“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).

The pastor was excited about the new assignment God was giving him. In a parting comment to a friend, he assessed the spirituality of the church he was leaving behind:

“There is enough ignorance in this county to ignorantize the whole country.”

We could wish such churches were rare.  Unfortunately, they’re not.

What happens when a pastor gets called to a church like that? What’s the new pastor to do when the congregation does not know the Word of God and have no idea of how things should be done or why it matters.

Such a church often exists only to condemn sin and sinners, knows only slivers of Scripture, sees pastors as slaves of the whims of the congregation, and is ready to reject any minister who believes the church should feed the hungry, take a stand for justice, and/or invite in the minority neighbors.

Veteran preachers have stories of those churches, tales of run-ins with those leaders, and scars from the battles they have waged to set matters right.

–One pastor told the group of ministers meeting in his fellowship hall, “This building is actually owned by a member of the KKK. We rent it from him.”  The rest of us naively thought the Ku Klux Klan had died out ages ago. Here they were living among us in our own southern town.

–One lady visible in church leadership told her pastor (me!), “I don’t know what the Bible says but I know what I believe.”

–A church I know allowed an unmarried deacon and woman Sunday School teacher to live together as husband and wife.  The head deacon admitted the leaders were too cowardly to confront the outspoken couple. When the new pastor tried to deal with it, the couple turned on him and slandered him in the community. Finding himself isolated without the support of the congregation, he resigned and moved away.

It is not true that such churches know nothing of the Bible. They know snippets of it, depending on what previous pastors majored on. Some went to seed on prophecy (a typical sermon dealt with the antichrist or the beast of Revelation) or salvation (every sermon was “get saved now!”) or works (the pastor defined the proper length of women’s hemlines and the amount of makeup they were allowed, the proper raising of children, and such).

What’s a pastor to do when the Lord sends him to such a church? I mean after he determines to spend a lot of time on his knees.  Nothing is more important than constant prayer.  Then, regardless of what I have written below, the Holy Spirit will lead the minister on how to deal with this problem.  That said, however, here are my thoughts on the subject….

1) Do not lower yourself to their level.

Leaders will insist on a diet filled with sermons on sin, prophecy, judgment, and the like, but have no taste for extended series on one book of the Bible.  Some will grow impatient when you insist the church needs a proper constitution and bylaws which spell out the right way to do things. And ministering to the poor children in that trailer park a half mile from the church? Well, if that involves busing them to church where they can get saved and nothing else, you might get support. But if you want to feed them and clothe them and provide school supplies and counsel for their parents, you will find almighty scant support, pastor.

2) Be steady, be faithful, be consistent.

Stay close to the Lord in your daily walk. Stay in the Word, on your knees, and close to your people, the ones who truly love Jesus.

Be willing to risk the anger of those who want to continue unscriptural practices at the church with the rationalization that “this is how we’ve always done it” and “Deacon So-and-so is not going to like this.”

Do not invite as a revival preacher that gimmicky showman some heard over in Sharptown and think you should bring here. Invite no people-manipulators or trickster preachers to your church.

Invite no one who cannot help your church become healthy and strong in the Lord. Hold to this, because some will put pressure on you. Buckle your seat belt, it could be rough.

3) Be prepared for criticism.

My wife says you should go there expecting this pastorate to be a brief one.  She may be right, as she is on a lot of things.

Just recognize that the enemy does not want your congregation to know the Word, to have a strong church, to be healthy and Christlike and unified and effective. He will do anything he can to stop your efforts to grow your people, including turn some of them against you. As always, you move with those who wish to obey the Lord and do not sit around waiting for 100 percent support.

4) Love them anyway.

Luke 6:27ff instructs us to “love your enemies,” who are defined as people who hate you, curse you, mistreat you, and would steal from you.  From time to time, you will find a few church members behaving this way. When that happens, delve deeply into Luke 6:27-38 and work at doing loving things for them: doing good works to them, blessing them, praying for them, and looking for ways to give to them.

Work at not being vindictive. Do not stoop to the level of the carnal.  You have two objects here: the first is to grow them into Christlikeness by demonstrating what that looks like. The second is to demonstrate to the teachable ones what Christlikeness looks like by the way you respond to the trouble-makers in the church.

5) Remember what schoolteachers do.

The math teacher, on finding that her students know nothing of algebra, does not harass them or condemn them. Instead, she gently introduces them to the elementary concepts, a little at a time, giving them a taste and hoping that some will like what they are finding.

The first grade teacher, on discovering her pupils cannot read or write, does not give up in despair. She does not blame the students. This ignorance is normal, and is in fact the very reason she chose this profession. She loves to teach.  And she teaches the students gently, carefully, feeding them a little at a time until they develop a taste for learning.

6) Be gentle and firm at the same time.

If your church has regular business meetings, you will want to teach the basic principles of Roberts’ Rules of Order. Some will not like being asked to follow a structure, but the others will see the wisdom in it.  Take the long view. If after a year or more, the church is doing things orderly and graciously, you have succeeded.

Choose a time and place to have Bible studies that go deeper into the Word than what you are able to do in sermons (where you have to connect with a diverse audience).  At first, only a few will respond, and that’s to be expected. Go with those who enjoy this. Expect their enthusiasm to attract others in time.

7) Take the long view.

You will not stay there for your full ministry, chances are. But if the church is stronger and healthier when you leave than when you arrived, you have done well.

And perhaps, if you have done a good job, the sweetness and maturity in your congregation may be infectious and spread to other churches.

You might just healthize (and de-ignorantize!) the whole county. And wouldn’t that be something?