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A compelling, comprehensive vision for small-place ministry today.
Jesus loves small, insignificant places.
In recent years, Christian ministries have increasingly prioritized urban areas. Big cities and suburbs are considered more strategic, more influential, and more desirable places to live and work. After all, they're the centers for culture, arts, and education. More and more people are leaving small places and moving to big ones. As a ministry strategy, focusing on big places makes sense.
But the gospel of Jesus is often unstrategic. In this book, pastor Stephen Witmer lays out an integrated theological vision for small-place ministry. Filled with helpful information about small places and with stories and practical advice from his own ministry, Witmer's book offers a compelling, comprehensive vision for small-place ministry today.
Jesus loves small places, and when we care deeply about them and invest in them over time, our ministry becomes a unique picture of the gospel—one that the world badly needs to see.
- 2019 WORLD Magazine Book of the Year Short List - Accessible Theology
- 2019 The Gospel Coalition Book Award - Ministry
- 2019 Send Institute’s Top 10 Church Planting Related Books of 2019
- Kevin DeYoung’s Top 10 Books of 2019
Foreword: Ray Ortlund
Introduction: My Small-Place Story
Part I: What Are the Small Places Like?
Small Places Are Better and Worse Than We Think
1. Taking a Fresh Look at Small Places
2. Why Small Places Are Better Than We Think
3. Why Small Places Are Worse Than We Think
Part II: How Can We Minister Fruitfully in Small Places?
Developing a Theological Vision for Small-Place Ministry
4. The Source and Goal of Small-Place Ministry: A Shaping Gospel and a See-Through Church
5. Strategic Isn't Always What We Think
6. Small Is Usually Better Than We Think
7. Slow Is Often Wiser Than We Think
8. Fruitful Small-Place Ministry: The Circle and the Arrow
9. Battling Joy Killers in Small-Place Ministry
Part III: Should I Be Ministering in a Small Place?
Reasons Not to Do Small-Place Ministry, Reasons You Should, and Reasons to Consider
10. Good and Bad Reasons Not to Do Small-Place Ministry
11. Good and Bad Reasons to Do Small-Place Ministry
12. Common Reasons to Prioritize Big-Place Ministry
Conclusion: Pray Big, Trust God, Work Hard
Acknowledgments
Notes
| Contributors | Stephen Witmer |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9780830841554 |
| Format | Paperback |
| First published | January 2020 |
| Dimensions | 140mm x 215mm x 13mm |
| Weight | 0.27 kg |
| Language | English |
| Pages | 216 |
| Publisher | IVP |
There are billions of people living in small places, yet they are often ignored by ministry-minded people like me. Sure, rural areas are downstream of mainstream ideas, innovation, and trends, but small places are thick with culture and rife with opportunity for gospel ministry: poverty, depression, suicide, racism, injustice, and souls stranded in sin unacquainted with the love of God in Christ Jesus. As Stephen points out, both rural and urban places are easily romanticized. What the world needs is Christians who value the small even in the big—disciples who move slowly and are attentive enough to bring a grand gospel into the nooks and crannies of life. This book has just about everything you need to help you do that, especially if you live in a small place. It offers rigorous research on rural trends, demographics, and the subtleties of smallness; it motivates ministry in those areas with the gospel of grace; it equips you to develop a theological vision for the place of your calling; it immerses you in real stories of rural ministry; and it challenges urban ministry biases with winsome wit, but most of all it calls us to love in place and discover something more of the immeasurable love of God in Christ Jesus for all the world.
In an age when we tend to lionize big strategies, big churches, and big cities, Stephen Witmer movingly calls us back to faithfulness, not least when the sphere to which we have been called is small and unknown. Of course, it is not a question of either-or: either big cities or small towns and rural villages. Dr. Witmer does not try to force us into mutually exclusive worlds, but at a time when agendas favor the big and the urban, he patiently summarizes the biblical and theological evidence for underscoring the small and the overlooked. Read Witmer and (ironically) expand your vision.
Francis Schaeffer observed that there are no little people in God's sight and no little places: 'To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him—this is the creature glorified.' There is a tendency these days to quantify the value of ministry. This thinking assumes that bigger is better. The larger the population is, the greater the need. Such a view tends to rule out small places. Stephen Witmer helps us to correct this by showing us that small places are much like everywhere else. They are also different. Witmer makes an informed and winsome case for the importance of doing ministry in the places that many of us are inclined to overlook. A Big Gospel in Small Places will help you to understand not only the need but the unique nature of today's forgotten communities.
