by Kristen White

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Some of the best advice I received about pastoring came from Facebook.

Eight years ago, Antioch Baptist, located in rural Charlotte County, and I were entering our covenant together. With moving my family to a new place and this being my first pastorate after years of various other ministry roles, I was committed to approaching this new role with intentionality and care.

So when a thread came across my Facebook feed from a new pastor of a rural congregation asking for advice from other ministers who had “been there, done that,” I clicked on the comments and read carefully.

Amid lots of good thoughts about preaching, leadership, and organization, one comment in particular stuck with me:

Don’t take the plow out of the barn for a year. Just walk the fields. Watch where things grow on their own before planning what and where to plant.

Year One was not about implementing lots of new programs or making significant changes, but about building relationships and trust. Rather than trying to fix anything or prove myself, it was about listening to what congregants loved about Antioch and the ideas they had for the future. It was hearing about the challenging moments, the conflicts, or disappointments that led some folks to step away. And it was learning about that corner of the world called Red Oak and what mattered to the people who lived there.

In Isaiah 43, God’s words about doing a new thing are followed with a question: “Do you not perceive it?”

Walking the fields in that first year was a reminder that God was at work long before I arrived, planting seeds and tending the soil, and is still at work today. Returning to that foundation of being present with the land and the people serves as a helpful reminder to always be paying attention, ready to listen and to learn, that we might perceive together the ways God is leading us.

Rev. Kristen White is the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Red Oak, VA, a BGAV-participating congregation. She currently serves on BGAV’s Mission Council as a clergy representative from the Southside region.

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