A Place Where Everybody Matters
Small churches need the work of all of their people to survive, and this means that there's a productive place in the church family for every person, no matter how gifted or challenged. Small churches are uniquely personal, and they provide an unparalleled opportunity for Christians to learn, grow, and live out their faith consciously, every day. Small churches become a family, children of God, and brothers and sisters of Jesus together. There's no place to hide in a small church. The normal human dramas of good and evil, sin and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation all happen in our relationships in the family. A small church is a place where people can serve an apprenticeship in faith, learning from those before them and passing on their experience to those around them. In a small church the pastor provides context by preaching and teaching, serves as a role model in encouraging the ministry of others, and, by loving the people, helps them see themselves through God's eyes. The rest is up to the people themselves and to God.
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A Place Where Everybody Matters
Small churches need the work of all of their people to survive, and this means that there's a productive place in the church family for every person, no matter how gifted or challenged. Small churches are uniquely personal, and they provide an unparalleled opportunity for Christians to learn, grow, and live out their faith consciously, every day. Small churches become a family, children of God, and brothers and sisters of Jesus together. There's no place to hide in a small church. The normal human dramas of good and evil, sin and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation all happen in our relationships in the family. A small church is a place where people can serve an apprenticeship in faith, learning from those before them and passing on their experience to those around them. In a small church the pastor provides context by preaching and teaching, serves as a role model in encouraging the ministry of others, and, by loving the people, helps them see themselves through God's eyes. The rest is up to the people themselves and to God.
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A Place Where Everybody Matters

A Place Where Everybody Matters

A Place Where Everybody Matters

A Place Where Everybody Matters

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Overview

Small churches need the work of all of their people to survive, and this means that there's a productive place in the church family for every person, no matter how gifted or challenged. Small churches are uniquely personal, and they provide an unparalleled opportunity for Christians to learn, grow, and live out their faith consciously, every day. Small churches become a family, children of God, and brothers and sisters of Jesus together. There's no place to hide in a small church. The normal human dramas of good and evil, sin and repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation all happen in our relationships in the family. A small church is a place where people can serve an apprenticeship in faith, learning from those before them and passing on their experience to those around them. In a small church the pastor provides context by preaching and teaching, serves as a role model in encouraging the ministry of others, and, by loving the people, helps them see themselves through God's eyes. The rest is up to the people themselves and to God.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781608993062
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date: 02/17/2010
Series: House of Prisca and Aquila
Pages: 152
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Jean Risley is an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a candidate in the Doctor of Ministry program at Andover Newton Theological School. Her interests include the implications of the Jewish background of Jesus and Paul, the challenge of living faithfully in contemporary culture, and the relationship between religion and science. Her website at www.JeanRisley.com provides a forum for discussing these issues.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Part I The Small-Church Environment

1 Introduction 3

2 What Life Is Like in the Small Church 10

3 Worship Is at the Center of a Small Church 20

4 In a Small Church, Everybody Does Ministry 29

Part II Work and Activities of the Small Church

5 What Small Churches Do Uniquely Well 41

6 Finding the Congregation's Priorities 47

7 Welcoming and Integrating Newcomers 53

8 Conflict Is a Growth Opportunity 59

9 Overcoming Smallness through Shared Ministries 66

10 Making Opportunities for Children and Youth 72

11 Technological Tools in the Small Church 78

Part III The Pastoral Role in the Small Church

12 What Small Churches Need from Their Pastors 85

13 What Life Is Like for a Small-Church Pastor 94

14 Pastoral Care as Facilitation 105

15 Discipling through Personal Relationships 114

16 Living as an Example: Life in a Fishbowl 122

17 Coping in a Church that Can't Afford its Pastor 129

18 Small Churches Are Worth Loving 136

Bibliography 141

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Risley provides from her extensive pastoral experience an insider's view of the essential ministry of small churches today. With theological depth and practical wisdom she celebrates the Christian discipleship possible in a place that fosters a shared life where everybody matters. I highly recommend this work to both laity and clergy; it provides questions for reflection and discussion inviting congregational study."
—Robert W. Pazmino
Valeria Stone Professor of Christian Education
Andover Newton Theological School

"Butterflies in your soul? You've finished seminary, got credentialed, and now you have accepted your first call to minister . . . in a small church! Well, butterflies (and worse!) are entirely appropriate because you are about to enter a whole new world! BUT in Jean Risley's A Place Where Everybody Matters you have an excellent guide to the fascinating new universe of small church ministry. Let Risley be your mentor-in-print . . . Risley's practical wisdom and love of the small church will become infused in your pastoring and you will be a better minister for it!
—Anthony G. Pappas author of Entering the World of the Small Church and Pastoral Stress

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