How to Have True Church Life in Small Towns and Rural Villages

This is Gene Edwards. I’ve been asked to do this tape. I’m not speaking to an audience. This is actually a result of visiting a small village and a group of Christians, and those messages were transcribed. Unfortunately, it was not possible to make those tapes available because they were recorded by a boombox sitting on the other side of the room. I’ve been asked to do a summation of them. I’m going to assume that the person or persons listening to this tape are Christians who live in a small town, in a wilderness, or in a village.

I always think of Wyoming. You folks up there don’t have anything but space, and towns are 4,000 and 5,000 people, sometimes separated by scores, if not hundreds, of miles. Your situation may not be quite that way, but there is a great deal of interest in church life among folks in small towns and villages. I’m going to start by saying to you: don’t dream a dream. It’s going to be difficult for you to have church life in your town, your village, or even more so if you’re out in open country and everybody has to come from many places to be together, or there’s a village and half the people drive in from out of the country. Don’t live in a dream world. This is not easy. Also, I want you to know that when you have finished listening to this recording, chances are excellent that there will be disagreement. It’ll be mild. I don’t mean anything difficult, and the chances are this will all just wander off. A few years later, you’ll look back, boy, I wish you would look back and remember you didn’t do this. There was a prescription for things to do, and it fizzled out. And the reason is that somebody will believe too much in human nature.

Perhaps the best thing I can say to all of you is you’re fallen, and the chances of you getting along together for the long haul are remote. There’s a lot to church life, and it’s not just coming and getting together and doing a few simple things. Those fall apart on the long haul. If they don’t fall apart, invariably it is because one strong person arose, possibly two, who kept things going. Nonetheless, that well is shallow and the bucket doesn’t hold much. Somewhere along the line, there will be problems, and the thing will fall on its face. Don’t let that happen. I would ask you, exhort you, to listen. These requests are simple, and they are based on, no, not a lifetime, just 30 years of observation and experience.

Alright, I’m going to assume now that you are in one or two categories. You’re people who don’t get together, or you’re a person who would like to have church life in your town that has 2,000, 5,000, even 15,000 or 20,000. All of those are pretty insurmountable prospects to take on. 200, 300, then you’re going to have to listen really carefully. 100, with people driving in from other places, you’re going to have to listen more carefully than anyone. That’s one possibility, that you’re just people who would like to get together. Maybe you’ve heard some recordings of mine, or you visited somewhere, or you heard somebody else. The second one is a cohesive group…meeting…I’m going to try to imagine somebody driving in from out of town. Others of you are there in your area. Maybe all of you are from that same town.

Which situation is worse? People wanting to get together who never have? A person who wants to get others to meet with him, who has nothing more than this recording to draw folks in? Or folks who are already meeting? And the answer is “yes”. Each one of them is the most difficult situation. If you’re all alone, the chances of you being able to bring together a group of people who will ever be like-minded are remote. If there are five or six of you, or ten, gathered in the room, and you’ve known one another, and maybe you can get together, chances are remote. You’re already a cohesive group, but you know you need some help. You’ve ended up with this recording. Chances of going on from here, certainly in the way that I’m going to present to you, are very remote.

Why, Gene, did you emphasize “very remote” with this last group? It’s because you have leaders, and leaders don’t give up their positions, and positions will have to yield if you’re ever going to have church life. The world is made up of those who passively follow and those who aggressively lead. Passive followers will not always follow passively, and aggressive leaders make too many mistakes and impose on God’s people. Sometime or other, this thing will rip, break, or tear, and of course, as I just said, leaders don’t give up their positions, whether titled or untitled. There is a certain, well, you know, “because I’m leading this group, God must love me.” Now, that’s a very subconscious feeling. I’m sorry, it is there. For a group of people to yield totally to one another, to start from the beginning, or to start all over again, is rare indeed.

Alright, we’ve come through step one, the kind of people who probably are listening. To those of you who would come together for the first time, there is certainly a lack of understanding and unanimity. When you begin to seek to gel that unanimity together, then many opinions arise, and a lot of questions, and folks just plain flat don’t understand, and therefore, they wonder what this is all about. Why can’t we just get together every once in a while and love each other? I would say to you, you’re going to need to listen to a lot of ministry, and I would urge you, urge you, each and all of you, pile into a car or an airplane and come to one of our conferences and meet people who have been in church life and listen to them.

Now I’m going to move into something quite interesting, and that is, let’s say there are five families of you, and three of you go. One of you wanted to, but your mama was sick, and the fifth one didn’t see the need for it. I have a question. Did the three of you families pile into that car or that plane and go? This really brings up, boy, a problem that has no resolution. What if there are some of you…you are a group…and some of you want to go on and experience a true first-century type experience of church life? Several don’t. Question: Do you therefore stop and wait on the other person, which pretty well ruins everything? Or do you move forward and make progress with one or two protestations, and maybe they will even drop out? The pain will be great, and you will fall on your face—same conclusions.

I want to say to you that you’re going to have to make these decisions individually, and hope and pray that when the smoke clears, there will be at least four families, maybe five, who can see these things and move together. I would implore those of you who do not, you don’t see this. We love one another, and the Bible says where two or three are gathered together in the name of the Lord, He’s there, and why can’t He just lead us, and why do we need to go to a conference, and why do we need a church planter, and I don’t see this stuff and I’m just not ready for it. I would just implore you: please go visit a church or a conference, listen, learn, ask, doubt, and question. More than anything else, behold a dimension of the Christian sphere that you have never, nor ever, bumped into before.

I say this to each one of you. Whichever situation you’re in right now, I say to you that some of these things cannot, and will not, come to you except by revelation. A home-brewed interpretation of Scripture, a cursory view of what you vaguely get out of an idea of the New Testament, really will be a stumbling block to you in these early, very tender moments. I know you’d have a lot of questions, but don’t try to get those questions answered among yourselves. You’re going to have to go to people who have gone through the experiences upon which you stand at the threshold. Failing that, your situation is hopeless; not “kind of” hopeless, or “maybe” hopeless. It is hopeless. Gene, why can’t we just do these things together? Well, perhaps in all the history of this century and the time to come, but in the last hundred years, it’s never happened. You can believe God’s going to do it; won’t He take care of us? No, He doesn’t. You’re going to have to go and look.

There’s also another problem: a mixed view here. Well, why don’t we go join a group of really neat people who just do this or that? I was at this organization last summer, who did that, and somebody else says we’ve really got to get into the Bible, and someone else says we’ve got to get into evangelism. These iron gates must yield. I say to you again, talk to those who have gone the way you’re considering. I’m not talking about talking to me. In fact, I will tell you exactly who to talk to. Talk to the women. Talk to the sisters in the church. These are the people most apt to be hurt. In every movement, in every organization, in everything, they are the ones who bear the blood of suffering and pain. They’ve got husbands running around chasing things. They are very responsive to being told you’ve got to submit. There’s a sense of guilt and yieldedness, and precious sisters that you don’t find anywhere else, and they’re the ones most apt to be abused by such scriptures as “submit, if you don’t, it’s worse than witchcraft” and all that junk.