Leadership Journal

Six months into my new pastorate, I was stumped. In June 2004, my wife and I had moved to Chatham, Virginia, for me to become the eighteenth pastor of the historic Chatham Baptist Church.

The search process had taken three years, and the church had almost given up on finding an experienced pastor to lead them in a new direction. One search committee member sighed, "When we told prospective pastors we were a small church in a small town they quickly lost interest in talking with us."

But Debbie and I felt called to Chatham, and I thought, "I've led every church I have pastored to grow, this should be easy." But six months later, I sat stumped.

Small town life is different. It wasn't that we disliked living in Chatham, with its Norman Rockwell charm, tree-lined streets, grand old houses, and historic buildings. We did like it.

To top it off, we were living in the house of our dreams, an old 1897 Victorian situated on Chatham's bustling Main Street. Folks befriended us both in the church and community. We eased comfortably into the rhythm of small town life. If we had moved to Chatham to retire, everything would have been great.

But we weren't retiring. I was called to lead a declining congregation to the next chapter in its historic legacy. The only problem: I couldn't figure out what to do.

I had led churches to remodel buildings, buy property, launch direct mail campaigns, and dream new dreams. I knew how to lead suburban churches, but there was something different about Chatham, and I couldn't figure it out.

Of course, I had never actually lived in a small town before so it was a new experience for me. For starters, there was no Starbucks and the closest mall was 20 miles away. The movie theater closed years ago, and there wasn't much to do. I remember saying as Debbie and I drove through a small town several yars ago, "If I ever had to live in a place like this, I'd go nuts." Well, I wasn't going nuts, but I was restless. On long afternoons alone in the church office I found myself googling senior pastor position, pastor search committee and other equally desperate phrases.

Not only was the town small, the church was the smallest I had pastored since graduating from seminary 24 years earlier. In previous churches I had preached to 300-400 each Sunday. Although this church was founded in 1857 and had a distinguished history, most Sundays about a hundred showed up for worship.

The church and town weren't my only concerns. The entire region was undergoing a radical economic transformation. For more than 100 years, the economy had depended on tobacco-growing, textile-manufacturing, and furniture-building. All of that was gone. While I privately applauded healthier attitudes toward tobacco, I sympathized with the family farmers who were losing their livelihood.

Textile production in Virginia had moved to China, India, and Mexico. At its height Dan River Mills, the largest textile company in our area, had employed over 19,000 factory workers. By 2004, Dan River had less than a thousand employees on its payroll.

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