The Hillbilly Counselor

Mike Leake

We have been laying groundwork for the past year to launch a biblical counseling ministry in 2017. We believe that the gospel is the answer to any brokenness and it is applicable in any cultural context. Yes, poverty, drugs, and poor thinking is rampant in our context. But we believe there is profound hope and deep healing in the gospel. We have been working on training biblical counselors (and will continue to do this) so that we can provide free biblical counseling for folks in our church and people within our community.

We aren’t reinventing the wheel, here. Other churches have done something very similar. What we have heard from other places is that when they made free biblical counseling available the counselors get busy quickly and the wait list grows exponentially. While I’d be happy to be wrong, I’m wondering if things might be a bit slower here. There are a few aspects to hillbilly culture that make counseling a bit difficult.

The Difficulty

First, is something we might call hillbilly avoidance. JD Vance speaks to this when he shares the findings of a few sociologists:

…avoidance and wishful-thinking forms of coping ‘significantly predicted resiliency’ among Appalachian teens. Their paper suggests that hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist. This tendency might make for psychological resilience, but it also makes it hard for Appalacians to look at themselves honestly. (Vance, 20)

What this means is that usually when folks come in for counseling the problem is already at a very advanced stage. And usually you aren’t dealing with only the presenting problem but years of unbiblical thinking and harmful behavior. Most people are going to be looking for a quick fix and any counselor worth his salt is going to shoot for real redemption and not just a band-aid. This means a quick fix isn’t going to happen—which will at times lead to a frustrated counselee.

Combine this with the propensity to not “look at themselves honestly” and counseling is going to be a bit difficult to get going. If folks show up at all, many aren’t going to be willing to do the hard work of obedience, repentance, and working towards change.

Secondly, there is something that might be termed hillbilly hiding. Vance talks about the outward life of the hillbilly and the inward strife within the home that had to be kept private. “No outsiders could know about the familial strife—with outsiders defined very broadly”. And once his Uncle Jimmy left the home, “he was not to know about the inner workings of the house”. (43) In hillbilly culture you are broking a deeply ingrained code if you share your story with an “outsider”. It isn’t difficult to see why this would make counseling—or even getting someone to come to counseling—would be difficult.

Lastly, though this isn’t confined to the world of the hillbilly there is a type of victimization that is runs rampant. Again, Vance explains it well when he says, “There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government and that movement gains adherents by the day”. (193) Or again when he explains this is about “a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it”:

Too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man with every reason to work—a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way—carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here—a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. (Vance, 7)

It is absolutely impossible to help someone and to provide solid biblical counseling if they are unwilling to move out of the position of a helpless victim. Blaming everyone but yourself was the default position of our first couple and it shelters us from real and lasting change.

A Way Forward

So what does counseling look like in a hillbilly environment? Honestly, I think I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If you are in a context similar to mine and are engaged in biblical counseling I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. I do believe, quite strongly, that the church cannot afford to outsource her biblical counseling to secular psychology. (I’m not saying we cannot in some way partner with others who have helpful resources, but we cannot diminish the authority of God and power of the gospel alone in transforming hearts). We must do this.

In my mind there are two key questions we need to answer. First, how do I gain a hearing. Secondly, what do I emphasize once I get an audience. Given the difficulties previously mentioned both of these are difficult.

In our ministry, we are focusing on two main things in order to gain an audience. First, we are trying to create an atmosphere and a culture of grace. We are working overtime to help our community see our church as a community resource. Our free meals are helping with this on Wednesday evenings. But I’m constantly preaching to our people that we want our community to think of us as a safe place to go when brokenness catches up to you. We truly want the phrase refuge for the broken to be inserted into the DNA of our church. If develop a reputation of love then we’ve gone a long way in building bridges.

Secondly, we’ve got to put ourselves in the position of family to those who are hurting. They won’t open up if we are merely professionals. We have to build relationships and a ton of rapport. So we are emphasizing personal relationships over programs. We still do community outreaches and have “programs” but we try to emphasize that these are simply to give us opportunities to build relationships. If we are seen as their family then we’ll be in a position to speak truth into their lives.

So what do we say once we get an audience? There are a few things that should be emphasized. First, we must continually show them that there is hope. They aren’t helpless victims who have no control over their lives. There really is hope. Jesus really can provide change and hope and help and healing. There isn’t any brokenness that He isn’t big enough to heal. We might still have scars this side of a redeemed Eden but even those will be overwhelmed by His grace. They have to know that Jesus is bigger. He is bigger than their past, their present, their family structure, their economic situation, their sin, their shame, their standing in society, EVERYTHING.

We also have to walk a continual tight rope of helping them come to grips with the fact that they are almost always part of the problem but at the exact same time they are not some irredeemable freak. They aren’t alone. But we have to be bold enough, and to grasp grace deep enough, to own up to the fact that even in the times when we are victims we might have responded in very unhelpful ways.

In sum, build rapport and proclaim and apply the gospel over and over and over again.

Conclusion

It sounds overly simplistic but the answer really is to work hard to create a culture of grace and when grace starts to work on a heart and somebody starts to open up and want healing just keep applying the gospel. To be honest there really isn’t much we can do. We cannot force counseling and transformation on folks. But if we follow Jesus in loving people where they are and in proclaiming His gospel, we are finding that more and more are opening up. Jesus is providing the transformation that He promised that He would.

There are unique difficulties with providing counseling in hillbilly culture. Some of the books you read are going to be very helpful, but I’ve finding they are very helpful after about a month of laying groundwork and building relationships. People aren’t formulas to solve. I think you can get away with a distant professionalism in another environment, but here in hillbilly culture you have to become family and stay that way…for better or worse.

But there is nothing going on here that Jesus cannot redeem.

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Photo source: here

Today in Blogworld 12.01.16

Mike Leake

Two Things Pastors Must Do BEFORE Leading

Good counsel.

Three Reasons Passion Is Greater Than Professionalism

I tend to agree…rather passionately, I might add.

It’s a Great Time to Be a Christian

Love this analogy.

3 Things Parents Can Do to Keep Your Kids from Sexting

I hate this.

Hillsong & God

A bit hard-hitting but I can’t say I don’t agree with most of it.

This will be the next console my son begs us for:

Planting Hillbilly Churches

Mike Leake 4 Comments

There are many lessons for us to learn from the 2016 election. One of these lessons is the great chasm that exists between rural America and the metropolitan areas. I said shortly after the election that if you want to understand why Trump won read Hillbilly Elegy. I know that it is an overly simplistic answer but there is a good deal of truth to this.

Rural folk feel very disconnected from what is taking place in Washington. That’s putting it mildly. Many rural folk are flat out ticked off about the things big city people are forcing us to do. They feel left out and ignored. (I’m never sure if I should say “we” or “they” because sometimes I can relate and sometimes I cannot). Hillbillies aren’t going down without a fight. Donald Trump was able to tap into that feeling of disconnect and give them a voice. This, I’m convinced, is the chief reason he won the Rust Belt and was able to get enough votes to carry the electoral college.

Why Are There No Church Plants In My Association?

These might just be the ramblings of a small and uninformed pastor, so take them for what you will. I’m not big city so I’m certain I’m missing something from “the other side”. But I’m convinced that what we saw on the grand scale in the presidential election we are also seeing within the SBC. (The election of small church pastor, Dave Miller, as the Pastor’s Conference President, who ran on the platform of giving smaller church guys a voice, might be exhibit A to what I’m saying).

Those of us out here in rural America feel very disconnected. And if I’m being blunt we often feel ignored and treated like we don’t actually know how to do church. To many it feels like the big city folk just need us for attending their conferences (to tell us what we are doing wrong), buying their books (to tell us what we are doing wrong), and to keep sending those cooperative program dollars.

I know those are overstatements. I’ve learned a great deal and have benefited from many conferences and books. I know that the heart of so many of these men is to help and not to simply sell a book. But permit me for a bit to speak things from the perspective of a discouraged hillbilly pastor who’d love to encourage his church to plant other churches but finds it a very difficult sell because of the disconnect between NAMB strategy and life here in the cornfields.

In Missouri, I am hearing that they will not be planting churches in places without a population over 20,000 people. (I could be off a little on the details). If that number is true that leaves zero communities in our association which could plant a church through traditional SBC funding. Of the thirty plus pastors/churches in our association only two (me being one of them) said they were interested in church planting. I wonder why that is?

An Imperfect Analogy of Our Disconnect

We are disconnected. Yes, we want to be great commission people. We want to be able to be motivated by the fact that there are so many lost people in the big cities and that 83% of the population now lives in metro areas. We hear things like “reach the cities and you reach the nations” and we get it. But we also wonder “what about us?” We’ve got brokenness all around us. And for many the big city feels about as foreign as the majestic Oz did to little Dorothy Gayle from Kansas.

So what you are really saying to us is, “I know you’ve got poverty and brokenness and a ton of lostness and this terrible plague of cultural Christianity, but 83%!!!!! So, ignore for a moment the plight of Auntie Em’ and funnel all your resources to planting a church here to reach the lollipop guild.” I know it seems incredibly narrow minded and not gospel-central. But we know Auntie Em’ , we see her, and if we are being honest she isn’t okay, either. And isn’t it a bit narrow minded on the other end to ignore the very real plight of Auntie Em’.

I really do understand that 83% of the population now lives in metro areas. I understand why we are putting so much money into the cities. We need to do this. I will fully support the SEND mission and want to encourage our people to grow in the way we look at the world. I want to be passionate about doing missions “back home” and I want to be a church that sends missionaries to places and people that look nothing like us.

But let’s be honest with one another. You really are saying something akin to, “The heck with the hillbillies”. I know you don’t think you are and that you likely don’t mean to. But the emphasis and the funding structure is turning its back on rural America. And I don’t believe we’ve really counted that cost. Or maybe we have, and are just now feeling what we knew it would cost us.

Conclusion

I suppose I’m attempting to do two things here. First, to acknowledge that there really isn’t a trickle down effect. We often don’t give a rip what is going on in the big cities. And most of the material you send us just flat out doesn’t work here. If nothing else the Trump presidency and books like Hillbilly Elegy show us that there is a huge chasm betwixt us. So, what I’m trying to say is that if you really don’t want to turn your back on rural America then you’ve got to do a better job of both/and ministry.

We have to work together to develop strategies for reaching hillbilly culture. We have to measure it upon a different grid, with different goals, and different markers for success. You cannot pull funding on a rural church that doesn’t have 100 people in attendance after only a year. Things are different. But we also need to think through different levels and ways of doing funding. What works in the big city isn’t going to work out here. That’s both good and bad.

Secondly, I’m speaking to my fellow hillbilly pastors and saying lets face the fact that we aren’t going to be getting much help for awhile. That’s okay. Let’s not pout and give up and pretend like we need the big cities to do ministry anyways. Let’s think through our own ways to do funding and to plant our hillbilly churches.

There is so much brokenness around us. We are swallowed up by poverty and porn and pills. But the gospel is bigger. No matter if your brokenness is a hillbilly brokenness or big city brokenness. Jesus is the answer, so let’s not wait for big city folk to understand us, let’s just put our hand to the plow and do what we do best—get to work.

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I pray that my tone here is correct. If in anyway it seems as if I’m being overly-critical of NAMB or unthankful for the great gospel work being done, then chalk it up to my inadequacies in communicating and not the passion of my heart. I love NAMB. I have a ton of respect for their leadership and am appreciative of the way things are going. I’m simply trying to say that in my limited mind and experience I think we are missing something important.

Photo source: here

The Hillbilly Gospel

Mike Leake 11 Comments

I’ve been interacting a bit with JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. I’m currently pastoring in hillbilly country. (One of our gas stations is actually called Hillbilly’s). And I’m not a foreigner. I grew up as a hillbilly in rural Northeast Missouri. Some might have been shocked reading about JD’s Mamaw and the way she talked of God. Not me. I see it every day. Let this one jar you a bit:

By Mamaw’s reckoning, God never left our side. He celebrated with us when times were good and comforted us when they weren’t. During one of our many trips to Kentucky, Mamaw was trying to merge onto the highway after a brief stop for gas. She didn’t pay attention to the signs, so we found ourselves headed the wrong way on a one-way exit ramp with angry motorists swerving out of our way. I was screaming in terror, but after a U-turn on a three-lane interstate, the only thing Mamaw said about the incident was, “We’re fine, goddammit. Don’t you know Jesus rides in the car with me?” (Vance, 86)

Here you’ve got a woman passionately saying the Lord’s name in vain, being a bit flippant and untheological in her declaration of the Lord’s protection, but at the exact same time having a deep faith that in the love and presence of God. Now wrap your mind around this one. When young JD asks Mamaw if God loved them he recounts how his grandmother was wounded by the question:

The question wounded Mamaw because the Christian faith stood at the center of our lives, especially hers. We never went to church, except on rare occasions in Kentucky or when Mom decided that what we needed in our lives was religion. Nevertheless, Mamaw’s was a deeply personal (albeit quirky) faith. She couldn’t say “organized religion” without contempt. She saw churches as breeding grounds for perverts and money changers…(Vance, 85)

How in the world can you say that the Christian faith stands at the center of your life but you never go to church? Let’s be honest, such a Christian faith isn’t the same Christian faith of the Bible. What Vance is talking about, and what we see of the faith of Mamaw, is the cultural Christianity of the Bible Belt. It’s the moralistic therapeutic deism of which Christian Smith says is the majority religion of Americans. This is the Bad Religion which caused Ross Douthat to call us a nation of heretics. Yet this is the faith of many Americans…especially amongst the hillbilly population.

My Context

Sharing the gospel here in Southwest Missouri, and especially inviting folks to church, is seldom met with resistance. Most of the people here have had some religious exposure and likely even claim some sort of faith in Jesus. Many of the people have probably even been baptized, prayed some sort of prayer of salvation, or had a type of religious experience. Though there is a growing number of folks who have little to no exposure to the gospel, for the most part people view the church and the message of the gospel as something they’ve already done and tried.

So here is what we have in the context that I minister. 65% of our students are on reduced or free lunches. I would venture another 10% could probably qualify but just didn’t fill out the paper work or had too much pride to accept a handout. Poverty is rampant in our little community. So are drugs. Meth is the drug of choice in this area. Broken families are more common than intact families.

And for many people the problem is “out there” and the solution is certainly not the gospel or the church. For them, church is the place you go when you have things figured out. It was something they tried years ago but it couldn’t answer their brokenness. Or perhaps their brokenness placed them in a spot where coming to church was no longer an option—maybe it was their own perception or maybe the church itself lost her way and shut the door on the broken and rebellious.

It’s as if we’ve got a ton of people dying of thirst and rejecting the water of life because they are assuming their already drinking it to their fill. But they’ve never tasted a drop, they’ve only seen others drink or worse yet have chugged a cheap imitation and called it the real thing.

The Solution

Part of me wants to pause for a moment and try to put together a brief history in an attempt to explain where I believe this problem came from. I’d like to say that with our changing culture the revivalistic, populist, and a somewhat anti-intellectual religion did battle in the 80’s and 90’s with a seeker-sensitive and attractional model of doing church. And that what happened is that it drew a crowd of hillbillies because pragmatism found a welcome home but it left the old guard ticked off and frustrated. When the vacuous nature of attractional church finally caught up with it what you’ve got left is a culture of empty, confused, and hurting folk who assumed they’ve “tried the Jesus-thing” but they never actually encountered the gospel which touches every sphere of life and not just the performance you enjoy on a Sunday morning.

I’d like to do that, but if I get something wrong in my history you could dismiss my overall point. The only answer to the hillbilly brokenness is the gospel. And it’s a gospel which isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty but also a gospel which is deeply theological. Cultural Christianity isn’t the answer because it’s part of the problem. A resurgence of Mayberry might address some of the brokenness but it will just nice people all the way into hell. And I’m convinced an attractional model might draw a crowd but it won’t make a dent in the actual everyday brokenness of life out here in hillbilly land.

The only answer is a thorough gospel. A gospel which not only tells people how to get out of hell but also a gospel which shapes your marriage, your parenting, your finances, and even what you do and do not put into your body. To preach a gospel-lite and assume these folks can’t handle theology is to leave them further damaged. I love what Mez McConnell says on this point:

Honestly, such attitudes strike me as paternalistic and condescending. Poor people are poor, but they are not stupid. They are just as capable of understanding the character and ways of God as anyone else. Paul didn’t write his letters to the faculty of a seminary. His readers were generally not wealthy, privileged, or well-educated. And the Israelites leaving Egypt didn’t have advanced degrees in theology, but God didn’t hesitate to tell them all kinds of in-depth and complicated things about himself. (Church in Hard Places, 65)

We cannot afford to waste our time trying to figure out how to grow a mega-church out in the country. We cannot play church. We must aim at nothing less than personal transformation of one soul at a time. We absolutely must show our people how the gospel applies to every sphere of life. This won’t come through programs or slick productions. This comes from men and women who have been changed by Jesus and who are willing to get their hands dirty in the hopes of helping one more beggar find the bread of life.

There is so much work to be done here. I would plea with young men coming out of seminary to not abandon the rural churches for the bright lights of the cities. The cities need people too. But there is some real ministry that happens out here in hillbilly land. Don’t use the rural church as a simply a stepping stone for that big city post. Come and be amazed at how Jesus works in the rural areas. You’ll be surprised at what Jesus can do. And you might even be shocked to know that you don’t have to only use Grudem’s Systematic Theology to argue with people online. Rural folks devour it just as well.

Preach the gospel, whether in city or out of city. And watch the Lord of glory work.

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Photo source: here