Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles highlighting rural church ministry and rural churches and ministers.
COTTAGE GROVE — By his own admission, Mike Waddey is a full-fledged suburbanite, having grown up in Franklin, just 30 minutes from downtown Nashville.
His only rural ties are that his dad grew up on a farm and he loves to watch “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Yet, the Union University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate has found himself thrust primarily into ministry in a rural setting.
Most of his ministry — first as a youth minister and now as a pastor — has been in small rural churches.
“God has given me a burden for rural ministry,” said Waddey, who is entering his fifth year as pastor of Cottage Grove Baptist Church here.
He likes to joke that Cottage Grove is an hour and a half from everywhere — primarily Jackson, Nashville, and Paducah, Ky. The largest town to Cottage Grove is nearby Paris.
Waddey, who was called to the church right out of seminary, said he and his wife looked up Cottage Grove in their Atlas when they were first contacted.
“We knew either the town was very small or we had a bad Atlas because we could not find it,” Waddey laughed.
It turned out to be the former and not the latter.
There’s no hiding the fact Cottage Grove is small. Waddey said one of the town’s claim to fame is that it is the smallest incorporated town in Tennessee.
He laughs that when he and his wife and four children (they now have five) moved to Cottage Grove the town’ population increased 6 percent.
Reflecting on his ministry, Waddey said he cannot “pinpoint a time when I said rural ministry was what I was going to do.
“God has always put me in a rural church.”
And though he was reared at Walker Memorial Baptist Church, a suburban congregation, Waddey and his wife, the former Robin Williamson, who was reared at Crievewood Baptist Church, Nashville, are now completely comfortable with the rural lifestyle.
And though he and Robin would like to see a nearby “Target and Starbucks,” they wouldn’t trade the lifestyle they have come to enjoy.
Waddey firmly believes that God gifted he and his wife in ways that have helped them adjust to the rural setting.
“You have to be very relational in a rural ministry, not only with the church but in the community you serve,” Waddey related.
“You have to be OK with people knowing what you’re doing most every minute of every day. There is not a lot of privacy,” he continued.
Waddey observed that God has taught him that “He called us to a people rather than to a place.
“When I long for Starbucks or Target, the love I have for the people in our small community overcomes any inconvenience in living around the corn and the soybeans.”
Waddey said that when they first moved to Cottage Grove they couldn’t envision a long-term future at the church because it was small.
“But we were sure of God’s call.”
His ministry at the church hasn’t all been a “bed of roses.” Waddey faced a major challenge when he first got to the field and experienced a time he wanted to give up and move.
“Just when I thought it was time to go, the Lord gave me 10 reasons to stay,” he recalled.
“The thing that kept us here was the realization that God called us to these people. It’s easy to leave a place. It’s not easy to leave the people you feel God has led us to.”
Now, more than four years later, they can’t imagine a ministry anywhere else.
While Waddey laughed that the church “may” love their pastor, he “knows” they love his wife and five childrenå, who range in age from 1 to 11.
The church is doing well, with an average attendance of about 75 in Sunday School — not bad for a town of 96 people.
“Our church is very missions-minded,” Waddey noted. “They love the Lord and love the ministry.”
Waddey’s love for the rural church has expanded and he has become an advocate for rural church ministry.
He regularly writes a “blog” (ruralchurch.wordpress.com) which highlights rural church ministry.
A member of the Executive Board of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, Waddey helped to develop a “Rural Ministry Affinity Team.”
The team, which is led by TBC Executive Director James Porch, includes rural church ministers from across the state as well as TBC staff members, including Steve Holt, who works closely with the group.
The affinity team desires to encourage and support rural ministry in Tennessee.
Waddey is convinced that rural churches are not dead.
“Their ministry may look different but it’s alive, vibrant, and kingdom work,” he said.
