Daniel Graham is pastor of the Free Methodist Church in Peterborough, Ontario. He previously served in Prince Albert Saskatchewan and is part of the executive of the Free Methodist Church in Canada. His ministry in small churches spans three decades. He speaks to COVID, small church advantages and regional differences in ministry in small churches.
“I pastor Peterborough, Free Methodist Church. . . My path has taken me from Southern Ontario to Northern Saskatchewan and back. So Keswick, Newmarket is where I grew up in Ontario. It’s now kind of outskirts of Toronto, but back back then it was small town, Ontario. Then I moved up to Sunbury, I went to university in Sudbury, Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. I was a computer programmer. Upon graduating, worked in computers for a couple of years and then felt a call to become a pastor. Talked about that with Lisa (wife). And when it was time to choose a seminary to attend we chose Regina, Canadian Theological Seminary. Yes, grew a fond appreciation of the Alliance denomination that way. My background is Free Methodist. Upon graduating, the [Free Methodist] church in Prince Albert was open. So interviewed there, got the call there and was 17 years pastoring that church in Prince Albert so ultimately about 20 years in Saskatchewan.”
“Larger churches can offer some things that smaller churches can’t but smaller churches do have advantages. I think of intergenerational. We have adult Bible study, we don’t have mums and tots study, men’s group, seniors group, you know, all the different menu options. . . Therefore, you have people with all kinds of different backgrounds and all kinds of different stages of life, looking at scripture together, interpreting scripture together and enlightening one another and I think we can learn lots from each other. . . If we’re talking pastor in church, I think the larger the church gets the more administrative tasks and responsibilities there are to do and that begins to consume your time. In a smaller church, not that there isn’t that stuff, but you do have a little bit more freedom to have one on one. conversations, relationships, even friendships. One of the one of the guys in our Saskatchewan church said, You know, I want a pastor but I don’t want just a pastor, I want a pastor who’s a friend. So that’s a high ask. You can’t be a pastor, can’t be best friends with everybody. I acknowledge that right. But, you know, there was a good five or six different people that I was able to go for coffee with on a regular basis. And, hopefully minister into their life and they into mine. But I think that probably the biggest advantage is something like allowing people to test their giftedness. . . . ‘We need four board members. Yeah, right. And we’ve only got three Hey, will you do it?’ No, you know, not that crass. But I think need does drive a little bit of asking and inviting people to go outside their comfort zone just a little bit. And, and I’m getting more used to that, as a pastor asking people to do this much outside their comfort zone, right? Not much, because you’re gonna freak them out, they’re not gonna want to do it. And I can’t do that, right. But if you ask that much more, it’s stretching, it’s growing, it will help them see God work in their service, to allow them to do things they never thought they could, or were afraid to do. But they see how God allows them to do it.”
Advice to someone considering ministry in a small church: “So the quick one is, the advice a lot of people gave me, was love the people. I think in a smaller church that’s really important. You have to love the people – quirks giftedness, and sometimes shyness to express their giftedness. . . , You’re going to see the good and then some of the bad and love the people. Serve them out of that attitude. . . . But overall, I think a small church pastor needs to think about how they define success. Church envy is a huge issue for smaller churches, it’s easy to look at other church signs and say, well, they’re running this event, we should run that kind of event. . . I think you you have to be considering and discerning what is the giftedness and call of our church and the people in it.”
COVID: “Pastors are tired. Pastors have been dealing with a lot of extra things that are not directly related to their first priority of ministry. And it’s felt like distraction to some degree, and steep, steep learning curves on things I never thought I’d have to learn. I think the first and biggest thing, though, is watching and seeing how Christians deal with one another in extreme divergent opinion. Interesting in the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul calls the church saints, and several times in the book of Philippians, he talks about how they need to get along. But he still calls them saints. So how do we have a high opinion of one another? Well, we still disagree on some things that need to be implemented. It saddens me when I hear a Christian person talk about another one on on the opposing view, and say, well, they think that way, because they have weak faith. It’s those kinds of comments that I think, have not been helpful through COVID. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing is how have we walked through divergent opinion on the rules and policies and procedures that government hands to us and obedience or non obedience to them? How do we walk through all that? And And still, respect and love other Christians with other pages?”
“Unfortunately, one denominational colleague made this observation, that the longer the lockdowns go on, and in Ontario, we’re in lockdown for more and more weeks. The longer it goes on, the more divergent the opinions become, the harder it is to maintain that middle of ‘we’ll we’ll just weather this and then get through it’.”
“Being a small church pastor: “I keep going back to call. This is something that our seminary did well at is to help us remember to keep thinking back to your calling. You’re called or you’re not. And and you don’t just get to give up midstream. . . . I think you have to keep remembering that you’re called. And that’s not just pastors right. That’s leaders in our church, the ones who keep doing and doing. We were all called.”
“And the other thing to think is, we have to think the best of other people. In a small church it’d be really easy to get offended by some of the things that people say, indirectly to you. Yeah, you hear that people say, behind the scenes too, and all all of that. Sometimes people just have a bad day. And aren’t quite themselves and say something they didn’t quite mean. You have to give leeway for that. you have to not be insulted by a lot of things. You have to remember, there’s a long game here, you’re building the kingdom of God. . . . And I like the phrase, give the benefit of the doubt. A friend of mine says, ‘assume positive intent’.”