Rural churches celebrate ‘planting seeds of hope’

Bishop James King describes his rural church roots during an April 26 celebration of rural ministries at the 2008 United Methodist General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas

By Deborah White*

FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)—Members of 25,000 rural United Methodist churches are “planting seeds of hope in every place,” leaders of Town & Country Ministries emphasized during a Rural Life Celebration April 26 at the 2008 General Conference.

About 100 volunteers from rural areas across the United States formed a colorful procession down the aisles of the assembly hall in the Fort Worth Convention Center. They passed out “Seeds of Hope” packets of zinnias, long-stemmed flowers that come in a variety of bright colors.

Volunteers throughout the parade carried 25 T-shaped poles covered with 25,000 paper butterflies. Senior citizens in the Redbird Missionary Conference spent three months cutting out the butterflies.

Leaders of the celebration asked delegates to “shake their seed packets high” if they have ever attended a town and country church, lived in a house constructed of wood, eaten food grown in a rural area or seen small church signs bearing the United Methodist cross and flame symbol.

Seven United Methodist leaders identified themselves by their home towns—as Jesus of Nazareth did—and testified about the positive influences of rural churches on their lives.

“My life was rescued from poverty by a loving church in Edinburgh, Texas,” said Phoenix Area Bishop Minerva Carcaño. “I learned that God loves even me. I am Minerva of Edinburgh.”

Bishop Kenneth L. Carder—“Kenneth from Jonesboro”—reminded delegates that early Methodists moved across the frontier building churches, schools, orphanages and hospitals. “We are the heirs of the exuberant and extravagant sowing of Gospel seeds by countless small, rural congregations across the world,” he said.

“Those rural congregations are among our greatest assets for evangelical and missional renewal among the people called Methodist in the 21st century,” Carder said. “But those potential mission stations are in jeopardy of withering and dying. Forces within and outside the church are choking the life from the fragile plants.”

The internal forces, he said, include the loss among church members of an identity focused on evangelism and mission. “Rather than seeing the church as a mission station and themselves as missionaries and evangelists, they see the church as a family chapel and themselves as merely mutual comforters or perhaps hospice volunteers for a dying institution,” Carder said.

External forces threatening the rural church include:

.Demoralizing rhetoric that devalues small-membership congregations;
.Appointment practices and pastoral attitudes that consider rural and small membership congregations as stepping stones to career advancement; and
.Marginalizing small-membership congregations by omitting their voice from denominational structures such as the Connectional Table.

Carder called for a “recovery and re-appropriation of relevant practices in our Wesleyan heritage” including:

.Identifying congregations as mission stations;
.Affirming and resourcing small groups and helping many small congregations to see themselves as class meetings devoted to mutual support and accountability; and
.Developing a new version of the traditional “class leader” and “circuit rider” in which small congregations are led by lay pastoral leaders with the mentorship, sacramental leadership and support of ordained clergy.

“May this General Conference sow and nurture the seeds of the new creation in the places like the stable that housed Jesus’ birth, the town that nurtured him, and the garden in which he was raised—the towns and villages across the global landscape,” Carder said.

The Rev. Ed Kail, delegate from Iowa and president of the United Methodist Rural Fellowship, said, “We celebrate because we can become seeds of hope in every place.” As he spoke, volunteers came down the aisles with banners representing ministries and organizations of Town & Country Ministries.

With slide shows to illustrate their points, United Methodist leaders from Minnesota, North Carolina, Colorado and South Carolina described how their ministries are “planting seeds of hope in every place.”

*Deborah White is associate editor of Interpreter magazine.