A visitor from a large city shook my hand after the service. “Isn’t it ridiculous,” she said, “that this little church even stays open? The smartest thing would be to shut it down.”
I suspect many people would agree with her.
I would not.
Rural churches offer great opportunities for witness and ministry. By their very nature, they have positive qualities that are difficult to develop in an urban setting.
But for some reason when the rural church is mentioned, more people think about problems than about potential. They have visions of infighting, minuscule budgets, and maligned, underpaid pastors. Perhaps from the vantage point of a large urban church, the small rural church seems far removed from the center of Christian mission. But in my years of rural ministry, I’ve seen the powerful witness and ministry of the country church. Many notions about the country church need adaptation.
Myths
Most people assume rural churches are small churches. But are they? Sometimes, but not always. I am pastor of two rural churches, one with twenty-four members and the other with ninety-nine. In our denomination, 68 percent of the churches have fewer than seventy-five members, and many of these churches are found in urban areas. Just being rural does not mean small.
Well then, at least we know the members are all farmers. Think again. One of my frustrations is guest speakers who come loaded with farm humor and animal illustrations. These speakers seem to expect people to arrive for church straight from the pumpkin patch.
Farming is important to the economy of our area. My churches are in the center of the potato industry, and the parsonage is surrounded by a huge potato field. Some church members are farmers. But most are businesspeople, teachers, housewives, trades-people, and so on. Even the farmers are businessmen with huge capital investments and complex operations. The vocational makeup of a rural congregation can be as diverse as in any urban church.
The young people all move away. Many do. Rut many stay in the community or return after university because they are looking for a rural setting for their family. My experience is that just as many young people stay in a rural area as do in an urban area.
Small churches can’t grow is one of the most serious myths surrounding the rural church. Once the pastor believes it, the people in the church become convinced. Then the myth becomes self-fulfilling. It needn’t be so.
Once these myths are dispelled, we can look honestly at the problems and potential of the country church.
Idiosyncrasies
Often rural churches function without long-range goals. When I arrived at my current pastorate, neither church had even an annual budget. The only “budgeted” item was my salary. No long-range plans directed the churches’ ministries. Expenses were planned “one day at a time.” At best, evangelistic campaigns were planned three months in advance.
Part of the problem is that the average stay of a rural pastor is short-in our denomination thirty-three months by my calculation. That means a child growing up in a rural church will have had seven pastors by age eighteen. Five-year goals cannot be seriously considered because pastors know they won’t be around that long, and the congregation knows it too.
Little or ineffective outreach is a second problem. The rural church tends to expect the pastor to visit the members regularly and to make a nuisance of himself with the sick and elderly. Visiting nonmembers too often may cause jealousy: “They’re not paying his salary!” Likewise, the Sunday school becomes the means of educating “our” children, not the tool to reach out to others.
Third, I find rural churches are often slow to prepare for growth because they don’t anticipate needs. The church nursery is a good example: “We don’t need a nursery, because no small children attend our church.” People sometimes miss the cause-and-effect relationship.
I well remember the first Sunday school meeting I attended here. The junior high teacher complained that her class was down to two students, and one of the two was not attending regularly. The superintendent’s solution was simple: “We’ll close that class until more students start attending.” Of course none did until a new teacher took on that age group and went after a class.
Part of the problem is that “everybody knows everybody” in a rural area, so the members feel they would know if there were anyone else who would come to church or Sunday school. Frequently they have written off those they “know” wouldn’t attend.
A fourth problem is poor congregational self-image. The pastor leaves after two or three years, and people assume he must not like the church. The city churches attract the guest speakers and put on the special programs. Denominational events are held in larger towns. People in rural churches begin to think, Something must be wrong with us.
I visited a man who told me all pastors prefer urban churches. When I protested, he made a good point: “When did you last see a pastor move from an urban church to a rural pastorate?” I couldn’t think of any.
Fifth, a survival mentality holds back some rural churches. Even though survival often motivates evangelism, it is the wrong motive. On the one hand, the church is desperate for new members “or the church will close in ten years.” On the other, repairs and renovations to the building are delayed “in case the church is closed in ten years.”
During my first year here, one woman in the smaller church commented at every meeting, “Well, the church will be closed in five years anyway.” In that atmosphere, it was hard to encourage a lot of enthusiasm. Finally I went to her privately and said, “Listen, if the church is going to close in five years anyway, why waste more money and effort? Let’s close it this week.” She never made the comment again publicly.
Seven years later, the church membership is both larger and younger, and the building has been upgraded to enable the church to meet future community needs.
We had to remember to promote evangelism not just to maintain membership and keep the church open, but because people in the community need the Savior.
The “family compact” style of government can also be a problem. In many rural churches, one large family or several cooperating families control the affairs of the church, and they rarely want to relinquish control to newcomers (members of less than twenty years), the pastor, or anyone else.
When I first came, one family made up one-third of the Sunday morning congregation of my larger church. They taught five of eight Sunday school classes and included among their ranks the treasurer, the Sunday school superintendent, half the deacons, a trustee, the president of the missionary society, and the director of vacation Bible school. Such a consolidation of power is not unusual.
Finally, I’ll mention poorly maintained or furnished buildings, a problem related to the lack of long-range goals. Often there is not enough money to paint the church this year, so it is delayed until next year. But no money is set aside this year, so next year there still is not enough money, and so on. I didn’t know what a backache was until I sat in hundred-year-old pews! Some rural churches don’t even have indoor plumbing.
In the smaller of my two churches we recently completed several projects considered ambitious for a church of twenty-four members. We installed a rest room, replaced the windows, carpeted the basement, rewired the building, and renovated the entrance. None of these projects could have been accomplished had we not planned at least four years in advance to give us time to budget and raise the necessary funds. We are looking forward to upholstered pews in 1988.
Advantages
Far greater than the problems, however, are the advantages of rural ministry.
 Long-range goals are easier to set and carry out in a rural church because of the stability of the membership and of the community. The only person moving in many congregations is the pastor. In fact, long-range planning is, in my experience, the easiest way to make a significant difference in a rural church.
I have found five-year goals most effective. They may not seem very long-range, but in a rural church accustomed to a new pastor every thirty-three months, five-year goals have a huge impact. They signal that there will be some stability: Maybe this pastor will stay until the goals are met. Such goals also indicate carefully planned changes, not just the demands of another impatient pastor who expects immediate changes in the church’s ministry or building.
The most positive result is the church gains a sense of mission. No longer do they view themselves as just a subsidized organization that is going to close someday; they are a church ministering to the community’s needs in Jesus’ name.
Because of setting and publicizing five-year goals, we have successfully completed building projects, trained new Sunday school teachers, assembled a resource library for youth leaders, begun three new Sunday school classes, hired a part-time secretary, and employed a college student in the summer months. Meanwhile, the membership of both churches has increased.
 I have great opportunities given me by virtue of my role. In rural communities, the pastor often benefits from the reverence for the pastoral position that has built up over the years. I can build bridges to people in the community through everything from community fairs to wedding showers. I’m afforded contacts with people through strong family ties. Often almost every resident of a rural community will file into the church for a funeral, while in an urban area only family and close friends will attend. A funeral director recently told me “The number of people attending a funeral is inversely proportional to the size of the community where they live.” These and other events give me many opportunities for ministry and outreach.
 In a rural church, small things can have a great effect on people’s attitudes. I’ve seen a poor self-image changed markedly by my visibly thankful attitude as pastor. When I let the church know I love the community and each one of them individually, parishioners have a much better attitude toward working with me to accomplish goals together.
Even simple gestures like seeing that veteran Sunday school teachers have a month or two off each year can work wonders in their attitudes toward serving. I try to encourage my congregations by helping them to see that theirs isn’t an insignificant church at all. They can feel good about what their church can accomplish.
 Improving organization helps dramatically. If church meetings are always held during the Sunday school opening, or the church constitution was last amended in 1915 (if there is a constitution!), or the Sunday school picnic is a dreaded affair that springs up on everyone with only a week’s warning, improved organization can make a noticeable-and welcome-improvement.
I have worked to apply good organizational skills to make our ministry more effective. Take the nursery, for example. The operative plan was “If someone with a baby comes, we’ll get someone for the nursery.” With that plan, I wasn’t going to hold my breath until young couples came. Simply by organizing a nursery schedule, we announced to the community: “Couples with small children are welcome here.”
 People know one another well, and that promotes fellowship. Anyone not in church is missed. People know one another’s abilities and so are able to work together effectively. But most important, members know they are accepted into the fellowship of the church by people who know their faults.
In an urban setting it may be possible to live a double life, pretending to those at church that I live a good life during the other six days when I’m never seen. In a rural church, members know one another for the persons they are, because everyone sees them throughout the week. Although the world tries to tell us there is freedom in anonymity-people will like us if they don’t really know us-the Bible teaches that real freedom comes through honesty and forgiveness. That is the freedom found in the fellowship of a rural church, where everyone knows everyone-and learns to forgive.
 Opportunities for witness are abundant in rural society. Because “everyone knows everyone,” those who are not Christians clearly see the lives of church members. Of course, effective witness means church members must be transparent and honest in living their Christian lives. If they pretend to be better than they are, or make the church into a sanctuary of the saints, their neighbors will know them well enough to see their hypocrisy. But if the community sees that the church welcomes sinners, and that needs are met in that fellowship, it is a powerful witness for the gospel.
Unlike those in urban apartment buildings who must make an effort to befriend their neighbor, my neighbor a mile down the road knows me well enough to see the effect of Christ on my life. Often people here have become Christians not because of hearing a sermon or because of one particular presentation of the gospel but through the witness of church members over the years.
 This may surprise some, but rural churches have real opportunities for growth. They do not have to spend as much time preventing (or reclaiming) dropouts. In over seven years of ministry in my current pastorate, I have seen only one member drop out entirely. Thus we can afford to place less emphasis on member maintenance and more on outreach.
Even attendance patterns provide outreach opportunities. In many urban churches, it’s not unusual for a congregation with a thousand members to have seven hundred at worship. But in a rural church with sixty members, it wouldn’t be surprising to count one hundred regularly attending worship. Enrollment in a rural Sunday school is often considerably higher than the membership of the church. What great potential for growth! The prospective new members are already in the church building.
And people who would feel like outsiders in the church building already feel like insiders in their neighbor’s kitchen. So small groups provide other opportunities for growth. In my church of twenty-four members, we started three small groups, with one for people not regularly attending the church. Within six months, two people joined the church from that group.
 Rural churches are caricatured as institutions impervious to change, but I’ve found people open to changes and new ideas-provided I’ve consulted them. I also had to provide a positive reason for wanting the changes (“We will better meet the needs of the community”) rather than a negative one (“The way you’ve done this up to now isn’t working”).
People were candid when I suggested ideas: “Well, what we’ve done before hasn’t worked all that well, so let’s try the pastor’s idea.” This pastor’s ideas don’t always work either, but I’ve found people willing to try them.
 Improvement is readily noticed. People often have become accustomed to seeing things done in a second-rate fashion. The choir doesn’t practice; they just “run through” the anthem before the service. The Christmas pageant is expected to be a time when the adults will laugh heartily at the poorly rehearsed efforts of the preschool class.
But this provides a tremendous opportunity, for it makes excellence shine.
Seven years ago we struggled to gather a choir of twenty people to prepare a high-quality Christmas musical service. Once that small choir had practiced diligently for three months, we had to stump to get a good crowd out to hear them. But the last few years, we’ve had to provide two Christmas services to accommodate the crowd, and the choir has grown to nearly fifty.
It happened because people knew when they attended, they wouldn’t see an embarrassed choir that threw together a few pieces of music a couple of weeks before Christmas. They could invite their friends to a service where everything would be done well, to the glory of God.
As people in the church began to see their efforts were not second-rate but were honoring to God, our church’s attitude improved. People became enthused about inviting visitors, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers to a church where excellence had become a priority.
I enjoy pastoring these two rural churches, and I am convinced rural churches have no more problems and no less potential than any other church. I have been encouraged as the churches have grown, as goals have been met and lives changed.
Recently we invited a former pastor to return for a preaching series. He now pastors an urban church with a large turnover in the membership every few years. But twenty years after he left here, much of this congregation and community has remained the same. As people met him at the door, I reflected on the fact that many who were children when he was pastor are now Sunday school teachers and youth leaders. Those who were leaders twenty years ago are still here. And many who were not Christians have since committed their lives to the Lord, to a great extent because of his ministry. The congregation’s love for him, shared in their reminiscences, was obvious.
This is the joy of the rural church: its stability, its intimate fellowship, its relationship to the pastor. And this is the rural church’s great potential.
Stephen McMullin is pastor of Waterside United Baptist Church and Victoria United Baptist Church in Waterville and Victoria, New Brunswick.
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
