Rural Ministry is Not Second Rate
Taking his cue from Tim Keller’s post on the Country Parson, Jared Wilson has some great things to say about the fact that that Rural Ministry is Not Second Rate. Here’s an excerpt:
I am glad more and more pastors are planting churches in the city. The cities need them, and more of them. I can’t think of a single church planter I know personally who is a selfishly ambitious flag-planter. (But I know the selfish flag-planters are out there.) Still, I’d love for more young guys to nail Starbucks and the corner pub and shopping malls and public transportation to the cross and go plant and pastor where you’re more likely to hear a cow moo than a car honk. Country folk are real folk. And they need the gospel too. A lot of evangelical churches in outlying areas are praying desperately that crop after crop of young pastors and aspiring church planters will grow up and show up.
As professionalization captured the evangelical pastorate, churches in small town America began drying up. It’s where old pastors go to retire. It’s where the untalented go to do second rate ministry. Even the one or two conferences recently about ministry in small town settings were led by megachurch pastors and were predicated on how to build a big church in a small town.
Do not treat these mission fields like training wheels for “real” ministry. If that’s your perspective you shouldn’t be in ministry anywhere. It’s true that God may call young pastors and planters into small towns and rural areas to prepare them and train them for ministries of Jabezian levels of “more territory.” But some he calls to come and stay. Many of us are praying you young guys are listening. [emphasis mine]
The whole thing is really good and can be found here.
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