Reviewing A Big Gospel in Small Places

A BIG GOSPEL IN SMALL PLACES:
Why ministry in forgotten communities matters
By Stephen Witmer
IVP (USA). 204 pages. £13.70
ISBN 978 0 830 841 554

This watershed book could bring a much-needed turning point for evangelicalism.

As someone who has tried for over 20 years to raise the profile and priority of helping little churches I rejoiced to read every page. The Gospel Coalition have got behind it, and now that the Americans are highlighting work in small places perhaps we will at last begin to get somewhere.

Steve Witmer, is a highly trained pastor with a prestigious doctorate who ministers in the small town of Pepperell, Massachusetts. Obviously that brings a US colouring to his approach to the subject, but he has thought things through very thoroughly. The book falls into three sections, but it climbs to a crescendo. Whatever you do, don’t miss out on the last chapter.

Main body

The first section asks ‘what are small places like?’ We are given a sociological tour of small towns and their mentality laced with helpful anecdotes. Small towns are in some aspects better and in other aspects worse than we imagine. But the strident note is that everyone, no matter where they live, needs to hear the gospel.

The second section raises the question of how to go about fruitful ministry in little communities. Here the book unpacks why small and slow can be wise. The church in small locations must be a local church, a listening church, a serving church, a celebrating church and a proclaiming church.

The third section gets personal. It encourages the reader to ask: ‘Should I be ministering in a small place?’ The pros and cons are presented. And while of course there are good reasons for ministering in cities, some of the reasons that some men give for avoiding small places are not only cringe-worthy, they are almost Satanic in their proud attitude. By contrast Wilmer rightly insists: ‘No human being is overqualified to minister to other human beings’ (p.149).

The book has a strong emphasis throughout on the call of God to different situations. This is healthy and helpful. Among rather ‘secularised’ evangelicals I know, the idea of God’s call has been out of favour. But when we dismiss it we tend to fall back on our own ideas of what we see as ‘strategic’. We ‘lean on our own understanding’ (Prov. 3.5,6), when perhaps God can see a bigger picture than we can.

Climax

In the final chapter Witmer is prepared to humbly and gently take on the ‘prioritise the city’ approach popularised by Tim Keller. Of course, we need and celebrate city ministry, but has it been so pushed that gifted ministerial candidates now do not even consider the possibility of taking on a small situation?

There are three major arguments in favour of city ministry which Witmer questions in quite devastating ways.

The historical argument cites Paul’s mission strategy as focusing on first-century cities. But the author notices that Jesus did the opposite and mostly restricted himself to rural areas. And anyway, wasn’t Paul’s ‘city strategy’ (if it was a strategy) with the intention that the whole surrounding area should be influenced (as per Thessalonica for example). In the present day, city ministry seems to get stuck in the city and perhaps the suburbs.

The strategic argument says that cities shape national cultures, so concentrate on reaching the city elites. But does that really work? Hasn’t there emerged recently a marked division between the city and the country (as seen in Brexit voting patterns and reflected again in the recent General Election). It is unlikely now that the city will shape rural regions by osmosis. We have to go intentionally to the rural areas with the gospel. And don’t the statistics indicate that the flow of world population in our day is from the country to the city – so to expect the city to influence the country is to go against the tide.

An eschatological argument is sometimes deployed to insist on city ministry trumping all else. Doesn’t the Bible begin in a garden and end in a city? But that is too simplistic. Revelation actually portrays the new Jerusalem as a garden city and ‘the garden part isn’t less important than the city part,’ (p.178).

We should not prioritise the city. We should prioritise everywhere. We’re told Jesus visited all the towns and villages of Galilee (Matt. 9.35).

I closed the book feeling that pastors in small situations had been vindicated. They are not the poor relations and village idiots which they are virtually assumed to be by those who call the shots in evangelicalism. In fact, most of them are true heroes.

Read an extract from A Big Gospel In Small Places