With fewer places to hide than in the ‘burbs, rural ministry offers so many bridges for communication, for we can enjoy a community profile that is offered to few of our inner-city or suburban cousins.

As I began yesterday’s message our congregation affirmed many of these bridges: neighbours, schools, work, business, shopping, clubs, sports, community events and organizations, church, weddings, funerals, social contacts, hospitals, media, local or state politics… etc. And because we encounter the same people – or members of their families and/or networks – across many of those bridges, we can get to know each other better. So we have stacks of opportunities to extend a smorgasbord of ministry that stretches us way beyond the four walls or the spiritual predilections of our flocks.

We can also build face to face goodwill with local movers and shakers as we seek to add a Christ-centred approach to building the well-being of the city (Jeremiah 29:7.) This also helps them to rise above the well-entrenched mythology that churches are irrelevant backwaters, and

There are fewer places to hide, for them and for us, so could I echo the exhortation to anyone in a rural church: bloom where you are planted, don’t interpret your present status as a purgatory while you Saddleback and wait for the calls to flash churches to roll in. They may not come while your talent is safely buried.

God bless us all

Noel Mitaxa