Caring for small places

In Cherry, Ill., two “jumbos” of waste rock and pink shale tower over the town. Surrounding mining communities have removed similar piles, but not Cherry. These sentinels of slag serve as a physical memorial to the 1909 mine disaster that killed 259 men and boys.

Charles Cotherman’s new book Strip Mine Jesus: Hope for the Rural Church, Small Towns, and Overlooked Places (Baker, 240 pp.) tells similar stories from where he grew up in rural Pennsylvania with its abandoned mines and derelict oil rigs. It’s a place he insists God pays attention to, and so should we.

Cotherman is executive director of the Center on Rural Ministry at Grove City College, and this book tells his personal story of living in boom towns gone bust. While many looked for a way out, Cotherman has chosen to stay.

“We can use big theological words like omnipresence or omniscience to talk about the attributes of the Triune God, but we often talk like God is not actually active in our town, in our neighbors, in our midst.”

He calls believers everywhere to seek “accidental community” as God providentially connects people—not just in bustling cities and well-manicured suburbs, but along gravel back roads. It’s “a shift from the community we chose, to the community we receive.” We don’t have to wait for a Macedonian call: “All we have to do is look for how Christ’s love is already at work and join him in it right where we are.”

Cotherman spends more time than necessary on strip-mining and hometown histories, but by the end he’s painted a vivid picture that reminds us that great cities come and go and that ministers who chase after fame and influence may have more in common with exploitative oil prospectors than first-century disciples from Galilee.

Personally, I never imagined I’d end up ministering in the shadow of a coal mine’s castoffs. Yet here I am. During my own Bible college experience, there was a sense that the bigger the gospel vision, the more God-honoring it must be. This idea gets reinforced in many seminary alumni magazines with glossy spreads on the “successful” graduates, while often overlooking the faithful, hidden servants of God working in the quiet corners of the Master’s fields. Cotherman calls believers to join the rolls of that latter group—looking out for the woman at the well, the blind man by the side of the road, and the unclean on the edges of society.

Strip Mine Jesus should be required reading for every prospective pastor. It’s a powerful inoculant to the call of celebrity and notoriety. It’s also a much-needed encouragement to those currently living and serving in forgotten or neglected communities—especially when we’re tempted to look for “more important” places to minister.