Customer Reviews

How to Thrive as a Small-Church Pastor

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4 star:		(2)
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Steve Bierly does an excellent and proficient job of expressing the very unique and strategic struggles that the Small-Church Pastor encounters.

Bierly uses a wealth of experience and illustrations any Small-Church Pastor (or anyone associated with Ministry) would instantely recall as a "me too" experience.

Because of the subject matter, there is a great deal of emotion that happens between the writer, the Spirit of God and the reader.

Ultimately, the book accomplishes a chief objective as A Guide to Spiritual and Emotional Well-Being [for the Small-Church Pastor].

I've already ordered [from Amazon] and had a copy of this book shipped to another Pastor friend of mine.

Steve Bierly is pastor of the American Reformed Church in Hull, Iowa, and God has given him a gift for being able to minister to the small church as well as to the small church pastor. With an infectious sense of humor, he discusses the things that can cause a small church pastor to become frustrated or stressed out, then he gives compassionate counsel on how to be good to yourself as you are being the best you can be for God.

He talks about how small churchaholics often think about their churches and their ministries all the time, often plaguing themselves with guilt along the way. He gives some telltale signs in chapter one: Wanting to isolate yourself from others, getting burned out from being around people, temptation to think more or less of yourself than you ought, and the temptation to get upset with God over the powers of darkness that people face in their lives.

Bierly also mentions how small church pastors feel like failures when their ideas are not embraced right away, and how they often get frustrated that they visit the same people over and over again who tell the same old tales over and over again, and how it often appears that our ministries are not making a difference in peoples' lives.

But help is on the way! Bierly reminds the small church pastor that it is God's church, that megachurch paradigms won't always fly in the small church, and that God is at work behind the scenes in peoples' lives and we need to stop focusing solely on the negative.

Bierly also recommends having outside hobbies, getting proper rest, eating right, and spending regular time with family and friends. In short, he suggests that as pastors, we need to pastor ourselves.

He also says that small church pastors often feel guilty because they weren't able to do everything they had planned out in their schedule books. He says that everytime we are called to make unscheduled hospital calls or attend unplanned meetings, or counsel someone that wasn't scheduled in advance, to write these things down in the planner and check them off as a reminder that we are getting done the things that God would have us to do that week, even if we didn't plan it to be that way ourselves.

He also says to be true to yourself. It doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that you have to have a regular quiet time first thing in the morning every single day. He even suggests (horror of horrors) that your exegetical and sermon preparation time can be incorporated as part of your quiet time with God. After all, why punish yourself and make you feel guilty for not having an 'official' quiet time when you have been studying and meditating upon His Word all week long?

Finally, Bierly reminds us that small church pastors are not Messiahs, that we need partners in ministry, and that we are to put bugs in peoples' ears, and let ideas simmer rather than trying to ram our agendas through.

The book made me laugh and it made me glad to be alive alive as a small church pastor. Bierly was my pastor while I read this wonderful book. Thank you Steve, and thank you Lord Jesus!

Far too many small church pastors have been content to drift along maintaining the status quo until they can find a bigger (and theoretically better???) church to move to. But this books helps the small church pastor realize he does not have to drift along, he can thrive right where he is. Great book.

I ordered this book in the midst of struggles as a young small church pastor, constantly worried I was not "doing it well enough." This book was full of great wisdom, encouragement and support, much like a modern-day version of Paul's letters to Timothy. It helped give me courage to stand up for what I believed and to be authentic as a pastor. It gave great practical suggestions on what a faithful small church ministry should look like. Rarely do you get a job description and you need help figuring it out. This book will help you to do that.

The author is an experienced small church pastor and writes in a very engaging, humorous manner thus entertaining and informing the reader at the same time. He captures the unique and strategic struggles that the small church pastors go through and offers with humor and fatherly wisdom the advice many younger pastors or the ones with less experience in smaller churches would surely need in order to thrive. Divided into two parts, the first part is about the warning signs of burn out that pastors need to watch for and take remedial actions. The second part comprises the major chunk of the book and deals with practical ways to help pastors do ministry in the small church with the right perspective. This is must read for the spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being of a small church pastor in any given context.
V.John

This is a good book for any pastor of any size church. It is not a hard read nor a deep theological read. Rather, it is an easy and enjoyable read. It makes real the hardship of being a pastor while pointing towards the real reasons one should be in such a role.