I am part of a church network that prioritizes church planting in large university centers. And I love it. I love strategically trying to reach the next generation. I love that young people are constantly exhorted and stirred up to go. Go to a new campus! Go to a new city! Across the country—or overseas! Go where people need the gospel.
But I have never heard anyone ask anyone to go to a small town.
Jerry and Wendy live in Tipton, Iowa. They’re in their mid 70s. Jerry’s a retired farmer, although Wendy says “a farmer never retires.” I found myself around their dining room table in April, after they asked to host the mission team with which I would soon be traveling to Southeast Asia.
Their little farmhouse was modest but cozy, full of pictures of their grandkids and antique furniture that had been passed down from generation to generation. Jerry pointed to a back room, which he told us he was born in. They cooked us a meal reminiscent of my own grandparents: creamed sweet corn, homemade apple sauce, pork chops and rolls. Wendy played charming host. Jerry teasingly played her slightly grumpy companion, as almost all grandfathers I’ve met love to do.
They wanted us to write down our names and our prayer requests and they asked us about our majors. But then the conversation changed to something I wasn’t expecting. Jerry started to describe his hometown. He told us how the church he was born and raised in has fallen apart, limping from progressive theology and division. He said their churches are dying.
“The passion you kids have, no one here has it. No one here is being fed.”
He told us the Sunday afternoon fire department dedication had a turnout of 900, but the church service that morning was under 50 people. He asked us if anyone we knew, any “young people,” would be willing to come out and help the youth program an older lady started all by herself.
And to my surprise—as an Iowan used to burly and stoic men—Jerry, an old farmer, had tears in his eyes as he spoke.
How many more small towns are just like Tipton?
We think of cities as dark places—and they are. But small towns are just as fraught with binge drinking and promiscuity and sin. It’s just that no one tacks up “Pray for Tipton, Iowa” on their fridge. No one sends teams of church planters 45 minutes down a gravel road.
I don’t know why. Maybe we think they’re Christian. It’s an Iowa small town, after all. Or maybe we’ve just forgotten they exist, in our excitement to reach our nation and the nations.
Jerry prayed over us. He prayed for the laborers going out into the harvest.
There are so many young men in my community who want ministry. But they want glitzy ministry on big stages with cool people in trendy cities.
Please, would you consider going to a small town? It won’t be glamorous. But they need church planters, too.
One of the most Christlike displays I have had the privilege of witnessing was from a pastor in my hometown. He had ample funding, a willing team and could go anywhere in the country he wanted to plant a church. He could’ve picked his dream location: one with beautiful views, valued real estate, and good schools.
But then he heard about a small town outside of Cedar Rapids that desperately wanted a pastor. They were a flock without a shepherd. So, he gave up the funding. He gave up the glory. He gave up the association.
He went to an Iowa small town, where there will probably be no college student world changers. No articles will be written about him, at least none published anywhere noteworthy. Probably no one will use him as an example of church planting glory.
But he went where no one else wants to go. Where no one else is even being asked to go. Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard?
Small towns in Iowa are forgotten by my generation. If you want to serve in ministry—please, think about going there or to a small town almost anywhere. Raise a family there. Learn the art of small-town hospitality. Bring lawn chairs and sacrifice a local coffee shop. Begin new traditions of holiness. Confess sin there—radically. Teach people how to read their Bibles again – constantly. Fill up the baptismal again. Crowd the sitting-empty little white churches again— with the Word, with the Spirit!
There are hundreds of flocks just in my state of Iowa without a shepherd. Please, consider picking up your cross and running to a small-town church. There is probably a couple just like Jerry and Wendy there, waiting and praying for you.
Johnnie Each
Johnnie Each is a born and raised Iowan from a long line of preachers, teachers, and farmers. She's in her final year of studying Journalism and English & Creative Writing at the University of Iowa and has been scribbling poems in her notebooks since she could hold a pencil. Johnnie is currently serving at the college ministry of her local church, Veritas Church Iowa City. You can find more of her writing on her substack, Strings of Pearls, where she loves to write about culture, poetry and the life of Christian college students.