As the son of a minister of a Christian Church in Nebraska, I was aware of the name Guy B. Dunning early on. I was taken to Pibel Bible Camp before I could walk and grew up knowing the name and even the signature of Dunning as it appeared on the sign to “Dunning Hall.” Later, as a student of Nebraska Christian College, I was made aware that he was also influential in the founding of that institution. It is unlikely that any other individual rivals his impact on the churches of the Restoration Movement in Nebraska.
The brief biography that accompanies a collection of Dunning’s shorter written works describes his ministry in detail. After having served elsewhere for several years, Dunning returned to his home church in Orchard, Nebraska to fulfill a dream of returning to “pioneer ministry… re-establishing dead congregations and planting new churches.”[1] During this period, Dunning was credited with reviving two dead congregations, planting five more, and strengthening another three through regular preaching. At one time Guy was serving eight congregations on a regular basis. He drove (his 1925 Dodge) 500 miles a week to preach every evening but one and four times on Sunday.[2]
Throughout the course of his ministry, Guy B. Dunning sought to emulate the work of the Apostle Paul; establishing new congregations, developing local leadership, and moving on to repeat the process.[3] He served as the primary pastor for in excess of 20 congregations in Nebraska, including the church at which I serve in Broken Bow. In 1941, Dunning began serving with the “Custer County Pastoral Unity,” which included three churches in addition to First Christian Church in Broken Bow.[4] Towards the end of his life, while serving a church in Auburn, he also worked as the Evangelist for the Christian Builder’s Association holding evangelistic meetings in Nebraska and across the region.[5] Most of the rural churches in the eastern half of Nebraska have a direct and substantial link to Guy B. Dunning.
Dunning’s ministry was characterized by the spirit of camaraderie and cooperation that he inspired in the congregations that shared his leadership. His influence led multiple congregations to partner together to establish Pibel Bible Camp (of which he was board president for more than forty years.[6]). To this day, the camp is a partnership among the churches involved, working for their mutual benefit.
The conversations that led to the establishment of Nebraska Christian College in 1945 actually began at a memorial service for a man who had died in an accident at Pibel Bible Camp. He had been a “Timothy” of Dunning, serving a congregation in Arnold, NE at the time of the accident. In response to this loss, the question was posed, “How can we find someone to take his place?”[7] Not unlike Pibel Bible Camp, Nebraska Christian College was founded as a result of multiple congregations partnering together for a Kingdom purpose. With the tragic loss of a young minister and a general shortage of trained ministers, these Christians united behind a purpose that would again involve a mutual benefit. Dunning was the first President of Nebraska Christian College while preaching at a church in the same community.[8]
In addition to his tendency to offer leadership to
multiple congregations simultaneously, Dunning’s ministry included several
other examples of congregations sharing in his leadership and participating in
cooperative ministry efforts. Over the course of his ministry, Dunning
conceived traveling groups of young people who led churches to worship through
music. He was involved in a “ministry swap” between two churches in order for
one of his sons to serve a church closer to a college during the school year.[9]
As further demonstrated by his involvement in the Custer County Pastoral Unity
and his service as Evangelist for the Christian Builder’s Association, he was a
part of multiple formal and informal partnerships that united and served rural
churches in Nebraska and the surrounding area. The influence of Guy B. Dunning
on these churches is undeniable, but the collaborative spirit he inspired has since faded.
While I cannot speak directly to the circumstances out of state, Christian churches in rural Nebraska have largely abandoned efforts to work together, to relate with one another, or to help each other out. At the same time, most of these churches have experienced a pronounced decline in attendance, with many closing their doors and others unable to support a full-time minister; several of which were planted, strengthened, or significantly influenced by sharing in the leadership of Guy B. Dunning.
I don’t necessarily aim to demonstrate a correlation between these two realities, but I do believe that there is a great untapped potential in these churches that might best be rediscovered by restoring the collaborative relationships they once experienced. In doing so, many smaller churches could enjoy some of the benefits enjoyed by larger congregations through the sharing of resources and purpose. I believe we can reverse the trend of decline in many rural churches in spite of the obstacles they face. The independent nature of many rural leaders, tense relationships among church members from different congregations, and long-standing traditions could all potentially stand in the way of such efforts and would need to be overcome to initiate meaningful cooperation.
The upcoming entries on this blog will undertake the the development of a strategy for creating associations among churches and leaders in order to increase the effective ministry of rural churches in Nebraska through the sharing of ideas, resources, responsibilities, and identity via informal networks, formal partnerships, mission-driven church mergers, and independent facilitators. In doing so, I hope to address some of the issues that have led us to our current state and provide some answer to those impediments while also establishing a Biblical and theological framework for such alliances.
While there
is no simple, one size fits all solution to the shortcomings experienced in small rural
churches, we certainly have several opportunities before us. In fact, we may find that it may be in the partnerships and sharing suggested moving forward that we are best equipped to to further the Kingdom of God.
[1] Guy B. Dunning and Gail Dunning,
The Shorter Works of Guy B. Dunning
(Huron, SD: Dakota Bible College, 1977), iv.
[3] Ibid., iv.
[10]
Interview Subject #3,
Interviewed by Seth Bates, Personal Interview, Broken Bow, NE, March 5, 2016.
