lord called me to preach. He never said anything about how many.”

I don’t know about you, but at times I need that reminder from time to time. Playing the numbers game in a rural or small town church is so deadly, and in the end, it will cause a pastor to a place where the numbers will be consistently higher, or it will cause him or her to walk away in defeat.

But since when does numbers play a higher role in the ministry than that four letter word “call”? Call is what ministry is really all about. If you know that God called you to the place you are then rejoice and celebrate the fact that you ARE where you are supposed to be. You are preaching to those to whom you have been called to preach to. And you are ministering to those to whom God wants you to minister too.

The numbers may not be high, but that can NEVER overshadow the fact that you are EXACTLY where God has called you. Rejoice in that, and again I say rejoice!

God bless, Dan