February 15, 2011 | The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), like many denominations, has two challenges: thousands of small churches in need of pastors and hundreds of new seminary graduates in need of a first call.

The solution seems simple: Connect the graduates with churches. And that indeed is the aim of the denomination’s new pastoral residency program designed to serve small congregations and develop missional pastors.

But simple is not always easy. This is an effort whose logic must be accompanied by faith, open minds, financial commitment from the churches and, for several of the program’s first pastors, a tolerance for the bone-numbing cold of a Dakota winter.

Yet, for all those requirements, the program is working. Known as For Such a Time as This, a name drawn from the book of Esther and Esther’s call to serve the dispersed people of God, the program dispatched six ministers to rural churches in 2010, its inaugural year. They went to North and South Dakota, Mississippi and Missouri.

This year, the program is preparing to send three times that number, and requests for ministers are growing faster than the supply. The deadline for the 2011 program, which will include presbyteries in Missouri, Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia, is March 15.

The need is great in the PC(USA). Half of the denomination’s more than 10,000 congregations have 100 or fewer members.

“We’ve had to turn down some churches. We had more than we could select,” said the Rev. Marcia Clark Myers, director of vocation for the PC(USA), which has oversight of the program. “The word is spreading, and we’re getting more inquires every day.”

The joy of the small congregation

Mark Terayama, a member of the first class of pastors, knows the gratitude of small congregations. An American of Japanese descent and a native of Seattle, Terayama, 37, moved his wife, Denise (who is Chinese-American), and three young children to South Dakota to serve the First Presbyterian Church of Sisseton and the nearby Presbyterian Church of Veblen. He is a 2008 graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. In Veblen, he preaches to about 15 or 20 people on Sundays. In Sisseton, the Sunday service draws about 50. The churches have not had a full-time pastor in about 10 years.

“People have been very supportive and grateful that we’ve been willing to move out here and learn about them and minster to them, and they are willing to learn about us,” he said. “It’s a nice conversation that we’re having.”

Pat Dady, a member of the First Presbyterian Church, said the new pastor teaches his church members Japanese words and is adjusting to the local culture.

“Mark, in addition to being a committed minister of God, is a bright person,” Dady said. “He explains some of the cultural differences of where he comes from. He says us South Dakotans are a kind of forward people and he and Denise are a little reserved, but he says, ‘This is going to work out.’”

Rural life has had its surprises for Terayama, a man of modest height who finds himself among tall South Dakotans who favor boots and cowboy hats. When the Terayama family moved in, a resident came by to welcome them bearing, not a pie, but a pheasant. Terayama, who has a degree in molecular biology, took a ride on a harvesting combine and was amazed at the level of technology on board.

And when he preaches using one of the rural images of the Gospel parables, he realizes it’s more than an image to the farmers and ranchers in the pews.

“In some ways it’s intimidating, because they know so much more about the agricultural illustrations Jesus used,” Terayama said. “When Jesus talks about shepherding sheep, there’s someone out there who knows a lot more about shepherding sheep than I do.”

Sisseton is within an “open reservation” that is home to combined bands of Native Americans known as the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. Terayama’s first funeral was for a Native American infant, which he conducted jointly with a tribal elder. At the burial, they stood in the bitter cold as Native American drummers played, the elder sang “Amazing Grace” in the Dakota language and family members dropped handfuls of black plains soil into the grave holding the small coffin.

The change in culture and in climate -- in winter, South Dakota’s low temperatures are routinely well below zero -- might shock less-dedicated newcomers. But Terayama accepts the changes as part of a true ministry.

“If we are really trying to follow God’s call into ministry, my perspective is he could call us anywhere,” Terayama said. “If we don’t have our eyes open to different areas, we’re not open to that calling.”

Teach For America model

New graduates with Terayama’s openness aren’t the norm, said Myers, the director of vocation. And there begins the supply-and-demand problem that For Such a Time as This is trying to solve.

The PC(USA) faces the same dilemma as other mainline denominations: Most seminarians come from suburban and urban settings, grew up in larger churches and expect that they will serve in a similar church.

This is a nationwide trend. The National Congregations Study found that the median congregation has only 75 regularly participating people and an annual budget of approximately $90,000. Ninety percent of all congregations have 350 or fewer people. But even though there are relatively few large churches, they contain most of the churchgoers. So the average person is in a congregation with 400 people and a budget of $280,000.

But larger churches want experienced ministers, leaving many graduates with student-loan debt unable to find work in a church that can afford to pay them an adequate salary. A recent survey of PC (USA) ministry vacancies, for example, found 128 churches that would accept people new to the ministry, while there were 385 graduates seeking their first call.