Loving a Place That Suffers: Ministry in Small Towns and Overlooked Places 

By Charles E. Cotherman

Suffering: A Shared Experience 

None of us can escape suffering. We may attempt to avoid it or ignore it in our individual lives, but eventually suffering finds us all. Suffering can take a variety of forms, such as illnesses, broken relationships, addiction, natural disasters, or even disappointed hopes.  

But we seldom experience suffering in isolation. Though no two people experience suffering in exactly the same way, two people—or entire communities—can experience suffering together as a corporate phenomenon. This is part of living life together, especially in communities built around deep, multigenerational relationships. 

Weeping and Rejoicing with a People: Sharing Life in Tightly Woven Communities 

Most who have lived in a small community know what it is like to follow Paul’s injunction to “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). To live in a small, interconnected community offers daily opportunities to practice both postures.  

Sometimes it’s rejoicing over a team’s success, a baby’s dedication, or a graduation. Sometimes it’s mourning the pain and uncertainty of a scary diagnosis. Throughout our life and ministry in small communities, my wife and I have experienced sharing in all this because we were in relationship with others, and those relationships opened us up to both joy and suffering. 

Can We Suffer with a Place? Staying in a Small Town and Sharing Its Pain 

I think a similar process occurs in our relationship to places. If we choose long-term relational and geographic stability, we will find that the communities and histories that compose places are themselves reservoirs of both joy and pain.  

This may be especially true in smaller communities, which often function as collectives and are deeply formative for those who live within them. But there is a tension in this formative power. This collective influence on our consciousness can be a positive force, fostering a sense of civic pride and significance (e.g., our team won the state title, or we are a community of hardworking folks). But what happens when our communities seem to be declining or when we sense that our part of the world is marked by a spoken or unspoken sense of shame or obsolescence? We may tell ourselves that our community “feels like home,” but we also know that we live in a place our children are likely to leave. 

Small places carry a real sense of being in it together, and this includes both the joys and pains of life. It is our relationships—to both people and place—that make us vulnerable to suffering. It is only those who have chosen to love who feel the full bite of criticism, just as it is only those who have chosen to stay who face the long- term fallout of systemic problems, be it localized pollution, alcohol and drug abuse, or underperforming schools.  

The more we know and love a place and its people, the more we will suffer. That’s why we need Jesus. 

How Jesus Modeled Suffering on Earth 

Jesus understands our suffering—even the suffering that can accompany calling the “wrong” place home. Jesus’s upbringing in the obscurity of a looked-down-on town in Galilee is, of course, only a footnote in the story of the suffering he experienced during his three decades on earth. Jesus bore the sorrows of the world he created as he endured loss, betrayal, hunger, injustice, slander, misunderstandings, and finally the silence of his Father as he hung on the cross. 

The suffering of Christ is more than an inspiration; it is a model. Christ’s identification with us—with everyday people and places—came at a cost. But the story of the incarnation is not sorrow alone. Out of love and with his eyes always on “the joy set before him,” Jesus endured as “God with us.” 

Suffering is real, but in the Christian life suffering never has the last word. God can use our willingness to love and suffer with a place and its people for his redemptive purposes. 

God Sees Small Places: Finding Purpose in Unseen, Overlooked Ministry 

The fact is that, against the backdrop of our larger culture, most of the work that is done in small places goes largely unrecognized and seems to leave little mark outside of our immediate communities. It’s hard work. It’s good work. But it’s largely unseen and uncelebrated work. In a culture that celebrates scale and celebrity, it’s easy to wonder if what we do in small places matters. 

The way of Christ and his kingdom is upside-down. It is found in unexpected places by everyday people doing everyday things. In the midst of suffering, God is working toward redemption. This process will be consummated in the future, but it is already at work now, in the everyday moments of life, in the very place where you are reading these words. God is present right where you are. Unless he gives you a direct instruction to leave, you don’t need to worry about missing out by digging into the community he has given you. Yes, to invest in a place and its people will open you up to suffering. But choosing to stay—to endure through whatever unique kinds of suffering your town, congregation, friends, or family face—can also be a path that leads to redemption. 

Why Your Labor in Overlooked Places Is Not in Vain 

We never know exactly how suffering and redemption will intersect in our lives. But we know that Christ’s redemption has the last word, that “in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). 

This is a promise with far-reaching implications no matter where we live or serve. This is the Christian hope. Not only will our bodies be resurrected, but our work—regardless of how seemingly mundane, obscure, or marred by suffering—will also endure into the new creation if it is done for Christ. 

To embrace this reality is to embrace a hope that can serve as a North Star for our lives no matter where we find ourselves. If we learn to lean into the presence of God in the midst of our own suffering or the suffering of the people and places we love, we may even find that God will use this suffering to pull us into his redemption story in ways we could never have imagined. 

This article has been adapted from Charles E. Cotherman’s book Strip Mine Jesus: Hope for the Rural Church, Small Towns, and Overlooked Places, published by Baker Books. In it he challenges our assumptions through stories that showcase the power and beauty of a faithful presence in seemingly insignificant places. Drawing on his lifetime of experience in rural communities and churches, Cotherman demonstrates the outsized impact we can have when we have the courage to stay, root where we’re planted, and serve God with joy.  

Charles E. Cotherman (PhD, University of Virginia) is executive director of the Center for Rural Ministry and serves as a member of the Brookings-AEI Commission on US Rural Prosperity. Additionally, he is an assistant professor of biblical and theological studies at Grove City College and cofounder and pastor of Oil City Vineyard Church in Oil City, Pennsylvania. He is the author of To Think Christianly and a contributing coeditor of Sent to Flourish. 

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