The annual meeting is necessary. It’s important. Your people want to know what’s going on, how the church is doing, and what God is doing among you. Take the opportunity to share what God has done — practically and spiritually.

This is the first of a two-part cycle on the end of the church year and this episode focuses on what has happened this season in Cape Naz. The second part will focus on Jason Buckwalter and Heartland Nazarene and provide practical tips to make your end of year meetings more fruitful.

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In the second of two episodes, Desmond details both the spiritual and practical sides of church revitalization. Churches can’t do everything, but Christ does command his church to make disciples of all the nations. That means that a vital church — or a revitalizing church — must focus itself on evangelism. The same command, though, tells us to teach others to obey all that Christ has commanded us. Discipleship and spiritual formation, then, must also be a critical component of the revitalized church.

There are practical concerns as well — raising funds, smells and sights in the church, understanding a church’s language and culture. This far-reaching episode will discuss all of this and more.

If this subject interests you and you would like to learn more about church revitalization, pick up Dr. Barrett’s latest book - Rising From the Ashes Into Church Renewal. It’s available through Amazon and other booksellers.

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What is church revitalization? Dr. Barrett defines revitalization as “coming back.” Small churches — all churches — can face seasons of decline, crises, conflicts, and more. Walking through a process of revitalization can help churches recenter themselves on what makes them vital — alive and in agreement with the mission of God in the world. That makes it more than just church growth or outreach, but a renewal of a congregation’s commitment and engagement in what God is doing in them and in the world.

In this first of two episodes, Desmond shares his pastoral journey — his call to ministry, his first pastoral assignment in a church of 8, and his efforts to revitalize both Winter Haven Nazarene (his previous assignment) and his current work at Hilltop.

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In this episode, Michaele joins the Jasons to talk about all aspects of Lent — both from the perspective of pastors of churches and spiritual formation.

1. Means of Grace - as a spiritual director and pastor

2. Seasons of lament.

3. The hope of resurrection

4. How has Lent changed for you in this role?

God never intended for us to walk the path of discipleship and spiritual formation alone. He certainly never intended for pastors and spiritual leaders to do so. As a spiritual director, Michaele comes alongside people to encourage them on their spiritual journey, suggest spiritual practices and means of grace, and provide guidance and prayer.

In this episode, Michaele outlines what spiritual direction is and talks about her own journey as a pastor, disciple-maker, church planter, and her transition into her current role both in spiritual direction and at NTS.

Episode rundown:

1. Tell us about spiritual direction

2. Michaele’s ministry journey to Spiritual Direction

3. The need - why spiritual direction in a seminary setting

Danny talks about approaching Advent in a new place that is not as liturgical as his previous pastoring environment.

Jason Buckwalter talks about the development of his Advent devotional, We Wait.

Jason Hill talks about preaching Advent for the 16th year. How can you freshen up the scriptures? And do you need to as a pastor?

In this episode, the guys talk about Danny’s transition to Trinity from a spiritual and practical perspective. We also dig into the ethnography of the transition — what appealed to him about Trinity Nazarene and what he found when he arrived.

Episode rundown:

* Introducing Danny Quanstrum

* Setting the stage: Danny’s transition to Trinity

* The decision-making process

* Ethnography — Tell us about Trinity Nazarene!

Jason shares this story of how this new ministry came to be, what he’s learned about Westminister, and how he’ll approach his ministry there. We also talk quite a bit about the concept of “my ministry” vs. the “ministry of the church,” and how to better integrate the church and our life together into one cohesive movement of the Kingdom of God.

The rundown:

* Bucky’s new ministry opportunity at Westminster

* The decision-making process of starting a new ministry

* Ethnography at Westminster

* “Your ministry” vs. “the ministry of the church”

* Approaching ministry on a college campus

Jessica joined the podcast to tell the story of how she got involved in domestic violence advocacy, her leadership of the Safe House of Southeast Missouri, and her new role in public affairs with MOCADSV, a statewide coalition of domestic violence service providers.

The rundown:

* Jessica shares her story.

* Advocacy as a calling (not unlike a call to ministry.)

* The work of MOCADSV.

* Domestic violence — the vital information

* Domestic violence and the church

We hope you enjoy this episode! If you or your church are interested in engaging in ministry to victims of domestic violence, or if you think someone in your congregation is experiencing domestic violence, please message us! We would be happy to put you in touch with service providers in your area.

The church growth movement has had a monumental influence on the way that pastors and church leaders understand the church, pastoral success, congregational viability, and even the perceived work of the Holy Spirit. Some of it was positive. Much of it was not. In Desizing the Church, Karl Vaters walks through the history and impact of the church growth movement and what it means for small church pastors.

This episode should help you better understand how the church growth movement impacts your ministry and your church and discover healthier ways to pursue congregational revitalization that aren’t so dependent upon numbers and statistics.

Jason Buckwalter and I, Jason Hill, both highly recommend Desizing the Church for pastors of any size, but particularly for our audience of largely small church pastors and readers! Give it a read! You can pick it up from Amazon or your favorite book seller.

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Karl has over four decades of experience ministering in small churches and to small church pastors. In this episode, the first of two with Karl, he shares his call to ministry and his approach to pastoring during the rise of the church growth movement.

If you would like to learn more about Karl’s ministry, check out his site - karlvaters.com.

Or read his books: The Grasshopper Myth, Small Church Essentials, 100 Days to a Healthier Church, Desizing the Church, and The Church Recovery Guide.

In this episode of the Sacred and Small Podcast, the Jasons dig into the concept of critical reflection and use some of their own summer experiences to consider the subject.

Crticial reflection includes concepts like lament and repentance and, in the end, helps us move as individuals and churches toward sanctification, better alignment with God’s will and way.

As you listen to this episode, take a moment to consider your own summer. How did God move? What challenges did you run into? Reflect on those things and consider what God would like to teach you and your people through those experiences.

It’s great to be back with you for another season of the Sacred & Small podcast. We have a great season planned out for you, including some special guests who are leaders in the world of (small) church leaders. Plus we’ll have a great new group of small church pastors, who will join us to share their story and talk about the great things God is doing in and through their churches.

In today’s episode, Bucky and Jason Hill catch up on their summers, try to be funny, and eventually get around to talking about how they handle quiet seasons in the church. We dig in to the concept of being proactive vs. reactive and how some proactivity during quiet seasons can help us when the inevitable challenges of small church leadership require reactivity.

As always, you can listen to the podcast right here on Substack. Or you can find us through the A Plain Account podcast network on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and other great podcast outlets.

It’s great to be back! Thanks, as always, for listening. (Or reading along with the transcription.)

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Pastor Mike first shares the ethnography and demographics of the Missouri District Church of the Nazarene. The Missouri District is a district made up of almost entirely small churches — churches of around 200 or less in worship attendance. Pastor Mike has served the district for 19 years as DS and even longer as a pastor and evangelist. He has seen it all, and he shares from his experience about the challenges facing both small churches and small pastors and how the church can overcome them.

He also advocates for the small church and small church pastors. The small church has a great opportunity ahead of them and is capable of doing even greater things than larger churches, if the pastor and people are willing to pursue God’s mission and not get caught up in power struggles and traditions.

Join with our conversation! We would love to hear what challenges you think are facing the small church and what opportunities God is calling small churches to.

In this episode, Pastor Mike and the Jasons talk about Mike’s call to ministry and his experience as an evangelist/revivalist before being elected to the DS position. Revivals and evangelistic gatherings, like the old camp meetings, aren’t as popular as they used to be. We discuss why that is, the important role that experiences play in our greater spiritual life and discipleship, and the ways that churches/districts are filling those gaps today.

We are so grateful to have Pastor Mike with us and wish him all the best in his retirement!

In this episode of the Sacred & Small podcast, the Jasons talk about the concept of sabbath and their personal practices of rest. We then talk about the importance of rest for our congregations, and how we try to work in seasons of rest and recovery for our people.

How do you and your congregation practice rest? We would love to hear from you!

In this episode of the Sacred and Small podcast, the Jasons gather to talk about how their Easter and Holy Week services went, what went well and what didn’t, and what they expect over the next few weeks.

Don’t let the Easter letdown get you down! Christ is resurrected. And that’s good news for the church, even when you aren’t having an egg hunt.

Episode Rundown:

What is Easter?

What are the essential elements of Easter?

How are you practicing Easter and Holy Week in your church?

Webster’s story is of particular interest to us because our own Jason Buckwalter was a youth pastor there before taking his current senior pastor position at Fulton Heartland. Sam and Jason are able to share the ways that Webster’s culture has changed over the years and how that’s played itself out liturgically and missionally.

In this episode, the Jasons and Tiffany walk through their understanding of Lent, focusing on spiritual practices called, in Wesleyan circles, the means of grace. The means of grace are transformative in our lives, imparting God’s grace to us, inspiring us to act in faith, and result in grace for ourselves and others. They are the heart of spiritual formation, and the core of what the season of Lent is all about.

Episode rundown:

* What is Lent?

* Lent and the Means of Grace

* What are the means of grace?

* How are we practicing the means of grace this season?

We follow our ethnographic interviewing strategies to ask her “tell me about…” questions that get to the heart of her call from media production to full-time pastoral ministry. She recently felt called to come to Gateway Naz as their senior pastor, and she shares about that process of transition and what she learned about her people when she arrived.

Tiffany will join the podcast for a two-part series that will take us into the season of Lent.

Episode rundown:

* The season of Lent at Sacred and Small

* Meet Tiffany Ross

* Tiffany’s call to ministry

* An ethnographic narrative of Gateway Nazarene

In this second of two episodes, Jason Buckwalter observed a selected church worship service from Jason Hill’s church. This service was chosen because it was the first week that Cape Naz was implementing a new system to receive prayer requests.

Episode Rundown:

* Re-introducing the LASTS method

* Jason B reflects on a special service at Cape Church of the Nazarene

* We both draw some conclusions about the culture at Cape Naz

* We consider the LASTS method of participant observation

If you would like to try participant observation and the LASTS method in your own church, you can use this cheat sheet to get started!

Over the next two episodes, the Jasons will watch a selected church worship service from the other’s church, take field notes on what we experience while watching using the LASTS parameters of language, actors/actions, space, time, and symbols, and then reflecting on our experience to try to describe the culture of the church.

This is something that any pastor can do in their own context to better understand the values that you express as a church.

Episode Rundown:

* Introducing the LASTS method

* Critical reflection

* Jason H reflects on a special service at Fulton Heartland

* We both draw some conclusions about the culture at Heartland

If you would like to try participant observation and the LASTS method in your own church, you can use this cheat sheet to get started!

Episode Rundown:

* A theology of mutual submission.

* Leadership in the church.

* The volunteer problem in small churches.

* Our approach to volunteer management

Episode rundown:

* Facility maintenance as a percentage of the church’s budget

* Current facility issues that we are dealing with

* Our approach to facility management

* Major renovations & capital campaigns

* Dealing with insurance

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Episode Rundown:

* Our Advent themes

* Christmas Eve stories

* Looking ahead to 2025

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Episode Rundown:

* Listening to the Spirit

* Leading people with relationships instead of pushing them to do what you want

* Pastoring as an introvert

* Developing leaders and starting new ministries

* Inspiring cultural change

Kim brings decades of pastoral experience and a heart for intentional missional relationships to the conversation. We discuss Kim’s story, missional relationships, and the distinction and necessity of both “attractional” and “missional” outreach in a small church.

The conversation delves into the transition between Christendom and post-Christendom, addressing how cultural shifts challenge traditional church practices and perceptions. Drawing on insights from theologians like James K.A. Smith, Charles Taylor, and Andrew Root, they discuss how cultural exegesis can guide small churches in faithful, innovative ministry that resists outdated methods.

The episode introduces the concept of dialogical corporate sanctification, emphasizing ongoing dialogue between pastors, their congregations, and the broader culture shaped by the Spirit. The hosts also explore the dangers of the church adopting postures of colonialism, triumphalism, or uncritical absorption of culture, urging a more reflective and dialogical approach.

This thought-provoking discussion blends theological depth with practical insights, offering pastors and leaders a roadmap for navigating cultural complexity while remaining rooted in faithful mission and ministry. Whether you're a small church pastor or interested in understanding the dynamics of ministry in a changing world, this episode is packed with valuable insights.

Highlights:

* Understanding the church's place between Christendom and post-Christendom.

* The pastor’s role as a liminal, prophetic guide within the congregation.

* The theological and practical significance of dialogical sanctification.

* Avoiding pitfalls like colonialism and triumphalism in small church ministry.

* Embracing cultural exegesis as a tool for reimagining church mission.

Referenced Resources:

* A Secular Age by Charles Taylor

* Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World by Alan Roxburgh

* Leadership, God’s Agency, and Disruptions by Mark Lau Branson and Alan Roxburgh

* How Not to Be Secular by James K.A. Smith

* Andrew Root’s Congregation in a Secular Age series

* Holy God, Holy People by Tom Noble

Tune in to this rich conversation that inspires reflection, challenges assumptions, and offers hope for small churches navigating a liminal cultural space.

Preaching in the small church is challenging!

In this episode, Jason and Jason are joined again with Danny Quanstrom from A Plain Account to talk about the art and act of preaching within the small church.

We start by talking about expectations for our weekly sermons with limited staff, resources, and budget. Sometimes, as small church pastors, we feel this pressure to compete with the multi-media experiences and multi-staff sermons put out by large churches. We can’t do that! And it’s likely that our people are interested in that. We can be culturally sincere in our sermons and that’s all God needs to work through the proclamation of the Word.

We also share our sermon planning processes. Jason, Jason, and Danny all have their own unique approach to planning sermons, writing sermons, and how we integrate them into greater liturgical and discipling life of our church.

As we have shared our process with you, we would love to hear from you about how you plan your sermons and weekly process.

We want to say a huge thank you to Danny Quanstrom for joining us through this series of episodes. Preaching will be a big part of our content here at Sacred and Small. We will certainly have him back soon!

Advent is coming again!

Advent is coming again soon!

With the start of the liturgical year coming soon, the two Jasons are joined again by Danny Quanstrom from A Plain Account to talk about preaching and discipleship through the Advent season.

In this episode, we share our experience with Advent and how we incorporate intentionality into our Advent liturgies. As your church is preparing for the Advent season, we hope our conversation can inspire some new intentionality and liturgical works in your congregation.

This is a great space to share your story! How does your church celebrate Advent? How do you distinguish it from the season of Christmas? (If you do!) We would love to hear from you in the comments.

Sunday comes every week! That means that, as small church pastors, it’s our responsibility to preach the Word on a weekly basis. For many of us, that means 45-52 new sermons every week. (And that only counts Sunday mornings!)

In this episode, Jason and Jason are joined by Danny Quanstrom, co-founder of “A Plain Account.” A Plain Account is an online resource for preaching, the lectionary, discipleship, and liturgy (and more) in the Wesleyan tradition. Danny shares the story of his journey in ministry and the liturgy and mission of his church.

Danny will join us for the next three episodes as we focus on preaching and planning in the small church.

In this episode, the two Jasons share their journeys to and with their current churches. Jason Hill shares his call from a large church plant in Tulsa, OK to a tiny church re-start in rural Southeast Missouri. Jason Buckwalter narrates his journey from an urban church struggling against the “200 barrier” to a rural congregation that has become their home. This is called ethnographic re-narration. Knowing your story and the story of your church can help you understand who your people are, what God has done among them in the past, and what he is doing among them right now.

As we share our stories, we would love to hear yours! How did God lead you to your current congregation? What have you learned about small churches in your current place of worship and service?

Share with us as we have shared with you!

What responsibilities do we have to our small churches? Theologically? Missionally? Liturgically? We provide some answers in the podcast. Let’s hear yours!

They matter to God.

They matter to people.

They matter to your community.

Small churches might be small — 200 folks in gathered worship or less — but they are by far the most common expression of the Body of Christ in the world now and throughout church history.

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Small churches are just as significant to God and his Kingdom as the mega-church down the street. We know that doesn’t often seem true. But it is true.

In this episode, Jason Hill (me) and my co-host, Jason Buckwalter, dig into what it means to be a small church, in all of its grime and glory. We share a little about our own stories and experiences in the small church, introduce our theological orientation (and why that shouldn’t matter to you regardless of your denominational background), and define the small church demographically.

If you’re joining us for the first time, we would love to have you say “hi” in the comments and share a little bit about your church. This is a conversation. Jump in!

We would also really appreciate it if you shared Sacred + Small with other small group pastors, church leaders, and congregants. Let’s keep this conversation going. You can subscribe through our Substack or find our podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just search “Sacred and Small.”

Thanks for joining us on this great adventure of pastoring the small church. May God bless you and your congregation.

Grace and peace,

Jason Hill

You can join the conversation right here on our Substack page, sacredandsmall.substack.com.

Our (tentative) episode list for 2024-2025:

Topic 1: Why Sacred & Small

* Ep. 1 - Why the Small Church Matters

* Ep. 2 - Theology, Liturgy, and Mission in the Small Church

* Ep. 3 - Meet Your Hosts + “Let’s Get Liminal!”

Topic 2: Liturgy & Mission in the Small Church

* Ep. 4 - The Formative Nature of Liturgy

* Ep. 5 - Mission in the Midst of Small Church Culture

* Ep. 6 - Transformative Discipleship: Integrating Liturgy + Mission

Topic 3: Sermon Planning! (With a Special Guest!)

* Ep. 7 - Sermon Planning & the Spirit

* Ep. 8 - The Liturgical Calendar

* Ep. 9 - Our Approach to Sermon Planning

* Ep. 10 - The Sermon & the Church: A Holistic Approach

Topic 4: Small Chruch Pastoral Health (With a Special Guest!)

* Ep. 11 - Sabbath & Sabbatical

* Ep. 12 - Pastoring & Friendship

* Ep. 13 - Expectations & Failure

Topic 5: The Small Church In Context (The Church of the Nazarene)

* Ep. 14 - Ethnographic Narrative from the M25 conference

* Ep. 15 - Special Guest Interview from M25

* Ep. 16 - Reviewing M25 Small Church Workshops

Topic 6: Lent - A Season of Pastoral Growth (with Special Guests!)

* Ep. 17 - Lent Week 1

* Ep. 18 - Lent Week 2

* Ep. 19 - Lent Week 3

* Ep. 20 - Lent Week 4

* Ep. 21 - Lent Week 5

* Ep. 22 - Lent Week 6

Topic 7: Understanding Small Church Culture

* Ep. 23 - Problematization

* Ep. 24 - How Culture is Formed: Embedded Theologies

* Ep. 25 - How Culture is Formed: Embodied Liturgies

* Ep. 26 - How Culture is Formed: Emboldened Passions

We hope you’ll join us!