If you ask the Rev. Scotty Ray about the two rural churches he pastors in western Nebraska, the first thing he will tell you is how much he loves the people. The second thing he’ll admit is that they’re old. In one congregation with attendance of 35 on a typical Sunday, seven are in their 90s.
Ray, a participant in the Moses Project, organized a special service honoring these nonagenarians last fall and invited them to select a favorite hymn for the service. One woman chose “I Love to Tell the Story,” which she’d performed as a soloist in that very church’s choir loft 82 years earlier.
The rural church is full of stories of traditions and memories like this one. Sometimes, however, it can seem that the rural church has more stories than people in the pews.
Like many rural congregations, Ray’s numbers are shrinking. So are their budgets, while local community services also dwindle. Rural public schools, hospitals, nursing homes and EMS services are straining to meet resident needs as cuts in federal funding force dollars to stretch even further.
In challenging times, it can be easy for pastors to feel guilty and respond by working harder and planning more activities to try to compel themselves and their congregations into a miracle turnaround. This formula is a recipe for burnout and exhaustion; it’s not a recipe for thriving.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a report each fall called “Rural America at a Glance.” It highlights social and economic trends in rural areas across the country. Key findings include:
- More people are moving to rural places. Since 2020, rural communities have experienced population growth, although the largest growth is among people older than 65 who have exited the labor force.
- Although people are moving to rural areas, the working-age population is shrinking.
- There’s an increase in counties where 20% or more of the population is 65 or older.
- Rural employment is growing and has nearly recovered to prepandemic rates; however, poverty disproportionately affects rural part-time workers.
- There is a growing eldercare industry, but services have not kept pace.
Rural communities have more people older than 65 and younger than 16 than in between. This increase in the population of older and younger people creates economic difficulties because of the missing middle.
What does this mean for rural pastors and their congregations, and how can a government report help rural pastors avoid burnout and feel a renewed sense of hope?
First, it’s not the pastors’ fault that rural churches are shrinking; there are fewer families living in small places and fewer financial resources to give. There is also more competition outside the church for those families. Youth sports, extracurricular activities and an emphasis on alternate community groups draw the limited number of families away from church.
Rather than stretching themselves too thin, pastors can creatively and gently invite their congregations to reflect on their history and current community needs. This emphasis on traditioned innovation, a way of thinking about the future that relies on the community’s identity in the past, allows congregations to foreground their values and identity and embrace new opportunities while acknowledging demographic realities.
When creating yearlong ministry plans, setting budgets and planning activities, pastors can communicate the data, including the missing middle, with their congregations and leadership team. People 65-plus may be living on a fixed income, and their tithing is based on limited financial resources. It is also impractical to expect service projects that demand more than the congregation can manage.
Finally, have realistic conversations about the gifts, ministries and emphases of the congregation. Pray, partner, be creative, ask the Spirit to provide in unseen ways and take risks, but do so because God is calling, not because the church refuses to acknowledge the demographics or the community’s changing identity and needs.
Renner Lutheran in rural South Dakota also has an aging population. The Rev. Laura Phillips, Moses Project mentor and former Renner pastor, knows this firsthand. Historically, the church had partnered with community organizations to provide food and basic necessities for neighbors in need. The problem? Those donations were collected in heavy boxes, and the aging congregation could no longer transport them.
Church members therefore reached out to the local volunteer fire department to see if they could help. “Sure enough, they were delighted to come!” Phillips said. “Some had never done it before and were thrilled to be invited. It helped the folks at Renner Lutheran tremendously to have strong, able-bodied adults to help carry the heavy food boxes, and it was a great way to connect and build relationships with our community firefighters. It is a beautiful gift to work together in a community like that to be a blessing to one another!”
Ministry is not about budgets or attendance, and flourishing is not measured in numbers alone. Thriving is about relationships and stories, connections, receiving God’s love and grace and sharing with one’s neighbor. Both Ray and Phillips honored their congregations’ stories and traditions and explored new ways to faithfully serve while acknowledging congregational demographics. This can mean that worship and serving one’s neighbor look different than it used to.
God loves small churches and small places. For rural churches to flourish, pastors and congregations will need to adapt and to measure success more than numerically. But the gifts God has given rural churches — community, connection, kindness and care — are abundant.
The refrain of “I Love to Tell the Story” says,
I love to tell the story;
’twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
That message never grows old.
Other Prayers Addressed To The Same Holy Listener
A Prayer: You Three Times Holy
The vast company of heaven—
cherubim, angels, seraphim, archangels—
gather especially to sing your praises loudly.
Their constant refrain is,
“Holy, holy, holy,”
Three times, not more, not less than three.
So we are able to echo their singing as we join in,
“Holy, holy, holy,”
Three times, not more, not less than three.
We sing that you are ineffable,
incomprehensible,
undecodable,
inaccessible,
a “tremendous mystery.”
In Christian parlance, we take this threefold articulation
to match
our three ways of knowing you to be God.
We say “holy” to the Father,
the source and ending of all our being,
you before time, after time, in, with, and under
all times,
Alpha and Omega who loves the world into existence
It is your will that permits our world to be.
We say “holy” to the Son,
the one born in a barn,
the one who had nowhere to lay his head,
who went about doing good,
who healed the disabled and restored the
disadvantaged,
who bested empires and the rulers of this age,
who humbled himself to die on a cross,
executed as a common criminal,
executed and now risen to authority.
We say “holy” to the Spirit,
The wind that blew back chaos,
the force of freedom that made an escape path
in the sea;
the agent of instruction, guidance, and transformation,
the disturber of our easy peace,
the one who stirs our lives to new witness
and new duty.
We chisel away at your unutterable holiness . . .
we add modifiers . . .
love, justice, faithfulness, compassion, steadfastness,
all true, all good, all important for our life,
but then, yet again, none as thick or daring or bewildering
as “holy.”
In singing this three times, we acknowledge that you
do not fit our categories,
you do not participate in our equations;
you do not accommodate our explanatory yearnings.
You three times holy!
Yet you elude us;
we catch glimpses and yearn to touch and taste
and know;
and you are there, beyond our control, overwhelming
us in awe. Amen.
A Prayer: Your Cosmic Pledge of Disarmament
The report of the flood you caused is not forgotten.
We remember well the torrential rains that swept all
before them,
torrents that swept away so many of your well-beloved
creatures.
Walls of water overran the good order of your
creation.
Your flood lasted so long—
some said forty days,
some said 150 days,
after so much water, the length of the threat
does not matter very much.
We also remember the end of your flood,
the emergence of dry land,
the recovery of creaturely life around the world.
You uttered your lordly assurance:
that the rhythms of the world would not be
disrupted,
we could count on
summer and winter,
cold and heat,
seedtime and harvest,
day and night.
Beyond that, we remember your attentive gesture
of assurance:
The appearance of a rainbow;
you hung up your bow;
you retired your weapon;
you engaged in disarmament,
signaling the end of hostility between
you and your creation.
In that moment of your disarmament,
you decided you would govern in a “more excellent
way,”
by the generosity of love,
by the reliability of restorative justice,
by the lavishness of your forgiveness.
You would not govern by fear;
rather you would run the endless risk of the excellent
way of self-giving.
We see your more excellent way all through your
history:
We see it in the exodus and your solidarity with
the enslaved;
We smell it in the manna bread of wilderness;
We know it in the pathos of the prophets.
Finally, we see your self-giving agency embodied
in Jesus of Nazareth
who required his own leader to put up his sword,
yet more disarmament.
The savagery goes on
amid the predatory superpowers,
amid the brutal struggles for territory and resources,
amid our ignoble disputes with our neighbors.
Your weapon has been retired and suspended in
midair for a long time,
lingering for us to decode its meaning.
You have renounced violent ways.
Peace indeed!
Peace not “beginning with me,”
but with the Lord of the flood.
We are awed by new possibilities. Amen.
A Prayer: You with the Long Nose
Among the best-loved and most-often-reiterated
recitals concerning you is first on the lips of Moses:
“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”
(Exod. 34:6–7)
This often-repeated formula witnesses your eager
solidarity with us and with your entire creation.
Among the reassuring terms of your recital is the
phrase “slow to anger.”
The phrase is a flat, uninspired translation of a compelling
phrase in Hebrew,
a phrase declaring you, our well-beloved God, to
have long nostrils,
a long nose.
Your long nose requires you to inhale and exhale at
great length to renew your breath.
You are, sometimes, the God who breathes the fire
of anger and indignation,
and we can imagine a flow of fire from your nose.
Except that your nostrils are long;
the fire cools,
the anger subsides;
the indignation wanes.
By the time your flame of rage reaches outside your
nose,
it has cooled.
It has cooled so that you can recover your balance.
It has cooled enough for you to reassert your long-
running resolve to be
a God who practices steadfast love and faithfulness.
We are glad for your long nose;
We are glad for your cooling nostrils;
We are grateful that the rage and indignation do not last,
not for long,
not through the night,
not into the next day.
We are thankful that we know you at your best,
free from anger beyond a short temper,
patient even with our recurring waywardness.
The myths are filled with tales concerning gods who
manipulate and goddesses who deceive;
But you are not like that;
You are not underhanded or secretive in your
governance;
You are your own true self every time;
You are a reliable presence in our common life.
You move among us with equilibrium and great
resolve on our behalf.
And we are on the receiving end of the breath of
life you give.
In our inhaling we become capable of generous fidelity.
Your long nose of fire is but a mere footnote to your
long life-giving commitment to the world that you love.
It turns out that we — not unlike you — are capable of
forgiveness when we have cooled from our indignation.
Move in and through our anger, cooling us enough
to participate in your life-giving breath.
We are grateful that we may be alongside you as
we cool enough to care in generative ways. Move us
past our hot noses to do the good work cooled noses
make possible. Amen.
A Prayer: Fresh from the Word
(On Reading Isaiah 55:10–13)
At the outset there was the silence of despair.
And then You spoke:
You said, “Let there be light.”
You said, “Let my people go.”
You said, “Comfort, comfort my people.”
Your word became flesh before our very eyes:
Light became creation;
Emancipation became covenant people;
Comfort became homecoming.
Your word is not empty, but full of futures.
You said, “Love God,” and we are summoned.
You said, “Love neighbor,” and we are implicated.
You said, “Follow me,” and we are on a different
way with you.
Your word, in its life-giving power, addresses us
every day.
Your word, in its life-dispatching force, empowers
us every day.
Your word, in its restorative passion, makes new
every day.
We are creatures of your word;
we cannot be otherwise;
we would not choose to be otherwise.
It is because of your faithful word that we are on our
way . . . rejoicing;
on our way in freedom, mercy, compassion, and justice,
on our way to neighborly well-being,
on our way rejoicing. Amen.
Excerpted from “God of All Promises: A Poetic Pilgrimage through Genesis” by Walter Brueggemann. Copyright 2026. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press.
Leadership is often associated with vision, charisma and decisiveness, but at its core, effective leadership depends on listening well.
The best leaders recognize the importance of all the voices they need to hear, not just those that affirm their perspectives and support the status quo. These might include the voices of those who disagree with them, those who are typically excluded from leadership-level conversations, folks who tend to challenge their ideas, or those who are traditionally marginalized or under-resourced.
Listening to so many voices can feel uncomfortable, inconvenient and inefficient when trying to move quickly. But being attentive to a wide spectrum of input surfaces perspectives that help leaders out of path dependence and confirmation bias.
It is human nature to gravitate toward those who think, look and live like us. It feels good to be surrounded by people (in real life and on social media) who validate our decisions and beliefs.
However, this can create echo chambers and perpetuate blind spots. Leaders who seek out additional perspectives gain a fuller picture of the opportunities and challenges before them and make wiser and more informed choices.
Who are the people you usually turn to for counsel? If they have given you consistently good advice, it is natural to want to return to them over and over. But breaking out of our conversational patterns and widening our circle enable us to make new connections and create innovative solutions to problems.
Hearing hard truths also cultivates trust and accountability across an organization. When leaders acknowledge they are not experts in everything and clearly value a variety of voices — especially those offering critique or concerns — they nurture an environment of respect.
Team members are more likely to share their honest thoughts when they trust that they will be heard and not dismissed. More than embodying healthy communication, it contributes to a culture of shared risk and responsibility.
At the same time, leaders should be clear about how decisions are made and who ultimately makes them. Governance theater — giving the illusion that someone’s contributions to a conversation matter when they don’t — can be demoralizing and erode trust. Clarity and transparency around how decisions are made generate a culture in which team members know where they stand, so they can make informed decisions about how and when they want to use their voice.
One executive leader always clarifies with her staff whether she is conducting a poll or a vote. This way, those around the table know the weight of their input.
In a poll, everyone can express opinions, but the leader will finally make the decision. In a vote, everyone gets a say, and the numbers determine the course of action. This clarity helps folks understand the process and can lessen the sting if they do not agree with the final decision.
It is also important to recognize that timing is not always on a leader’s side. Sometimes decisions must be made quickly in order to deploy resources and maximize effectiveness, such as when responding to an emergency. In those situations, path dependence and swiftly gathering a few trusted colleagues is the best that leaders can do. However, circling back to include a variety of voices after an emergency can be a good practice to learn what could be done differently next time.
By listening to the voices that need to be heard, leaders cultivate the conditions for growth and innovation. Creativity and progress often come from the margins, places where those in the center overlook or simply cannot see. These voices provide perspectives that can help address wicked problems that span organizations and communities.
Too often, well-meaning community leaders will charge forward with an idea they are certain will positively impact those they serve — without asking their constituents what they want, need, hope for or can contribute to solutions to the challenges they are facing. This can lead to the misuse of resources, wasted time and the breakdown of trust.
Effective leadership is not relegated to small conference rooms of like-minded colleagues. It happens in spaces of open dialogue around ever-expanding tables of truth-tellers, even when the resulting feedback is contrary to what a leader wants to hear. Effective leaders welcome dissent, and they seek out conflicting opinions because they know that is where the best ideas originate.
They are also self-aware enough to know that their voice carries disproportionate weight in most conversations. When they enter a room, conversations shift. It takes intentionality and focus to commit to staying humble, listening carefully to what is being said and what is not being said, being attentive to who is speaking and who is remaining quiet, and guarding against drowning out the voices of others.
A leader I deeply respect shared a series of mantras they repeat to themselves every day and, specifically, prior to a challenging conversation or meeting:
- I am good and loved for who I am, not what I do.
- I am committed to staying curious and remaining open.
- The world needs my true self, not a performance.
- Life is about practice and presence — not perfection.
This leader is clear that their value is rooted in being a child of God, not in what they produce. They call themselves into an open posture while remembering who they are as their truest self. And they are committed to the journey through practice and presence, not the glory of an achieved destination.
This is a leader who recognizes the messiness and complexity that comes from working with humans in their most fragile states. How they show up and who they listen to matter in how they lead.
Listening to unexpected voices requires courage, humility and a willingness to be changed by their wisdom. The best leaders are those who do not merely hear what they want to hear, but who seek out and honor what they need to hear for the sake of their people, their organizations and the futures they are building in conversation with a variety of others.
By listening to the voices that need to be heard, leaders cultivate the conditions for growth and innovation.
Black women have always been called. For generations, we have pastored as evangelists, intercessors, teachers, midwives of faith, and community builders. We preached without pulpits, shepherded without titles and carried congregations without recognition. Often denied ordination, we led anyway.
More and more, Black women are being officially appointed to the position of pastor, from small congregations to historic pulpits. They are also working as ordained ministers across many contexts, like hospitals and nonprofit sectors. This awakening, though well overdue, also carries significance that deserves deeper attention.
I say this from experience. There is a cost in being the “historic first.” The appointment often comes with theft and quiet exploitation, where your work is used, your ideas repackaged — and yet you remain unpaid, uncredited and unseen. Institutions issue press releases that praise your appointment even as actions betray both their words and God’s will.
As a Black woman leader in ministry, I’ve been a pawn in someone else’s strategy, never told I was even in their game. Oftentimes I have been forced into administrative roles and mentored to remain in my place. The pressure to do everything with nothing is a quiet violence I endured across church and secular spaces.
While interviewing Black women pastors for research and through my work with Black Women Write for Freedom, I have heard many painful stories. One woman shared that she was sent to lead a congregation after a male pastor abruptly stepped down mid-year. For more than two years, she carried out every pastoral responsibility: preaching, offering pastoral care, managing the budget and leading the church. Yet she was denied both the benefits and the official title of senior pastor. Despite feeling deeply slighted, she continued her assignment unrecognized and unprotected with full awareness that she was being treated unfairly.
What happens to the mental and spiritual health of Black women when they realize they were chosen not to lead, but to clean up? Not to thrive, but to survive? Not to partner, but to be admin support? The appointment itself is not enough; there must be support and belief in the calling from the congregation and those who appoint.
When denominations send Black women into churches that male leaders have damaged and ask them to rebuild from the wreckage, we are being thrown into the deep end and expected to swim, often with little to no support. And when things don’t turn around fast enough, the blame quietly shifts to us. The system asks us to revive dying churches without providing what we need to thrive.
I am deeply concerned about the well-being of Black women in church leadership. I often find myself watching with one eye closed — not because I don’t believe Black women should be in positions of authority, but because in my experience institutions are hard to trust. The celebration of our presence is not always matched with the protection or respect needed to allow us to succeed.
Black women continue to face second-guessing, diminished authority and outright dismissal. We are called “sister” instead of “reverend.” We are asked to preach from the floor rather than the pulpit. We are made to feel, explicitly or subtly, that we do not belong. One pastor said it plainly: “There’s this idea that Black women don’t have to be loved or appreciated.”
I spoke with Black women serving in historically Black denominations and in predominantly white ones, often in what are called cross-racial or cross-cultural appointments, and a clear pattern emerged.
Even when Black women are appointed, boards and leadership bodies often function in ways that undermine us. The systems that should support our leadership can, instead, work against us. Whether through gatekeeping, unequal pay or the absence of spiritual care, the message remains clear: You may be present, but you are not fully welcomed, and you must labor twice as hard for what others receive with ease. One pastor, reflecting on the emotional toll, said, “You can have the tools and intelligence, but if your soul is not protected, that’s dangerous.”
What has been most helpful to me, and to other Black women leaders I know, is being told the truth of what the work will actually require. Too often, that truth is camouflaged by shame, manipulation, or fear that leaders won’t come or stay if they know what they’re walking into. But withholding reality does more harm than good.
We need honesty. We need mentorship. We need resources. We need trust. These are not extras. They are the foundation that allows us to lead, stay well and do the work with integrity.
This is why networks like the RISE Together Mentorship Network and WomanPreach! Inc. are essential. Black women need holistic support: mentorship, mental health care and tangible resources. Without that, the appointment alone can feel more like a setup than a step forward.
Black women are not just navigating unjust systems; we are imagining and building new ones. When we are met with equity, sacred space, honest communication and tangible resources, we are free to lead from our deepest strength.
We are not projects to manage, tokens to showcase or obstacles to overcome. We are full partners. It’s time to move beyond symbolic inclusion. We deserve environments that invest in our well-being, honor our authority and equip us to thrive.
We have always answered the call, leading with vision shaped by generations of resilience. Now, systems and communities must answer our call with trust, equity and real partnership. As one United Methodist woman pastor said, “No place is perfect, but every place doesn’t have to be hell.”
The appointment alone is never enough. Perhaps someone in leadership will read this and have enough faith to believe that our experiences are enough. As one woman shared, “I don’t want future Black women pastors to endure what we did.”
Our faith compels us to go, to create and to innovate — regardless. But it would be holy for others to join us, not as gatekeepers, but as co-creators.
Because when systems fail to support us, when justice is delayed or denied, it doesn’t just harm Black women — it disrupts what God is trying to do through us. These disruptions are not only institutional; they are spiritual. And too often, they result in unexpected and cruel experiences, not because we weren’t called, but because we weren’t cared for.