**What follows is the second condensed excerpt from an extended research paper written to complete my seminary work, posted in hopes that the content is beneficial.
This past year, I took the advice of my friend Matt Murphy to watch the Netflix series Chef’s Table[1]. He’d been struck by the ministry implications of one specific episode, but our distinct perspectives were highlighted as I gravitated towards an entirely different episode. He has been a church planter and minister in a large metropolitan area, while I serve in a remote rural town; our ministry environments led us each to draw truth from unique perspectives. I watched the series with interest, but it wasn’t until I came to an episode featuring Norway’s Magnus Nilsson that I was captivated.
This past year, I took the advice of my friend Matt Murphy to watch the Netflix series Chef’s Table[1]. He’d been struck by the ministry implications of one specific episode, but our distinct perspectives were highlighted as I gravitated towards an entirely different episode. He has been a church planter and minister in a large metropolitan area, while I serve in a remote rural town; our ministry environments led us each to draw truth from unique perspectives. I watched the series with interest, but it wasn’t until I came to an episode featuring Norway’s Magnus Nilsson that I was captivated.
Nilsson is the
chef for Fäviken, a restaurant located on a country estate in a rural area in
the northern part of Norway. Not unlike many parts the United States, Nilsson’s
home is far removed from a major population. It is an hour’s drive from the
nearest city, the population of which is under 50,000. In spite of his remote
location, Fäviken has been consistently ranked
as one of the fifty best restaurants in the world.
After
pursuing a culinary career in Paris, a city which many would consider the
world’s center for fine food, Nilsson grew disillusioned with cooking and moved
back to his hometown. After beginning to work at Fäviken on a three month
contract to fill their wine cellar, he began to cook again. Initially, he
struggled with the lack of quality fresh ingredients, before choosing to change
his approach. He began to emphasize local ingredients, preservation methods,
and cooking traditions. He stopped trying to be a French restaurant near the
Arctic Circle and started simply being the best possible restaurant in that isolated
part of Sweden.
After
becoming fascinated by the success of Fäviken, I began to watch Nilsson’s
appearances on the PBS show, Mind of a
Chef. It was through one of these episodes that I was able to pinpoint why
I had so resonated with Nilsson’s experiences. Nillson made a comment that
eventually, the long winter wasn’t an annoyance, but an opportunity to be
creative. Then he spoke some words that I feel carry great significance for the
rural church. “If you have everything all the time, there is very little
motivation for most of us to create something new… and possibly better.”[2]
In the Sandhills
of Nebraska, and in other rural areas, we cannot operate the same way as one
would in a metropolitan area, or even like a church could in smaller cities
nearby. Like Nilsson’s experience in Norway, we simply don’t have the same
resources available to us. We do, however, still have what it takes to be effective
and vital local churches. We must identify our shortcomings and find
opportunities to overcome those difficulties, and I believe that cooperative
efforts and shared leadership may be the key to resolving many of those issues.
We must embrace the challenges we face to create something new, and possibly
better.
This blog entry doesn’t attempt to
create an exhaustive list of challenges faced by the rural church, but rather
to ascertain which issues might potentially be addressed by cooperative efforts
and shared leadership, and issues which could serve as serious obstacles to any
such collaboration. In making these identifications, we can begin to formulate
a coherent strategy for addressing such challenges moving forward.
Challenges in Rural Areas
Rural areas in
the United States have experienced a great deal of instability in recent years
which contribute to the difficulties faced by their churches. “The number of
people working in agriculture-related fields is declining rapidly”[3]
and “nonfarm, small-town population is increasing,”[4]
lending to “massive demographic changes.”[5]
The impact of these demographic changes can be dramatic. “Long-term residents
and newcomers have different perspectives! They are on different wavelengths.
It can be hard for them to understand each other. Lack of understanding leads
to conflict.”[6]
As the rural community changes over time, the church often struggles to adapt
and remain relevant in their new context. New residents are faced with the real
possibility that they are not welcome in many churches and preexisting
residents quickly face the reality that they “may have to choose between the
past and the future, between clinging to (their) old ways and having a vital
church for (their) children and grandchildren.”[7]
These population
shifts have broad implications. Many communities are devastated by population
losses; the non-metro communities least likely to grow are those whose economy
is based on extractive enterprises and “some rural communities have ceased to
be the center of services for their county.”[8]
This has a significant impact on community life. As the community and its
residents change, so does their state of mind. Young people are often urged to
go away to school and never return. “Pessimism and discouragement permeate
daily life in many small towns.”[9] As
populations change, the sense of ownership and community pride often wanes.
…farmers and
ranchers and the suppliers and marketers of farm products and their families
all had a major stake in the future of the community in which they lived – in
its physical environment, its social institutions and organizations, its
economic development, its social life, and its moral and ethical climate. It
was understood that shopping locally, volunteering for community service, serving
in a variety of leadership roles, and supporting the betterment of the whole
community were ways one could further enhance the development of a ‘great place
to raise your kids’[10]
Challenges in
Rural Congregations
As
would be expected, the obstacles facing rural communities quite often bleed
over into congregational life. The conflicts among new and old residents
translate into conflicts among new and old church members. The pessimism and
communal low self-esteem often lead to churches losing hope that they can
thrive in their new environment. It can be argued that “the greatest challenge
facing many small-town churches is to avoid slipping into a survival, or even maintenance,
mentality.”[11]
Such a line of thinking can lead to a vicious cycle: they need new people to
survive, but they need new ministries or improved facilities to reach those
people. Most typical approaches to church growth remain out of reach. “Many do
not try because they have been convinced it can’t be done. They have never seen
it done. They have never heard of it happening.”[12]
Contributing to this attitude is an often-condescending view of the rural
church by those in more urban settings. Often, when larger churches offer their
help, it is “from the outside,” with a “missionary tone,” and often dismisses
the rural approach “out of hand as backward and outdated.”[13]
This approach, combined with the rural tendency towards proud independence
makes such help unwelcome, unprofitable, and disheartening.
A
lack of resources, real or perceived, also contributes to such attitudes. Many
congregations cannot financially support a full-time minister, and few others
can fund the salary for additional, specialized ministry staff. Many churches
have settled into a maintenance mode, paying the bills but not taking care of
their facilities or involving themselves in outreach ministries. Still others
lack human resources and operate without individuals skilled in the areas of
technology, administration, musicianship, or youth ministry. Lay leaders are
often not only untrained, but have no avenue for effective and relevant
training. As such, they are left to become self-taught and learn on a trial and
error basis.
While it is not entirely unique to
rural churches, a tendency towards being reluctant or even hostile to the idea
of change is a challenge that must be overcome in order to implement a strategy
for collaboration among rural churches. “Rural churches have challenges unique
to the ministry, especially if they are passionate about their family’s church
heritage (but are not passionate about the mission of Christ) or have great
desire but little faith.”[14]
Many hear even the suggestion of change as an insult to whoever had initially
created the ministry or physical structure being critiqued. With this mindset,
amending the bylaws may amount to throwing out the hard work of their
grandfather and labeling his efforts as in some way insufficient.
When presenting
a strategy for cooperative efforts and shared leadership to churches with a
heritage in the Restoration Movement, specific consideration must be given to
concerns that may arise from “Restoration” principles. At its root, this movement is “based on the
twin concerns of unity and biblical authority” and though “these twin concerns
are designed to be compatible; (they) often appear to be antagonistic.”[15]
In striving to retain the local autonomy of their congregation, many have
sacrificed unity with other churches. In their efforts to recognize the Bible
as their only authority, they have rejected opportunities for cooperation. In
such situations, the pursuit of independence has led to self-imposed isolation
and even the appearance of submission to the leadership of an outside
organization or church carries a significant stigma.
Even without
claiming a distortion of Restoration ideals as the culprit, we can easily
identify a cessation of cooperative efforts and fellowship among the Christian
Churches and Churches of Christ in Nebraska. The churches planted and
strengthened by the shared leadership of Guy B. Dunning have set aside
collaboration almost entirely. As rural individuals have become more mobile and
many smaller communities have ceased to be service centers for the surrounding
areas, many small churches have also been abandoned for churches in larger
communities. The reasons for the current state of these churches are diverse,
but the results are fairly uniform; stagnation and decline.
Challenges for Rural Ministers
The
obstacles to realizing collaboration among rural churches are compounded by a
variety of concerns common to ministers working in the rural setting. One rural
minister, Shannon O’Dell, lists several “unwritten rural rules” which describe
the difficulty experienced by rural churches in securing ministry staff.
Successful
churches grow in thriving urban or sprawling suburban America. Sparsely
populated rural communities are behind the times and not worth our time. Cities
are strategic; the country is inconsequential. The best, most visionary pastors
are hired by growing visionary congregations. Rural churches can only afford
the leftovers from the leadership pool. If you want to be a
"successful" pastor, go to the cities. If you want to drive a minivan
with 200,000 miles on it, go to the sticks.[16]
O’Dell is not alone in his concern that many ministers
are hesitant or even opposed to entering ministry in a rural area. Another
writer posits: “Could it be that there are plenty of pastors to go around, but
not enough who are willing to serve in obscure places?”[17]
While we commend international missionaries for carrying the gospel to the ends
of the earth, a minister committing to a rural church is often seen as one
worthy of pity.
The
difficulty in securing a capable minister in a rural area is compounded by the
reality that most seminarians are “unfamiliar with the rural context” and have
a negative view of such ministry, seeing their “tenure as ‘time-serving’ while
they await a larger or more prestigious post.”[18]
As a result, many ministers entering service to rural areas are entirely
ignorant of the culture in which they are ministering, completely unprepared
for the challenges they face, and hesitant to commit fully to the task. Many
ministers hope for a short tenure in rural ministry, while it has been asserted
that “it takes about five years to lay the groundwork for an effective ministry
in the small church.”[19]
Such ministers rarely give themselves an adequate amount of time to establish
themselves for effective ministry.
With
these attitudes towards rural ministry, it is not uncommon for those who accept
a pastorate in a rural area to not actually be called to or equipped for the
role. Again, O’Dell speaks insightfully to this possibility. “Many rural
pastors take that job because Podunkville was the only opening they could find
at the time… a lot of pastors were once great Sunday school teachers” and when
leadership invites him to full-time ministry, this leader is “forced to live
outside his gifting.”[20]
Whether it is a lack of call, faith, vision, gifting, training, or some other
shortfall, many ministers in small, rural churches are not effectively equipped
for the task of reversing the downward trends experienced by the congregation
they serve. In the end, they often become a part of the problem. When it comes
to cooperative efforts and shared leadership, the pride of one minister can
short-circuit the entire process and varying levels of incompetency can slow or
stall progress towards change and collaboration.
These
are just a handful of the significant challenges faced by the local church in rural
areas, but these ought not be understood merely as barriers and omens. Like Magnus
Nilsson at Fäviken, we ought to see these challenges
as opportunities to create something new, and possibly better. We must investigate
how we approach ministry in the rural setting and seek out unique responses to our
unique context. As these posts continue, we’ll seek to do just that.
[1] David Gelb, creator, "Magnus
Nilsson," In Chef's Table, (Netflix. 2015).
[2] Magnus Nillson, host. "Winter,"
In The Mind of a Chef. (PBS. November 1, 2014).
[3] Ron Klassen and John Koessler, No
Little Places: The Untapped Potential of the Small-town-church, (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Books, 1996), 55.
[4] Ibid.,
57.
[5] Ibid.,
58.
[6]Barney Wells, Martin Giese, and Ron Klassen, Leading
through Change: Shepherding the Town and Country Church in a New Era, (St.
Charles, IL: ChurchSmart Resources, 2005), 26.
[7] Klassen and Koessler, No Little
Places, 61.
[8] Shannon L. Jung, Rural Ministry: The
Shape of the Renewal to Come, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 110-111.
[9] Klassen and Koessler, No Little Places, 56.
[10] Jung, Rural Ministry, 102-103.
[11] Wells, Giese, and Klassen, Leading through Change, 42.
[12] Shannon O'Dell, Transforming Church in Rural America: Breaking All the Rurals
(Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 2010), Kindle Edition: Location 137.
[13] Jung, Rural Ministry, 47-48.
[14] O'Dell, Transforming Church in Rural America, Location 214.
[16] O'Dell, Transforming Church in Rural America, Location 182.
[17] Klassen and Koessler, No Little Places, 29.
[18] Jung, Rural Ministry, 51.
[19] Klassen and Koessler, No Little Places, 35.
[20] O'Dell, Transforming Church in Rural America, Location 1678.
