The Unexpected Blessing of a Rural Church
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
– John 13:34–35
As I sat on a hard wooden pew in a tiny church listening to the preacher, my heart raced and beads of sweat covered my forehead. I blushed as I looked to and fro like a trapped rabbit before a hound dog, afraid to be seen if I moved, but filled with a panicked desire to flee. Even in my guilt and shame, my ears and eyes fixated on the pastor as every word he spoke resonated with and pierced my soul. The sermon centered on a woman who found faith and mercy, forgiveness and grace—words I had never heard before. She should have been ashamed, instead she openly and freely worshiped her Savior as she wiped Jesus’s feet with her hair and tears. I felt as if I were the only one in the room. It seemed the pastor spoke directly to me as one who knew my thoughts and feelings. Could he know? I twisted my feet in restless angst, wishing I were invisible. Yet I hung on every word, drawn to them like a magnet. The wrestling match within my soul ceased with a quiet solitary prayer for forgiveness and mercy. That was the day the Holy Spirit melted my rock-hard heart and redeemed me—the day I found true peace.
The town I live in is a small community in a rural Canadian province. By small and rural, I mean population: 700. We live a one-hour drive from the nearest city. The “big city” here is as populous as most people would describe a small town. Because of its size and location, many would think this community is insignificant, but it has proven not too small for God to do his mighty work. This little town was the last place I thought I would find the Lord—not that I even looked for him.
I didn’t look because I didn’t need him. Life was just grand, you know. I had it all—a husband who was my high-school sweetheart, best friend, and co-laborer in raising our two responsible pre-teen children. We both worked decent jobs which provided all that we could ask for including the standard two cars, a nice house with a view, and so much more. Somehow though emptiness and hopelessness still gnawed on my fearful soul.
The Lord often draws a lost person by the most unusual means. In my case, he used a guitar-teacher-turned-small-town-gospel-preacher. This former musician had just moved to our community to plant a new church, of which I cared little about. Church was for religious people, and I was not one of them. My son began taking guitar lessons with him, and he often came home with invitations to various church events. I grew curious yet resisted.
I met many from the church, each time captivated by their sincere love. These people reached out to offer help and kindness. They exuded a happiness I had never seen before and a concern for others that seemed almost strange to me. Even so, I remained distant. When I met the pastor’s wife, I walked away amazed by her genuine love and joy. Her patient answers to my foolish questions about church and God, which exposed my lack of knowledge, displayed her genuine care and desire for my children and me to come to church. Even as a stranger and outcast, I felt unconditionally accepted. Nevertheless, fear, pride, and a guarded heart kept me away.
The fate of my eternity changed on the second Sunday in September seventeen years ago. I awoke with a start, and for the first time in my life felt strangely determined to go to church, to finally accept the invitations from my son’s persistent guitar teacher. I walked a little lighter on my feet that morning as the kids and I got ready to leave. We drove into the parking lot, an interwoven mixture of gravel and grass. Even though it was small, the century-old building dressed in weathered clapboards painted ages ago loomed large before me. Rectangular stained-glass windows glistened in the morning light, and a wooden cross rose high above the front door. I froze. After all, what would people think? I did not belong. Fear almost held me in place, yet something stronger pushed me on. Up the stairs the kids and I ambled, my stomach in knots. There was no turning back as we passed through the main doors that landed us right in the sanctuary. Genuine smiles and the warmest welcome greeted us, evaporating my fear and stilling my shaking body. I felt like I had been wrapped in a warm blanket. The joy and care that poured forth from these people cast all my hesitation aside as the kids and I found a seat in a wooden pew.
Two Sundays later I sat in that same wooden pew in the same country church filled with less than fifty people, in a nowhere blink-and-you-miss-it town. This was the Sunday the preacher told the story of the woman who wept at Jesus’s feet. Though the preaching of the Word changed my heart, the people drew me in to hear it. The love of these Christians made this outcast feel welcome and enabled me to let my guard down and Christ in.
Love for Christ compelled this pastor to accept the call—“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19)—to sacrificially move to and labor in a rural community in order to build a church from nothing. This pastor’s compassion for the lost stirred him to pray for a woman who looked so empty, depressed, and fearful one day as I unknowingly sat behind him in a drive-thru line. That same love and compassion still drives him on as he continues to boldly preach the gospel, which not only saved me but both of my children as well.
The local church is like a raindrop that lands on still waters and ripples outward in concentric circles, growing larger and wider as it travels. Though he doesn’t need to, God uses means to accomplish his work on earth. He uses ordinary men, women, and children of his church doing ordinary tasks in the mundane moments of daily life. Somehow God takes these meager offerings, like the five loaves and two fish, and multiplies them for eternity. This is the local church. Yours might be small or large—neither matter. What matters is the faithfulness of the body, first to love God with all their heart and then love their neighbor by serving him or her in any way they can. The local church isn’t perfect; sinners dwell there, after all. But it’s glorious when each does his part. What a true privilege to serve with those who love the Lord sacrificially.
They tore down that old country church with its wooden pews many years ago once this small-town body of Christ outgrew it. We now gather in a larger facility—an old grocery store—historical charm and stained glass replaced with steel siding and a sprawling flat roof. Even better than the physical building, Christ’s presence dwells amongst his people here. The love that welcomed me seventeen years ago, lowered my guard, and prepared my heart to receive the gospel, has done the same thing to many others over the years. It’s the love of God in his people—a surprising love to those without hope and without God—and it still draws the lost to their Savior today.
* The article image was taken by the author of a nearby church.
Stephanie O’Donnell is a wife, mom, Mimi to two grandchildren, and an elementary school teacher. She is also a photographer and writer who treasures the truth of God’s Word and appreciates capturing nature in all its simple beauty so often overlooked in our daily grind. She writes at thelightformypath for the glory of God and to proclaim his great Name. She lives in a rural Canadian town where she remains actively involved in her local church, the same one that introduced her to the Savior many years ago.