How to Reform a Church Without Losing the Parishioners w/ Pastor Scott Pettus

How do you take a dying church with women elders and lead it into a confessional, Reformed denomination without losing the people? 🔥

On CrossPolitic One-on-One with the Waterboy, Gabe Rench sits down with Pastor Scott Pettus, head pastor of First Church Artesia in Artesia, New Mexico. Scott grew up in Artesia, served 25 years in the Marine Corps, came into the Reformed faith in 2017, and took the pulpit of a small Presbyterian church in 2021. The church was down to three families and eight people, with two women elders who hired him knowing where he stood. Four years later it is seated as a church in the CREC, and nobody left. Scott shares how patience, teaching and love got them there, what ministry looks like in a small town full of nominal Christianity, and his advice for anyone in a less-than-ideal church.

In this episode

00:00 Fight Laugh Feast recap and the new Fight Laugh Feast Canada conference in London, Ontario

02:28 Meet Pastor Scott Pettus: First Church Artesia, founded 1903 as First Presbyterian

03:52 Growing up in Artesia, 25 years in the Marines, and coming home

05:23 Baptized Southern Baptist, then into the Reformed faith in 2017

07:01 Seminary at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary while still in uniform

08:25 Back in Artesia: ministering to federal law enforcement trainees, then called to First Church

10:12 Hired by a church with women elders, knowing his biblical stance

11:52 From women elders to the CREC in four years without shutting the church down

14:36 Ministering in a small town: everybody has a church, nobody goes