Home Grown Faith – Growing Where You’re Planted
About this episode
Pastor Johnny Moore of Family Worship Center in Cairo, Georgia joins Philip Cameron to share the story behind his book Homegrown — a transparent, practical guide to planting deep roots and building a thriving church in a small rural community. Johnny planted Family Worship Center in Cairo in 1994 after years of ministry in Ocala, Florida, and has spent 31 years investing in a town of just 10,000 people — turning down opportunities to move to larger cities because, as he puts it, "God wanted me to stay here for the long haul." Drawing on the farming culture of southwest Georgia, Johnny unpacks five pillars he believes every small-town pastor must master: calling, vision, structure, culture, and influence. He compares church structure to staking a tomato plant — "if you don't, then it'll never bear fruit" — and challenges pastors to see themselves not as weekend meeting-holders but as community influencers. He references Jesus's teaching in Mark 4 that the whole kingdom of God is like a farmer casting seed, reminding leaders that fruitful ministry is a slow, deliberate process. Whether you pastor a congregation of 50 or 500, Homegrown offers hard-won wisdom on growing what you have, where you are. Get the book and additional resources at homegrownpastor.com.
Part of our Pastors collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“If Jesus were to come tonight — if today, somehow, he would show up to you and say, I'll be back at midnight tonight — how will you spend the rest of this day? … If that is what you would do if Jesus were coming tonight, ought not that to be the most important thing we do every day?”
“I said, look, if I stay here, I'm innocent. If I go in that door, I'm guilty. And he grabbed me by my shirt and he said, well, you're going to have to be guilty. And he dragged me in through these doors, into this place, into hell.”
“I live in a farming community, and what I've learned is God is a farmer. Jesus said that the whole kingdom of God can be compared to a man that cast seed in the ground. So if you wanna know how the kingdom of God works, you can go talk to a farmer, and they understand that things don't happen quick and fast. It's a process, it's preparation.”
What's Discussed
Pastor Johnny Moore of Family Worship Center in Cairo, Georgia (pop. 10,000) discusses his book Homegrown, which chronicles 31 years of small-town ministry. Moore planted his church in 1994 after serving at Ocala Church of God in Florida, choosing Cairo over larger opportunities because of a deep sense of divine calling. He outlines five pillars for rural church health — calling, vision, structure, culture, and influence — using farming metaphors drawn from Jesus's kingdom parables. Moore emphasizes transparency about failure, long-term commitment over career ambition, and the church's responsibility to influence the broader community rather than simply hold weekly services. Resources available at homegrownpastor.com.
- Johnny Moore's Cairo Roots and Calling
- Planting Family Worship Center in 1994
- Pastoring a Town, Not Just a Building
- Farming Metaphors and Kingdom Growth
- Transparency About Failure in Ministry
- Five Pillars of the Homegrown Framework
- Church Influence in Small Communities
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Hey, my friends. Welcome to Daily Faith. My name is Philip Cameron, and I am delighted to have you with us. I believe that God is up to something in this country. I believe that God is up to something in the whole wide world. We have never seen all the elements in place for the coming, for the return of Jesus Christ. And I hope you remember the story of the five wise and the five foolish virgins. I hope that you are keeping oil for the moment. When the bridegroom comes, we can dissipate and spend ourselves on so many silly, unnecessary things.
Philip:But I'm here to tell you something. I'm waiting. One ear is this way, waiting for the trumpet sound, and you are watching stuff take place almost on a daily basis. Just the other day, the Prime Minister of Great Britain told our people, listen, with a straight face, that he will, free of charge — that's what he said, free of charge — issue a digital identity card. And you will not be able to work without having this identity card.
Philip:They've also said that it will streamline the purchase of your groceries. What that means is that the government is going to control you on when you can eat. Now, you know what the Bible says: unless you take the mark of the beast, you'll neither be able to buy or sell. In other words, you won't be able to work and you won't be able to eat. That's not in the sweet by and by, that's not coming along when something else happens. This technology is happening by the end of this parliament in Great Britain, which is four years.
Philip:They hope to have it rolled out in the next few months. And by that time, you will live and die on the fact of whether you are digitally recognized. Now in China, they've gone way beyond where Britain is starting. In China, they decide if your social footprint — if you are writing stuff on Facebook they don't agree with — when you go down to the grocery store, your account's blocked. You can't get on the trams, you can't get on the buses. And they can literally put a picture of you in the grocery store telling the community that this person has been irresponsible and has said some things against the government, or is using too much meat or too much carbon footprint.
Philip:I mean, listen guys, it's not coming. It's here. And the church is largely asleep at the wheel. And I want to challenge you today: stir yourself. Wake up and understand that we are living in the last days. If Jesus were to come tonight — if today, somehow, he would show up to you and say, I'll be back at midnight tonight — how will you spend the rest of this day? What would you do for the next 13 hours? What would you do? Would you tidy your house? Would you wash your car? Make sure you took your car down to Jiffy Lube and got the oil changed?
Philip:No, I know exactly what you would be doing. You'd be talking to your family. You'd be calling your friends saying, make sure you're ready to meet the Lord Jesus. Well, if that is what you would do if Jesus were coming tonight, ought not that to be the most important thing we do every day? You are God's salt and light. You are God's agent on the earth in these days. And I want us to be faithful as we see that great day approaching.
Philip:So if you can help us by sharing this program — God's put us here to bless you and strengthen you and affirm you in your faith — you can see it's on YouTube. It's very simple: youtube.com/dailyfaith. I got it. I almost got it right. My sons — both of my sons — think I'm a dinosaur. They don't think I know anything because I don't know all the buttons to push on my iPad and on their computers, but I remind them, I helped them get off their diapers. And that's a big deal.
Philip:And also, we have a base of operation called Daily Faith. All of our programs are there. All the ministry we have is there. You can give at that location also, and that's our contact point. So if you can write that down, really simple: dailyfaith.tv. And you can watch back episodes. I do a thing called — it's a reel every day, just a word from the Lord every day. And you can go and get it. There's dozens and dozens of them. Pretty much anything you're going through right now in your life, we've talked about it right here on Daily Faith.
Philip:And we want you to know that you are important to us and we want you to be a part of the Daily Faith family. Put this down in your calendar and say, I'm gonna watch Philip and all the great guests he has on the program. We have a great guest today, Johnny Moore. He pastors a big church in a small community. This man discovered America is made successful not by the big businesses. It isn't the corporations that make America great. It's the mom and pop businesses. It's the small businesses.
Philip:And what makes America great is not in the mega churches — they're great and fine and dandy — but it's the heart of America that beats in the churches in the small towns that make this country great. And Johnny Moore is pastor of Family Worship Center in Cairo, Georgia. Now, I don't know if they pronounce Cairo the same as Cairo pronounces Cairo. That's something I'll be asking him during the program, and we'll have a geography show in the middle of Daily Faith. We are delighted to have you with us. I'm just thrilled you're here. God's gonna talk to you today. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to Daily Faith.
Philip:Welcome to Daily Faith. I am so delighted to have you with us, and I believe that today is going to be very important. If you love your pastor, listen to me. If you love your pastor, this is a show that he would enjoy and he may learn something and he may gain encouragement. Our responsibility — listen to me — I'm friends with so many pastors across this country, and if you knew how many people are bitter and mean and spiteful to the pastor, they get some kind of sadistic joy out of being mean to the pastor and the pastor's wife.
Philip:Our job is to build each other up in the most holy faith. In our ministry, I constantly speak of having a culture of kindness. And if every church watching me were to decide and commit to have a culture of kindness, that we treat each other with respect and love, it would change the whole atmosphere of our world. It would change how we see things. And my guest today is gonna bless you. His name is Johnny Moore, and I think we're gonna have a great time.
Philip:As you know, we have mission work. 35 years ago, I adopted a wee boy in a country called Romania. My dad called me. I was sitting in America. I was in all the TV shows, written a book that sold 300,000 copies. All my dreams at 35 years of age were done. I had a nice car, a nice pool in the backyard. I mean, everything that I'd ever dreamed of having. And then the phone rang beside my sofa. And I picked up the phone. It was my dad.
Philip:There are babies dying. I said, what on earth are you talking about? He said, I'm watching the TV right now on the BBC in Scotland, and there are babies dying in orphanages. I said, what are you calling me about this for? This is not my business. This is not your business. That's the thing that the Red Cross does. Leave it alone. And he didn't. Next night: there are babies dying. He had cancer surgery and the wound had opened on his back. I said, Dad, you are sick. I'm busy. Leave it alone.
Philip:Next night he called me: there are babies dying. What do you plan to do about it? I said, I'll send the Red Cross a hundred bucks. The next night he called me back and he said, I'm going myself. I said, what do you mean, where to? He said, I'm going to Romania by myself, and if I die, it's your fault. And that was how I ended up kicking and screaming, being dragged to the mission.
Philip:We drove to Timișoara, Romania, 2,500 miles across Europe. Oh, the place was a mess. The city, the town, everything was just a disaster. We got to this place and we walked in. I was carrying a box of baby powdered milk, walked through the door, and the smell of human waste — ugh. I threw the box down, dropped it, ran outside. And he came out. He said, get in there. I said, no, no, no, no, no. You asked to see an orphanage. There you go. Off you go. I'll wait here for you. We're gonna drive back to Scotland today.
Philip:He said, no, you gotta come in. I said, no, I'm not coming in. He said, you'll embarrass these people. They live like this. You're going to go in there. So I said, look, if I stay here, I'm innocent. If I go in that door, I'm guilty. And he grabbed me by my shirt and he said, well, you're going to have to be guilty. And he dragged me in through these doors, into this place, into hell. The smell of human waste was unbearable. Ammonia burned my eyes. Filthy kids covered in their own waste, all rocking in their cribs.
Philip:Because no mom had ever held them, never been cuddled by a mom. And they rocked themselves to comfort themselves, all of them like machines. And the ends of the cribs clanging like this — clang, clang — as they rocked. And I said, Dad, okay, let's go. We've seen them. He said, let's go upstairs. I said, oh, no. So he kept on going, ignoring my pleas. And I went up behind him, bitterly complaining, got to the door of this room, salon number five.
Philip:And I said, Dad, look, we have 2,500 miles to drive. Let's go. It's all the same downstairs, upstairs, it's all the same. And in that room was a wee orphan boy standing in the middle of 30-odd kids, all rocking. And I looked down this row and this wee face is looking back at me with these cheeks sucked in, wondering who these strangers were. And the Holy Ghost spoke to me like I'm talking to you. And the Holy Ghost said, that's your son. Clear as a bell.
Philip:I slipped down, picked him up, and I said, I don't know who you are or how you got here, but I'm not going to quit until I adopt you. Well, it took me a year. And in that year, I fixed things — the beds were covered in lead paint, so I replaced the beds. There were no toilets. They just sat on coffee cans and their bottoms were cut with the rim of the coffee can. So I put in toilets. It took me a year to do all that before I adopted him, but I was addicted by the time I'd finished. And that's been 35 years ago now, 35 years and hundreds of trips to Romania.
Philip:Then we moved to Moldova. In Moldova, we rebuilt a bunch of orphanages and discovered that at 16 they put the girls on the street and traffickers get them — the most horrendous thing. And these men use these girls 30 to 50 times a day. It's unbelievable. So I thought, well, we'll have to build a house. One house, two houses, into a village. And we have the most amazing place called Vatra Village, where we take these kids and tell them, if you are born, God has a plan. You are not a mistake.
Philip:It's located on the biggest lake in the whole of Moldova. It was built originally for rich people, and they poisoned that lake with chlorine to kill the algae, and no one wanted to stay in these houses. The algae's fixed now and we got the houses. And if you do the math — at this moment we've got 56 kids in that place, times $300,000 — that's the size and the wealth and the amount of money these animals make.
Philip:And we take them in. We tell them, if you're born, God has a plan. You're not a mistake. God has a purpose. And these kids are turning from orphans to sons and daughters and into missionaries. So when the Ukraine war broke out, our kids went up to the border and fed all the women running from the Russian army. We have had a home for 10 years in Ukraine. But long before the war happened, we were there helping and caring for kids. And recently we've just opened spaces for 25 more girls. And they sent me this amazing video of the very first day in Vatra. Watch this.
It has only been a few days since they stepped into a brand new world — a world of kindness, a world of cleanliness, a world of abundance. Every day their past grows more distant and Jesus more close. And as they live what is to most a normal, mundane life, to them, after living in a hurricane of hate, abuse, and rejection, this is as close to heaven as they will come on this side of eternity. Thank you to our dear friends and partners for making their new world possible.
Philip:Everyone a miracle. From a life of abuse and abandonment, they come to us sometimes with no clothes, sometimes with a wee plastic bag, sometimes with another bag. And what you saw them celebrating is we have a welcome home party for them. And my wife Chrissy makes these great big Rubbermaid tubs. And in that tub is a whole year's wardrobe. And by giving them clothes and loving them, they have a party — I mean, they have a fashion show. They go upstairs and get changed, come down the stairs like they're in the Paris Fashion Parade. It is amazing.
Philip:And the reason why our ministry is called Orphan's Hands is the hands of the orphans are what's reaching out. And these kids are out all through the wintertime bringing wood and food and warm clothes to widows. In the spring, they fix their gardens for them, paint their homes for them. They continually feed and nurture families that are broken. And we need your help. We're expanding. We've just bought two new houses for kids that are between the age of four and 16, and this is the most amazing place.
Philip:Two houses that will house 50 kids. They're not open yet. We're believing God to finish paying it off, with $150,000 left to pay. And also we are looking for family sponsors. If you can help me sponsor these two homes — and it's kind of fancy in those pictures, we're gonna change those pink colors. Whoever painted a house pink on the inside, I don't understand. And those big beds will be out and there'll be bunk beds in there. But we are going to have this place up and running.
Philip:We have already found the house parents for one of the homes. All we need is this: it takes 300 people giving $1 a day. You can run those homes and save 50 kids' lives for a dollar a day. If I were to take you there and stand there with you — we've just had a church there from Shreveport, Louisiana. And the pastor called me just before this program and he said, I want to, can I go along on the next trip? I want to go, because his team came back and they've been absolutely transformed by being with the kids.
Philip:And you need to come. Your church needs to take a team to Moldova and be a part of this crazy miracle. But I'm looking for 300 people that will give a dollar a day. It won't change your world as far as financially, but I promise you it'll change a wee girl's life forever and a wee young man's life forever. You can contact us. It's really simple: The Orphan's Hands, PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716.
Philip:You can also go to dailyfaith.tv. There's a giving page there, and that would be great. Or if you dial 1-833-DAILY FAITH — 833-DAILY FAITH — a real, live, honest-to-goodness person, not AI, a real person will pick up the phone and talk to you. And you can give and be a part of a crazy miracle that takes place every morning when the sun rises: 56 young girls and boys waking up in Vatra Village, eating a warm breakfast and going to school. And by doing so, it breaks the curse of alcoholism and the cycle of abuse in their life.
Philip:You can make that miracle happen today. Maybe you're looking for a miracle in your family. Sow into someone else that has no hope and God will bring it back into yours. I'm delighted to have with me Johnny Moore, pastor of Family Worship Center in Cairo, Georgia. I think it's Cairo. It may be Cairo. It's the first thing I want to ask him. He has done something wonderful in that, instead of going into the big city, he has built a great church in a small town, and a book entitled Homegrown. And if you're a pastor, you need to get this book. If you love your pastor, you need to get this book. And I'm so delighted to have with me today, Johnny Moore.
Philip:Johnny, thank you for joining us on Daily Faith, my brother.
Johnny Moore:Well, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and I'm just amazed at what you're doing with these kids.
Philip:So am I. I mean, it's amazing to me. And I look back — I applaud you for that. After 35 years, your head's busy just doing stuff, you're building, and another need, you go here, and then you look back and you go, oh, all of that depends on us. That's amazing. But it's wonderful.
Johnny Moore:It's a joy to be here. So glad to be here and honored to be with you.
Philip:You went home to pastor a church. And you have found great success being home. Explain to us the concept of this book and what God has shown you in being a homegrown pastor.
Johnny Moore's Cairo Roots and Calling
Johnny Moore:Okay, first of all, we do live in Cairo, Georgia. Cairo, not Cairo.
Philip:Excuse me. It is Cairo. That is correct. You Americans change everything.
Johnny Moore:I know it. That is true. You know, we're known for cane syrup, and so Cairo — some of you have heard of Cane syrup. Well, a lot of that used to come from here, so it was pretty amazing. And Cairo was my home. I grew up here, went to school here, graduated from high school here. My dad owned a glass company here, and so I grew up in the glass business. I just grew up to love Cairo. Cairo's my home and I loved it.
Johnny Moore:And you know, I went through some stuff in my life. I was raised in church all my life, but I tend to go south in my life, to be honest with you, and ended up in some bad situations. And through all that, gave my life to Christ. And from then, God began to move in my life. And I had a singing group. We traveled and sang and ended up in Ocala, Florida, singing one night. And that's where I met the lady that three years later I married. And long story short, we went to Ocala, went to work there at the church — her home church, the Ocala Church of God — and was there for five years.
Planting Family Worship Center in 1994
Johnny Moore:But my dream was always to come home. I loved Cairo and I really wanted to make a difference in this town. I had opportunities to go to larger cities, but Cairo was where my heart was. And I remember one time my wife said, why do you wanna go somewhere else when your heart is in Cairo? I thought, well, that's a smart woman. And so in 1994, we left Ocala, came back to Cairo, and planted a church — planted Family Worship Center. And it was really a dream come true to see it happen.
Johnny Moore:And from that point, I just really began to pour my life into this town and try to invest. I didn't wanna just pastor the people inside of a building. I wanted to pastor this town, pastor this community. And so that's where I've spent the last 31 years of my life. And all of my family — I have three kids and they're all married and we have five grandkids — all of them have gone to college, they've excelled in their own ways, but they have all returned home and they are working alongside of me.
Philip:We live in a world where we tend to overlook the small things. We're always looking for something bigger. I'll go to pastors' conferences and stuff, and you'll watch pastors — it's the funniest thing — they'll be shaking someone's hand and they're looking past the person whose hand they're shaking, looking for who's next. And what they're doing is looking down. They're missing the moment. And a lot of times in our rushed, busy, careering lives, running a hundred miles an hour, we are missing the diamonds and the precious stones that God has put in our lives. And we run over them and grind them into the dirt.
Pastoring a Town, Not Just a Building
Philip:And God's saying to you, listen, stop and smell the coffee. Take an opportunity to see where I've planted you, because the point of it all is to bloom where you're planted. I come from a wee fishing town in Peterhead, Scotland. My brother Neil pastors the biggest church in our little town. And I came over here when I was 13, so that association was kind of broken for me. I was traveling with my dad. But I'll say, are you happy? Wouldn't go anywhere else in the world.
Johnny Moore:Absolutely. The Bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain.
Philip:And in our mission work, there's a lot of guys that have feeding programs and they feed 10,000 kids one bowl of rice. That doesn't change anybody's life. I would rather do something small and deep than something with a show that is thin and dissipates under five minutes of sunshine.
Johnny Moore:Absolutely. And that's the way it was with us. We really felt like God wanted to build a great church in a small town. And from that, the Lord's really just given me a passion for pastors that pastor in small rural communities. I mean, our community is small. We have 26,000 people in the whole county, about 10,000 in the city limits of Cairo. But you know, God has blessed us and he has just taught us some things. I mean, it's not all been peaches and cream. We've had tough places, difficult times.
Johnny Moore:Which in my book I talk about all of those things, and it's very transparent. I'm really honest in there about our failures even more so than the success we've had. Because sometimes when you talk about success, people feel like they can't connect with it. But when you talk about where you've been and what you've been through, people can connect with that.
Philip:My hands up. And that's another thing that we tend to do in this society. We are only interested in presenting the shiny side. We want to present the happy side. And the David the Psalmist said, you've enlarged me in my distress. The growth time isn't on the mountaintop. The growth time is when you're down in the valley and you're thinking, my goodness, will I survive the night? And when you do survive the night, you think, whoa, God's bigger than my nightmare and God's bigger than my circumstance.
Philip:How does a small town differ setting-wise compared to the large? What comparisons are there?
Johnny Moore:Well, one of the things is in a small town you're dealing with mom and pop stuff a lot. And you know, you can go to a big city and a lot of times you can change things, you can do things that have never been seen. But it just takes longer in a small town. To be honest, when I came here in 1994, I thought that in five years at the most we'd be running a thousand people. I mean, that was 30 years ago, and I'm 64 now, so I was young and dumb and I thought, man, this thing's gonna happen, it's gonna take off.
Farming Metaphors and Kingdom Growth
Johnny Moore:But you know, I live in a farming community, and what I've learned is God is a farmer. Jesus said that the whole kingdom of God can be compared to a man that cast seed in the ground. So if you wanna know how the kingdom of God works, you can go talk to a farmer, and they understand that things don't happen quick and fast. It's a process, it's preparation. And so that really helped me learn that God has a plan for this town, but it is not gonna happen overnight.
Johnny Moore:I mean, I felt like number one, I had to know I was called to this town. Because many times there's a lot of turnover in small towns with pastors. And I don't mean this in a negative way, but sometimes they get frustrated and think, well, maybe I just need to go somewhere else, more people. And that happens. And that happened to me. I had the opportunity to go other places, but I just really never got a release from here. I just felt like God wanted me to stay here for the long haul.
Philip:You wrote this book — Growing What You Have Where You Are — boy, that is profound in and of itself — called Homegrown. And there are pastors watching just now, and folk that have a pastor in their church that they love and they want to encourage, they want to get this book. Tell us why we should order this book and how could it help my pastor, or help me as a pastor, fulfill my calling in the small church in the small community that I'm in.
Johnny Moore:Okay. What I talk about in this book — it tells our story, but there are basically five things that I focus on. Number one is that you have to understand that not only am I called by God, but I'm called by God to this town. I don't really think God cares where you go as long as you realize that when I get there, this is my burden, the roots — God called me here. Well, then you gotta deal with vision. You gotta deal with the cover on the puzzle box. What does God want to do here? What's the big picture and how does it all break down?
Transparency About Failure in Ministry
Johnny Moore:And you have to define your mission. What is the mission of our church? And then what is our strategic vision? What are we going to do here? And then how do core values all play into that? You know, it's more than just having church on Sunday. It's understanding how it functions and how it operates. But then you have to have structure. In a farming community, anybody knows if you grow tomato plants, you better drive a stick in the ground beside the plant. And you tie the plant to the stick so the plant can grow up beside it. It needs structure.
Johnny Moore:Every church needs structure. If you don't have it, then it'll never bear fruit. The fruit will rot before it gets right. And so then with structure, then you have culture. Man, you deal with culture in small towns. You've got church culture — people that's been to church all their life. You've got color culture. We've got white churches, black churches, Hispanic churches, Asian churches. And we see all the segregation rather than the fact that we are the church. Do we need to be a Christ-like culture? Yes.
Johnny Moore:And then the number five is you have to deal with influence. I believe that a church can influence the community. And that's what we have to see ourselves as — that God put us here not to just have a meeting behind closed doors once or twice a week, but we are here to influence our town. And again, you can't grow what you don't have. You gotta grow what you have. And you can do it right where you are. So in this book, I talk about how all of those things come into play.
Five Pillars of the Homegrown Framework
Philip:If you see your church — it sounds to me like a manual on success. And if you're watching us right now and you're thinking, God's calling me to this wee town, and you know, I'm only here for a season — if you only think you're there for a season, you won't be successful, because people sniff you out in five seconds. I've seen so many big-time, big-city pastors pastoring a small church, and you can tell a million miles away that they're not there for long. And what happens is people don't invest emotionally into the church. They don't get involved in the thing.
Philip:Johnny, this is amazing. I want you to get this book. You can get it — go to Amazon or the website: homegrownpastor.com. Really simple, homegrownpastor.com. And I'm sure there's other resources there. Or you can get a hold of Pastor Johnny and say, hey, I'm in a wee town. And any gift you'd like to help him in the ministry — for the book, you can get it right there. We're almost out of time. Thank you so much, Johnny, for being with me.
Johnny Moore:Thank you so much for the invite, sir. We'd love to have you back in the future.
Philip:Thank you very much. God bless you.
Johnny Moore:God bless you.
Philip:Thank you for watching Daily Faith today. You are so much a part of our family, and you get that book. I think it'll be a great blessing to you. Thank you for watching Daily Faith. We'll see you again. God bless. Bye-bye.
For over 25 years, the Cameron family has been changing the lives of orphans in Romania and Moldova — from providing running water, flushing toilets, and clean wells, to coal for heat, new windows, as well as food and clothing. They champion the physical needs of the orphans in these broken and desolate countries. Many of Moldova's orphans are saved from the horrors of trafficking through homes founded by the Camerons. And in the process, orphans become daughters and sons. They come to know their heavenly Father and are forever changed by the love of Jesus.
Church Influence in Small Communities
God help the Camerons lift these amazing young men and women out of darkness. Now no longer orphans, they return and invade that very same darkness with the light of Jesus Christ. The Orphan's Hands equips these daughters and sons to become missionaries. Your monthly gift of $31 will allow us to rescue and take in more girls and boys, saving them from the hell of human trafficking. Your monthly partnership will allow us to care for those in the Orphan's Hands homes in Moldova and Ukraine. If you want to join Philip and Chrissy in taking care of these precious young people, please contact us today by calling 833-DAILY FAITH. You can also give by going online to www.dailyfaith.tv or by writing to PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. So many lives depend on what we do. Thank you for loving the lost.
Common questions
Why did Johnny Moore choose to pastor in a small town instead of a bigger city?
Johnny Moore says Cairo, Georgia was simply where his heart was — he grew up there, his family was rooted there, and he always dreamed of making a difference in that specific community. Even when opportunities came to go to larger cities, he never felt a release from Cairo, so in 1994 he came back and planted Family Worship Center.
What are the five key things Johnny Moore covers in his book 'Homegrown'?
Moore outlines five areas: (1) understanding that you're not just called by God generally, but called to a specific town; (2) vision — knowing what God wants to do in that place; (3) defining your church's mission and strategic goals; (4) structure, which he compares to staking a tomato plant so it can grow and bear fruit; and (5) influence — seeing the church as something that shapes the whole community, not just holds meetings behind closed doors.
How does pastoring in a small town compare to a big city, according to Johnny Moore?
Moore says things simply take longer in a small town — he came in 1994 thinking the church would hit a thousand people within five years, and that never happened on that timeline. Living in a farming community taught him that God works like a farmer: it's a slow process of preparation, not something that happens overnight.
Why does Johnny Moore talk about failures in his book rather than just successes?
Moore says he was intentionally transparent about failures because people struggle to connect with success stories — but when you share where you've been and what you've been through, readers can actually relate to it and find encouragement in it.
How does Johnny Moore think a local church should handle the different cultural divides in a small town?
Moore says culture is one of the biggest challenges in small towns — you have long-standing church culture, and racial segregation between white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian congregations. His view is that the church needs to move past those divisions and ask whether it is building a genuinely Christ-like culture, because the church exists to influence the whole community, not just the people already inside its walls.
Topics
johnny mooresmall town churchrural ministryhomegrown pastorchurch plantingpastoral leadershipcommunity influence