Why God Wants YOU in the Middle of Nowhere [1]

In this introductory episode, rural pastor TJ Freeman explores the significance of living and glorifying God in remote areas. TJ shares personal anecdotes and biblical insights, discussing the challenges and spiritual opportunities unique to small-town life. He emphasizes the importance of healthy churches and strong Christian communities in rural settings. Join TJ as he delves into the purpose and impact of living for God's glory, no matter where you are.

Key Points:

• Living and glorifying God in rural areas
• Personal journey from city life to rural pastoring
• The biblical foundation for spreading God's glory
• Challenges of maintaining a healthy church in small towns

Tune in for an inspiring discussion on embracing God's plan, even in the middle of nowhere.

Transcript

  Do you live in the middle of nowhere?  Have you ever had to hold up your hand and say, my state kind of looks like this and then I live right around this spot.  Do you talk about your town like the boondocks or a little place that no one's ever heard of? Or yeah, we're like 30 minutes from this other town that you probably also haven't heard of. 

Well, if you live in the middle of nowhere,  then I think this is a podcast that's worth listening to.  Here's another question.  Do you want to use your life to glorify God? And have you ever wondered really what that looks like? What does it mean for me to glorify God in my role as a whatever it is you are, mom, dad, employee, student, a business owner, you name it. How do I glorify God with my life? And then how do I glorify God with my life in the middle of nowhere? That's what this podcast is all about. 

My name is TJ Freeman and I am a rural pastor. But I'm a reluctant rural pastor. In fact, it's kind of funny that I'm hosting this podcast because I grew up in the middle of nowhere and could not wait to get out of there. Uh, in fact, I remember being like nine years old and my family took a trip to Pittsburgh and it was the first time I really remember ever going to a city.

And as we got into the outskirts of town, I looked down and I saw this Row of row houses because row houses come in rows and  thought to myself, I would love to live somewhere like that. And so I just blurted it out from the backseat of the minivan. I want to live there when I grow up. And my parents were like, Oh no, you don't.

And they were probably right. And I didn't end up in Pittsburgh, but I did end up in a bigger place.  And I was happy to be there, but I eventually got sucked back into a small town and I quickly learned that I had kind of romanticized rural life in my mind while I was away a little bit.  And when I got back, it was just as difficult as I remembered it being when I was a child.

And I spent three years asking the Lord to take me out of this rural place and allow me to be back in a bigger environment. And he didn't do that. Instead, he did something better. He changed my heart about this place. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you grew up in a rural place. You always loved living in the middle of nowhere and it's just been a great experience.

Maybe you're more like me and you've said, man, I, if I could choose something else, I would live somewhere a little bit bigger and in my case, somewhere much warmer and with more sushi. But, uh,  here you are, out there in the middle of nowhere, holding up your hand to show people where in your state you live, describing your place like the boondocks.

But while you're there, you know I want to use my life in some way to glorify God. I want to know Him more, I want to love Him more, I want my life to count for the sake of the gospel.  I want to tell the people around me what it means to follow Christ so that they can know him too.  But maybe you've been struggling with that. 

There are some things about living in a small town  that can tend to complicate your relationship with the Lord. I'll tell you kind of what I mean.  For a lot of us, you grew up around your family. In a small town, maybe you grew up in a Christian home, maybe you didn't, but the fact that your family is close by adds a layer to your relationship with the Lord.

That could potentially be a complication. May, let's say you didn't grow up in a Christian home. Here you are in this small town. Everybody kind of knows your business, and all of a sudden you're the one that walks away from whatever lifestyle you were living to follow Jesus. There can be some cultural pressure on you that's really uncomfortable.

And you got to live with these same people. These are the people you're going to be bumping into in the grocery store. These are the family reunion you're going to keep going to. Um, being close to your family in a small town can make it a little difficult to become a Christian.  In the same way, if you grew up in a really tight Christian home,  you may  have a really close relationship with the Lord  that is very connected to the really close relationship you have with your family.

And it can be a little difficult to separate out the difference between depending on the Lord and depending on your family. Being pleasing to the Lord and being pleasing to this family that has pointed you to Jesus,  in some ways becomes your focus or your, you know, Or the people that you're really trying to please.

It's not just family though. Um, it could be that in your small town, some of the social pressures that you face growing up in that little elementary school and high school, kind of working in the same environment with the same kind of people you grew up around, There could just be a cultural pressure on you to act a certain way, to talk a certain way.

Would you like an example? Because I just happen to have one.  When I was growing up, it was understood that if you want to fit in, you have to wear barn boots. The dirtier the better. And you need to chew tobacco. If you want to fit in, those are the rules. Everyone understands them. Uh, also if you want to fit in, you kind of have to downplay  any interests in academic things.

Cause you don't want to be the nerdy kid. And so when everyone else decides it's not cool to read, you just join in with the crowd and maybe you don't read either or you read secretly and you never talk about it.  Uh, those are some of the things that could happen. That's my region. Your region is probably very different, but there are those things where there can be some social patterns that take root when you're young, that just become typical of your community.

Growing up in a small town, some of those pressures. are there all the way through adulthood. You continue to feel those sorts of things. There may also be, in your small community, a lack of healthy churches.  That's true in a lot of rural America. In fact, that's a big reason that this podcast exists because we want to see more healthy churches.

And that means there needs to be a lot of healthy Christians who come together to see what it would look like for there to be a healthy church in their own community. So maybe you live in a town like that. There's not a healthy church in your town. So you have some options. Do you just kind of go to the unhealthy church knowing that there's probably some gaps here in what I'm learning and in the kind of relationships that I have with these Christians? 

Do you drive to another town and say, Well, I guess if I'm really going to be in a healthy church, I need to drive an hour or sometimes more To find people who are like minded in a place where I feel like I can really grow, but then it's really hard to stay plugged into the life of the church. Do you watch church online?

Do you just not go to church anywhere?  And on top of that, it's really hard sometimes to know what a healthy church is. It could be that in your small town, there's been this like,  this boring church that you've gone to for a long time. And then all of a sudden there's a more exciting church that springs up.

And because they can hold your attention better, longer, you're drawn to that. And you don't mean to do this, but you could accidentally shift away from some strong theological moorings in favor of something that seems like it's pointing people to Jesus, seems like it's gaining some traction, certainly is more fun than what you grew up in. 

So finding a healthy church in the middle of nowhere, or really even knowing what that would look like, can be a challenge. Another challenge that you might find is it's really hard to open up to people about where you're at spiritually. You don't want to be judged. Um, maybe you aren't sure you can trust anybody there.

We all know what it's like in the small town to have everybody sort of know your business. And the pressure that that can put on you. Uh, you don't want to be embarrassed. You want people to think you have it all together, whatever.  Or maybe you're just like doing pretty well in life and things aren't that complicated or that difficult.

You're a pretty moral person. And you could be drifting spiritually. You're not really engaged in the word that much faithfully. You really don't spend a lot of time laboring in prayer. You can't remember the last time that you shared the gospel with somebody. Maybe you can never think of a time in your life where somebody came to Christ.

Because you told them about Jesus and their need for him.  But these things don't jump out as a big alarming problem. Because, I mean, things are kind of humming along well. You have good relationships, you have your ups and downs. But just generally the pattern of your life  has been pretty positive. That, in a small town, can really be an issue spiritually. 

So if these kinds of struggles resonate at all,  Or if you just say, I'm in the middle of nowhere, I want to be a healthier Christian and I want to help see healthier churches or at least a healthier church in my community. I want to be a faithful church member. I want to serve well, I want to honor the Lord with my life in the middle of nowhere,  then I think this podcast is going to be helpful for you.

And this is just the introduction, but I, I do want to give you just like the 10 second. And by 10 seconds, of course, I mean a lot more than that. But the very condensed version of why your life in the middle of nowhere actually matters. So you ready for this? You have to go all the way back to the first book of the Bible.

That's right, class, the book of Genesis. And when you get to Genesis 1, 26 through 28,  you learn something really important about man. Man was created in the image of God. So there's something about God's likeness, something about his image that is represented by the fact that you're alive. So when other people, even when angels and demons look at you, they learn something about what God is like. 

More than that, God gave man his dominion, so his authority.  In other words, it's a responsibility to care for the rest of creation. So God made you in his image, he gave you the responsibility to care for his stuff. This is what he's done for all mankind. Then he said something really important.  Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

So in other words, go to all the untamed, untamed places and tame them. Go to the places that are uninhabited and inhabit them. So why? Why would God want mankind to do this? Think about, again, what mankind is. Man is the representative of God who somehow looks like him, who displays his image and his likeness, and who cares for his stuff, exercises his authority. 

Mankind's Representation of God gives glory to God in a way that nothing else can. I mean the rocks bring him glory.  They do that by being rocks. They sit there.  Um, they're sturdy. They're rugged. They point to the fact that if you want a solid foundation, this is the type of thing you should look at. It's a way in which the rocks bring him glory.

There's a way in which the birds, and the trees, and the oceans, and the sun, and the weather, and all of these things bring glory to God. But mankind does it in a way that nothing else can.  And God wants that glory not to be concentrated in one little spot.  But he wants the earth filled with people, so that the earth is filled with his glory.

So going to places where there are no other people right out of the get is that a thing or is it out of the gate? I don't know but right from the start  People are sent to the ends of the earth so that God's glory covers this whole thing  You fast forward to Genesis 6 and you find that something has filled the earth as mankind has spread It's violence and wickedness That's where God talks about regretting the fact that he's made man and he wipes mankind off the face of the earth Except for that one guy and that one boat along with his family.

So Noah survives the flood Thanks to God's aid  and when he disembarks the ark see what I did there  The command that was given way back in Genesis 1 is issued again to Noah and his family He says, I want you to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. The plan has never changed. God is still meaning to use mankind made in his image, exercising care over his stuff for his glory, to fill the earth and subdue it.

Fast forward again. You get to Genesis chapter 11. Tower of Babel. I always thought this was a really cool way for us to figure out why there's so many languages. And the tower you know that seems to be the object of attention here that's the big problem but that's actually not the big problem read it in genesis 11 mankind talks about stopping in this one place to build this tower so that they can make a name for themselves.

That's interesting. Here's a bunch of people made in God's image to make a name for him. They want to make a name for themselves. Then they say, lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth. Wow. So not only do they not want to make a name for God, they want to make a name for themselves. They don't want to go to the uninhabited, untamed places.

They want to park themselves in this one city. And then they build this great tower. Which, ha, God has to come down to see. Isn't that great? They build something that goes up into the heavens, and God's like, Oh, let me come on down to see this great thing that you've built.  So God comes down, sees it, decides to confuse the language, and twice after that happens, He mentions that this is done so that the people will be dispersed over the face of the earth.

God is committed to seeing people spread over the face of the earth because he made this thing to show off his glory. He made man to show off his glory in a special way and he wants the earth filled with people who will do that. Fast forward again, this time all the way to the New Testament. You get to the book of Ephesians where Paul gives a defense of God's purpose in all of creation.

And he says in Ephesians 3 10 that God, or that it's through the church that the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. I don't know if that sounds so profound to you, but if you look at verse 11, he talks about the fact that this was according to God's eternal purposes.

Uh, so God had an eternal plan to do something, and that something involved the church, and it involved the church showing off his manifold wisdom, which is a kind of a way to say, the highest view of his glory. Manifold, multifaceted, it's variegated, like the way a diamond has all these facets cut into it, and then when the light hits it, it just shows the most beautiful, brilliant display of that light. 

That's what the church is meant to do. It shows off the manifold wisdom of God in a way that transcends place. It's bigger than your church. It's bigger than the town your church meets in. It's bigger than your state. It goes all the way to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. A reference to angels and demons in a realm that we have no other way to access, but our life together as a church gets after.

So God's glory is seen in a way that's out of this world as the church gathers. Alright, so do some math with me. And by math I of course mean logic. Uh, I want you to think about the purpose of man  to glorify God. The call of man to represent the Lord to the ends of the earth, thereby  glorifying Him to the ends of the earth.

The fact that the church does this in a way that even man by himself can't do.  And then this plan to see this globally. God wants His glory everywhere. So, what, what does that mean? There should be churches everywhere.  There should be a church in places where there is not currently a church. Because, when there's not a church there, God's glory is not seen from that place in the way that he intends just yet.

He wants to have that happen. He means to have his glory go from small town in the middle of nowhere, all the way to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. But if there's not a healthy church in a location, that is not happening in the way that God intends. So, living in the middle of nowhere actually matters for Christians.

Listen, it's not an indictment against cities. Cities are great. I still love cities. Kinda glad I don't live in a row house, although I would be just fine there.  But, uh, cities aren't enough. We can't just leave it at the city. There needs to be some intentional effort to say, we're going to keep on going to the places that are uninhabited.

We're going to inhabit them for the glory of God in this place. And we're going to do everything we can to see a healthy church there. This is the whole reason I'm doing the podcast,  because you're a Christian living in the middle of nowhere. There's a good chance that there's not a healthy church in your community.

If there is, praise the Lord. That makes me so happy, and I want to see more and more and more healthy churches in places. And if you have a healthy church in your town, in fact, I'd like to get to know you because I want to hear about the work that the Lord's doing in your community.  If you're like the many of rural Christians,  who don't have a healthy church in your community,  perhaps the Lord would use you in some way to see some movement in that direction.

You can be a really healthy Christian, and if there's more than one healthy Christian living in a place, you have the seeds for the, for the church to be formed in your community. And that's something to really think about.  I'm  going to tell you on the next episode about  an organization, well really it's a company, that has figured out how to get into rural places  and  they're doing a really good job of being very present and thriving in the middle of nowhere  and I want to compare that to the church and the advancement of the church.

Um, so this has been probably long enough. It's just an introduction to some of the things I want to talk about in this podcast.  Back to Rurality. In the next episode, I'll tell you a little bit about what's behind the name. We'll talk about this organization or this company that has figured out how to get into rural places and consider how the church might get there as well.

And then I'm also going to introduce what we'll be doing together for the next 21 days. So in this first stretch of 23 episodes, You're going to hear today's thing, which just kind of gives you a little taste of why a focus on being a really healthy Christian in the middle of nowhere matters. no matter what your role is. 

It tells you a little bit of the theology of the middle of nowhere. Um, and then in the next episode, we go into why back to rurality? What's that all about? Um, why should we be thinking about the church being healthy middle of nowhere? Then it's 21 days that I'm calling Rural Reset. And this is meant to help you.

Maybe you're a Christian who's drifted a little bit. Maybe you just, you want to be closer to the Lord. You're not sure how to take that next step. Maybe you've been really busy. Maybe it'd just be good for you to get back to the basics. That's always a helpful thing. So we're going to take 21 days. We're going to do a rural reset and really focus on what it means to be a healthy Christian.

So come back for the next episode.  We'll spend some time talking about those things I just mentioned. And then after that, we'll launch into the 21 days.  Hope this is helpful. Glad to have you on board and we'll see on the next episode of back to reality.