From a rural pastor-friend:

I recommend Nicholas Hawkes’ book The Country is Different (Joint Board of Christian Education 1994). The biggest change in ecclesiastical structure in rural Australia is the growing move toward empowering congregations without clergy as pioneered by the Uniting Church. Their journal ‘Ruminations’ (Uniting Church NSW Rural Ministry Unity, editor Bruce Irvine) is always interesting on this topic, and they hold regular conferences which discuss the revolution in spiritual growth that many congregations are experiencing when they begin to do it themselves and not spend all their resources supporting a minister. Their last Trans Tasman conference was held in September 2004 in Clare Valley, SA – reports may be on the Internet.

I think this decision by the UCA to empower and resource small churches without clergy is a seriously important move. It reminds me of the Brethren assemblies that many Baptists used to belong to. Why have so many Brethren chapels appointed pastors in recent years? Can a church grow without a paid professional? Are paid professional leaders more like the ‘hired hands’ of John 10 not true shepherds? Can small churches, at which the local grocer preaches and the retired school teacher leads worship, be effective at mission to their community (sorry if that sounds patronising I don’t mean it to be)? There is absolutely no doubt that getting laypeople out of the pews into the pulpit has done a world of powerful good for them. Maybe that’s more important than getting in a popular professional leader/preacher who frequently only causes the church to grow by dragging people from surrounding churches to build the numbers.

What do others think?