Just because I have been dropping a lot of posts about confronting empire and such, I just want to wave to my pigeons who are scratching their heads and going, “Whaaa? I’m in rural land here, and my pastoral rounds are to farmers and stay-at-home parents and retirees. I work in a little church or agency with a few underpaid staff, I don’t have the authority to hire or fire them, and the most glamorous thing I do is brew tea for the women’s alliance meeting on Tuesday mornings.”
I hear you, doll baby. I’ve done that ministry, too.
But I still hold that your ministry is radical enough without going to any protests, ever. We are truth tellers, receivers of confessions, and often the last voice someone will hear before they leave this lifetime forever.
We do serious, deep, transformational work with human beings who would often rather see us as comfortable, toothless servants under their authority and not God’s.
Don’t you get too comfy corduroy or cookie-baking in your persona. Sin is real, Satan is a liar and he is in your community like he’s in every other one I ever heard of. You stay sharp and shiny, ya hear?
Thank you. I’ve put 61,000 miles on my truck in 2 1/2 years since I’ve been appointed to my rural 2 point charge. I visit my widows and shut-ins, write sermons, hang out at the local convenience store to meet folks who don’t come to my church, bake cookies to take to the families of my sick folks, coax and urge my folks to reach out to our little community with me. It’s not glamorous, but it’s my life, and it’s not a bad one.
There is something inherently holy about small towns. Jeez, that sounded judgmental. Where I am there is a lot of tourism and we’re trying to reach into that community. So I walk everywhere I need to go, in town. Sometimes in clerics, most often not. I look folks in the eye and smile. I’ve only been here 2 months, but in that time I’ve been seen about town enough that folks now are approaching me. It’s wonderful. I’ve spoken with other clergy who are in multi-point charges and we are going to share some of the pastoral load between us.
The ministry of presence is so undervalued because, I believe, it is immeasurable. If we can’t put it on a spreadsheet, does it count as ministry? It surely does.
Ministry is ministry, wherever it is found. One is not better than another, it’s simply different. And thanks be to God for that!
I have sat with this post for a while and found myself compelled to speak to it. I have gone from urban/suburban ministry which put me in a the role of a pastor in front of city council and even state legislators advocating for justice and level headedness to now rural ministry. Which puts me in the role of a pastor in the midst of a parish and community that works hard at struggling with social justice issues and our response to them.
I spent the weeks before Easter in Mexico with a delegation looking at “fair” trade policies and the devastating effects these policies have had on the lives of the people of Oaxaca. I also continue to work with local farmers and advocates on developing a land ethic that is reflected in the ways we conduct our lives as both vocation and advocation.
What I have found is that rural ministry is just as socially justice focused as urban/suburban ministry IF we open ourselves up to the challenges of challenging our people and community to see the issues and respond as the Christ calls us to respond. I take issue with the characterization that rural ministry is about cookies and visits. It behoves us to see the social justice needs of our rural communities and be the voice and advocates so that we can influence change in mid-America Christianity. It is up to us to put on our collars and go out with eyes wide open and hearts in-tuned to the issues that create injustice in our rural communities. (PS. Have you heard ANY candidate speak about the farm bill or farm policy? Do you know about the potential devastating effects of the new trade agreement that is set to be passed? We in rural ministry cannot be silent or complacent.)
[Great to hear from you, Debra Jene! I love hearing your perspective. I’m sorry if I implied that rural ministry is about cookies and visits. I know it’s not. It’s about life and death, addiction, poverty, suffering, domestic abuse, racism, homophobia, sin, depression, and every other brokenness humans everywhere struggle with. I hear so often from ministers and lay people who lament that “these issues” (social justice) don’t effect them where they are, and I disagree completely, but it is not for me to outline for them how that’s true. It was for you to do, and I’m glad you did. – PB]
Thinking about the years I served a church in rural Ohio. Often the pastor was the last one there with the family when the farm was auctioned off at the bankruptcy sale. Often the pastor was the one blessing the tree at the Cancer Society Christmas fundraiser. Often the pastor was the one congratulating the very clever women’s group on somehow raising $2000 in funds from homemade holiday cheese-balls. Sometimes the pastor was the one coaching congregants behind the scenes, about how to speak out at county commission meetings with their concerns about the industrial hog-farm proposed to move into the community.
I found the mode of pastoral witness and care to be different in rural communities. It was much more relational. Sometimes very focused on local issues of justice, right relationship, and grief. I found a lot of grief in rural Ohio. Grief about the shift of family farms to larger agro-companies. Grief as more and more of the young moved away to large cities like Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Grief as many rural institutions (churches, 4-H, civic clubs, etc.) shrink with the shrinking population.
Rural pastoral ministry is important work. And always deserves our A-game, even if it seems less glamorous than what some of our colleagues are doing in major cities.