One pastor from Kentucky has left a thriving church full of hundreds of congregants to lead a small country church with less than 20 members after being called by God.
Typically, pastors grow to lead larger and larger congregations as time goes by. But for one Kentucky pastor, his call from God was to do the opposite. Four years ago, Pastor Kent Holland was called by the Lord to move from a growing church in northern Kentucky to a small community church in Scottsville.
According to Kentucky Today, Pastor Holland served as a senior pastor at Burlington Baptist when he unexpectedly received a call from the pastor of Berean, who was retiring. God urged the Berean pastor to call Pastor Holland, whose parents lived in the area. At the time, the Kentucky pastor's father had passed away, leaving his mother by herself and not in good health.
Pastor Decides to Answer God's Calling to Lead a Smaller Church
Pastor Holland felt responsibility for his family, as he was an only child who had to care for his mother. His children and grandchildren also lived in the area. But in thinking about the calling to lead a small country church, the Kentucky pastor believed that his decision was bigger than him, so he sought prayer from his family and ministry friends to help him find the right answer.
"My wife, Diane, and I began to pray about this," Pastor Holland recalled. "I left a church running between 600 and 800 and came to a church with 17 people. It's not something you hear often."
Pastor Holland then found the answer, which was to follow God's calling to go to Scottsville to lead a small country church. Despite the many obstacles the Kentucky pastor faced, including the COVID pandemic less than two years into his ministry in the new but smaller church, Pastor Holland witnessed the congregation begin to expand. On Easter, they had 93 in attendance and stayed between 65 to 91 the weeks after that.
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Pastor Helps Grow a Small Country Church After Responding to God's Call
The small country church just had one child when Pastor Holland arrived in December 2018. Now, the small country church has grown to include a youth group with 28 members attending services every Sunday. The youth group even outgrew the space in the basement of the building, so the church purchased another building for $16,000. Pastor Holland shared that the building was paid by anonymous donors after one emotionally charged service.
When asked about Pastor Holland's model for growing the church, he said it was the book of Acts and simply to "follow Him." The Kentucky pastor's work was hailed by Jeff Crabtree, the South Central Region consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, who said that the pastor has "invested a lot of love and energy into the church."
"God has worked to change the culture and the focus of the folks there," Crabtree said. "Kent has been a blessing to get to know and see how God has blessed him."
The COVID pandemic has left many small churches in danger of closing. The Churches Helping Churches initiative from the AND Campaign has helped some of them stay afloat through donations and grants distributed to 450 U.S. congregations, resulting in $1.4 million in total donations, Religion News Service reported this week.
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