How to Survive 

the Pastoral Graveyard of New England

By Josh Presley

Ministry in New England is as hard as this region’s frozen ground, but I had no idea how hard it would be when my wife and I moved here in 2010. I think I believed my seminary-stuffed brain made me somewhat invincible.

There’s a reason they call New England “The Pastors Graveyard” just as there’s good reason The Graveyard of the Atlantic got its name among sailors—it’s rocky and it’ll sink you if you’re not prepared.

By God’s grace, though, our years in northern Maine have become the best and hardest years of our life and ministry.

If you’re thinking about ministry in this part of the world or in some other difficult soil, here’s three things God has taught me along the way.

Obedience to Jesus, not results, is your mission. 

Growing up in the church, we held many outreach events. It was often said “if only one person gets saved then it was worth it all.” If that were my standard over the past seven years of ministering at Calvary Baptist Church in Caribou, Maine, then I would have considered most of our outreach events as failures.

Obedience to Jesus, not results, must be the goal. This has become our consistent focus at Calvary. We can say with sincerity (we often do), “If no one gets saved, it will be worth it all because we were obedient to Jesus.” Ministry up here is the long game, and what it’s done for my heart, my family, and our church is draw us into deeper worship. It’s maintained our obedience to the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ. So we worship, we obey, and we trust Jesus to accomplish His work through us.

Bi-vocational ministry is your secret weapon.

Bi-vocational ministry is a powerful and, often, essential approach to sustainable gospel work in difficult places like New England. Though serving as a bi-vocational pastor can create a challenging juggling act, it also can create gospel opportunities otherwise unavailable while ministering in hard contexts. Having a job in your community provides you with daily connections with lost people, it builds credibility and trust with community leaders, and it gives you an opportunity to invest your professional skills in the community.

So it’s missional, but it’s also practical. By reducing the financial strain of a salary from a struggling church, you open up more resources for ministry. Plus, let’s face it: a regular paycheck, insurance, paid time-off, and a daily sense of accomplishment can help strengthen your and your family’s resolve for the long haul.

Yes. I know you are a disciple of Jesus and your primary goal should be obedience to the mission, but pastoring day-after-day without spiritual results can be extremely difficult no matter how many times you remind yourself of the mission. Having an outlet outside of ministry to be successful can bring an overall sense of accomplishment that will flow into your ministry and allow for the true goal of your church to be the mission, not results.

Ministry is not a lone venture.

If Jesus never worked alone then I’m not sure why we pastors would ever feel it’s okay to be a one-man team. Your ministry does not rise and fall on you and it was never meant to be done alone. On the one hand, if you position yourself as a one-man team you will receive the praise if results come. But, in a hard context, if results don’t come, you have positioned yourself to receive the blame. Working with a team of qualified leaders will allow you to share the load of ministry and the blame if it comes.

You will flare out. And in a context like New England, if you are not sharing the load and investing in leaders then you are stunting the spiritual growth and gifts of your members and sabotaging the future growth of your ministry. Make ministry a team sport and be ready to weather the storm no matter how deep the snow gets.

Testing Updated Blog

     I am attempting to use this blogspot as a place where I will post Christian topics including my opinion on various items of concern and interest in today's world.

Texas Tragedy

     I grieve today for the victims and families of the family that was shot dead in their own home by a selfish coward bent on revenge no matter who stood in his way. This is yet another beyond senseless multiple murder in our country. An act that is happening so often we are getting
"used to it" like mass killing has become the new "normal."
     It should never be thought of as the new normal. It is hideous. It is monstrous. It is wrong. And it is sin. Sadly, these gross crimes will continue until Jesus Christ returns as He promised He would.
     Please pray for the families and individuals who are now living through their worst nightmare.

Children and Pets Dying in Hot Cars

     Every day there is another report of a baby, toddler or pet found dead in a car parked in a parking lot while the person responsible was in a store, workplace or other building. This insanity and downright cruelty must stop. If you must take the child or pet with you please don't leave them in your hot car for even a minute. If you neglect the child or pet, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

Freedom

     This is the Fourth of July weekend in America. A time to reflect on our country and the many freedoms that we enjoy and even take for granted. A worn out cliche says rightly so that "Freedom isn't Free."
The freedom we enjoy as Americans came at a very high price. So is the high cost of our ultimate freedom, "Our Freedom in Christ."
    Pause today and give thanks to God for the freedom we have in both America for this lifetime and for the freedom given to believers for all eternity in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thoughts and Musings From an Old Man in Maine
April 2014
********************************************
Blueberries
Yesterday, I got an email from The Home Depot. It said that this was the time to plant Blueberry Bushes if you lived in New England! Do they know that we still have snow and that the ground is frozen?
***************************************************

The North Country News

News, Notes and Memories from Pastor Charlie in Eliot, Maine

February 2013

**********************************************************************

Critters Seen Around the Bird Feeders

This winter has been a very exciting time for feeding the birds and other critters at our outdoor, but, close up feeders. I say close up because one feeder is hanging only six inches from our kitchen window. It has taken a few years to get the feeder this close. Each year over the past several we have brought the feeder closer to the window. Now we are able to observe them just fine.
For the first time in memory we have a flock of Blue Birds at the feeder each day. Also coming regularly are Chickadees, Buntings, Bridled Titmice, Grackles, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Finches and Woodpeckers. Eating roasted, salted peanuts in the shell from the ground are Squirrels, Chipmunks, Blue Jays and even one Barn Rat which we call Templeton. Templeton was the friendly rat featured in Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. In the movie version Paul Lynde was the perfect voice of Templeton!
So we stay busy feeding the creatures then watching their antics from just a few inches away!

How Cold Is It?

Folks in the North Country are enjoying (?) a good old-fashioned winter. I mean the kind with plenty of snow and extremely cold temperatures. Did I mention the wind? Well it has been blowing for nearly a week now with gusts well over 40 miles per hour!
Oddly, the January thaw came two days this week and the outside temperature hit 60° F and all the snow is gone. The strong winds have dried the ground nicely. Tomorrow, February arrives and that has been historically our heaviest snow month. We who make our home in the North Country love the weather even if it means spending more money on heating oil and winter clothes than almost all folks in the country.

Enjoying Life As Never Before

At the age of sixty-seven, I can say that I am enjoying this great gift of life. This is especially true as a part-time pastor. I could not handle all the demands of working fulltime but twenty or so hours a week serves me fine.
It is an awesome call to represent the Lord by preaching His word every Sunday. I have a wonderful congregation even if it is small in number. Nearly every month we have one or two new folks attend. Many times they return the next Sunday.
I also work from my home office so Mary Lou and the dogs are close at hand.

The Snowy Burial of Jim Norton

Jim Norton died ten days before his 94^th birthday in early January. Jim had served the Lord and His church for nearly seventy years. Jim had preplanned his services and wished to have only a short and modest graveside service. In keeping with Jim’s wishes, I conducted a ten minute graveside service on January 15^th in the middle of a snowstorm. There were nearly eighty people hovering under an overhead canopy. When I finished my part two soldiers in sharp dress uniforms played taps and folded the flag and presented it on behalf of the President and the grateful American people for Jim’s service. The graveside service in a snowstorm was a first for me but I assure you it was just as Jim wanted.

Jace, Our Grandson Is Now Eighteen Years Old

Jace Ryan Howard Downes turned 18 on January 12. It certainly was a red-letter day for him. He was able to insure and register his 1982 GMC pickup truck the day before his birthday so he was able to drive it on his big day.
Jace is a Senior at Noble High School in nearby North Berwick, Maine. He has taken classes at the Vocational section majoring in Automobile Mechanics. At his tender age, Jace has owned thirty-two used Simplicity garden tractors, all in working condition. He has bought and sold ten pickup trucks and as many cars. Using his computer over the years, Jace was able to find out how to repair anything with an engine. We are very proud of him.

Fillin’ the Wood Stoves
Mary Lou and I supplement our oil burning boiler with two woodstoves. One of them was built by her father forty years ago. I say built because Guy Morang bought the stove kit by mail. It consisted of a door, a smokestack and four legs. Guy supplied his own 55 gallon empty oil barrel. Once assembled he had a “corker” of a stove. It takes large logs up to 36 inches long and when it is roaring it will drive one out of the living room!
The other stove I also bought in the mail a few years back. That one is in our kitchen and it does a great job of keeping us warm while saving oil. The stove was built by a Christian company named Vogelzang.
We also have a “retired” Glenwood Parlor Stove down cellar. The stove was built in 1910 and was given to my father in 1950. It was used to heat the small home that I grew up in. Dad burned white pine buttings from the mill where he worked. Being softwood, they burned faster than a cigar and kept us kids busy feeding the stove!
I have kept the stove with us after my parents no longer needed it. Every household move we made with Woolworth’s (nine times in eleven years) that old stove moved with us over the protests of the moving men. Some things are just too sentimental to give up! My kids threaten to bury my cremated ashes along with the stove. That’s it for now; stay warm and I’ll “visit” with you in March, Charlie

　

　

　
　
　
　



The North Country News

The North Country News

News Heard In and Around Eliot, Maine

January 2013

**************************************************************************************************************

The New Year Has Arrived!

Just like “clockwork” the New Year came on time as it has every year that I can remember. Amazing, when you think of all of the order we have in this great universe the Lord created for us. The seasons come and the seasons go. Spring always follows Winter; Summer always follows Spring; Autumn always follows Summer; and then Winter always comes again! That’s just the way God planned it.
Today, I preached a sermon on another year of grace that God has given us. We don’t deserve it but God loves us so much He gives us another opportunity to live a life the way He intended. We all fall short of the glory of God every year and yet He allows us another chance to “get it right.”

The Passing of Nellie Randolph

As an under shepherd of a local flock of believers, I too grieve when any in the flock are suffering from the loss of a family member. That very thing happened just yesterday when a dear saint, Nellie Randolph, fell asleep in Jesus at the age of ninety-seven. Nellie had served in just about every position in our church over the past seventy years. She was a Sunday school Superintendent, a Sunday school teacher, a Deaconess, an Official Board member, and on and on.
Her greatest ministry, however, was as a fearless witness of Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen. Nellie loved the Lord and was not afraid to speak of His love, grace and mercy to us. She especially pointed out to all that Jesus loved them enough to die on the cross for them. As I think of Nellie, I am reminded of just how few Christians today are willing to speak to strangers and friends alike about Jesus.
Nellie, like her friend and fellow saint, Elaine Paul, was always ready with a gospel tract and kind words to all folks she met from a checkout clerk to a plumber or other person whose path she crossed each day.
I thank God for Nellie and will always remember her as a “giant along my path” of life.

John 3:16-17

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Time for Ice Skating

One of the activities I enjoyed most as a youngster was ice skating each winter.
We lived across the street from a two-hundred acre chunk of wetland that we called “the hayth.” Some would call it a swamp but whatever it was called, the neighborhood kids loved it in the winter when it was well frozen. The water was only two feet deep at the most so we did not have to worry much if the ice broke. Our mothers really appreciated that.

We would head over to the hayth with our skates in hand as well as a portable radio, an oil lamp, and some snacks and skate for hours. One day, I went skating alone after school and while listening to “rock n roll” on the radio, I hit a piece of grass sticking up out of the ice and I went down. Actually, I fell hard backward and apparently hit my head on the ice and knocked myself out. When I came to, it was dark. My radio was still playing and from the time announced, I guessed I was out for about two hours! I knew my mother would be worried about me so I gathered my gear and went home quickly. She asked me why I was late and I just said that I was having such a good time that I lost track of the time!

And yes, by the way, I decided on my own to never go skating alone again.