Dawson Ackerman has been a farm boy all his life, he says. He grew up on a farm in Iowa, graduated with an agriculture degree, and continued to help his dad on the farm until his dad’s passing a few years ago. Today, Ackerman and two of his sons work the farm. But that’s not all: Ackerman also pastors the Reformed Church of Stout (Iowa). This is his calling story, faithfully answering God’s call to be a bivocational farmer and minister.
How I came to be a pastor against expectations
Growing up, I went to Washington Reformed Church in Ackley, Iowa, a few miles from the farm. Later, I taught Sunday school and catechism; I felt well-entrenched spiritually. Then I was encouraged by lay (not ordained) pastors who thought I might be a good lay pastor, too. Even though there’s a “pastor desert” in northwest Iowa (21 vacant churches in the surrounding 50 miles), I resisted for quite a while, thinking that I was not capable.
Eventually, I decided that God was maybe calling me to do that. So I began lay speaking in 2016 at vacant churches without an ordained minister. In 2018, an elder from the Reformed Church of Stout called and asked if I’d be able to fill in on a Sunday morning. The moment I walked in the doors, there was something different about this family. I was blessed by them, and them by me.
Not too long after, they asked if I’d be willing to come more regularly. In March 2019, they asked me to become their interim pastor. That resonated with me to go to one place instead of different places each week.
When they asked if I would be their full-time pastor, I could give excuse after excuse, including that my wife and I had just bought a house in Ackley, and the commissioned pastor role (a trained elder commissioned by a classis [group of churches] to fulfill a specific ministry need) was new to our classis. No one in our classis had done that before; it was a plunge of faith for the classis and me to even consider something like that.
The day after the church asked if I would be their full-time pastor, I said no: it wasn’t for me.
That Christmas, during Sunday morning fellowship, my wife whispered to me, saying she would like to look at the parsonage in Stout again. Previously, we hadn’t felt that it met our needs, but when we looked again, it was like the scales had been lifted from our eyes. We couldn’t remember any of the deterrents from previous visits.
The following February [2020], we accepted the call to pastor the Reformed Church of Stout, and I started the journey of being a commissioned pastor. We moved to Stout in March, held one worship service, then got shut-down by the COVID-19 pandemic. My heart was torn. We had services that we recorded and put out, but preaching to an empty sanctuary was really difficult.
On the first Sunday that we were allowed to be back in person, almost everyone was back. That’s not the case for many churches.
Finally, in June 2022, I was installed as a commissioned pastor at the Reformed Church of Stout.
Through it all, I heard God say, “If you just trust me, it will work out.” At church growing up, there were always stories of God providing something in the nick of time. I always thought it was a nice story and a bit of exaggeration, but I know differently now. If it’s God’s way, God will see it through.
Related: 6 churches share stories and advice for discerning the will of God
A story of impact: my son’s wedding
In August 2022, I officiated over the wedding of my youngest son. Finances were tight, so we asked the consistory of the church if we could have a dance outside of the church. Without a blink, they said yes.
On the morning of the wedding, there was a very gusty thunderstorm and chances of a tornado. The tents all went down, and the outdoor plans were shattered. Even before that, the elders had said that if something happens, we could do something in the church. So we had the reception in the church. I didn’t think they would allow a dance inside the church, but they moved the DJ inside and moved things out of the basement to make room.
In my mind, this is something that would not happen in a highly conservative church in rural Iowa. But it did.
It got a little loud in the basement, but it was heartwarming to see how the church opened up to my son’s basketball team and to Olivia, my daughter-in-law. Church people came out and danced after they helped clean up. It wasn’t just something that they would allow, but something they felt was really important.
That hospitality really made an impression on my daughter-in-law, who never went to church growing up. She knows this church loves her very much. That was God’s way of opening her eyes and heart to the gospel. God’s church is here to open our hearts and arms and just welcome people, sometimes in a very strange way.
Related: Biblical hospitality: Inviting outsiders to be like family
What I’ve learned from ministry so far
We are really dependent upon God, especially the farmers here in Iowa. Non-Christian farmers would give glory to something else for a better crop than expected, but people in our church give glory to God. God’s definitely been working on the Christians in this area. Their reliance on God is strong. We’ve been so richly blessed. We’re reminded that every good gift comes from him—our finances, our family, our personal lives.
We understand the need for God, both for ourselves but also to reach out to others. A lot of people in our society just don’t have that hope. We’re a little town with 75 people; success to reach non-Christians has been varied, but six or seven new couples have joined our congregation since I’ve been here. Glory to God for that!
We’re a congregation where over half of our members are 75-plus years old, so that may be a challenge in the next ten years. There are some young families in the church, so we want to work with them and instill excitement in their friends about coming and being part of the church. Many of them say that their peers just don’t see the importance of gathering together and being part of a church community. Maybe we can give them the opportunity to just come and have a meal or a cup of coffee to instill in them the importance of fellowship, and let God’s Spirit work from there.
God’s not looking for extraordinary people. If he were, he wouldn’t be using me, a common farmer. I’m not trying to put myself down, but I understand that others have a much deeper knowledge of the Bible that I haven’t had. But God can use any person, any place, any time.
Dawson Ackerman
Dawson Ackerman is pastor of Reformed Church of Stout (Iowa). He also works full-time on his family farm.