I KNOW a church where Sunday attendance averages almost 100 percent.
Its members take their faith seriously. They wrestle with scriptures
and try to apply them to the trials and trivia of everyday life in
their community.
They worship and pray together regularly. They look after their
sick, comfort each other in grief and stress. When all else fails, they
bring casseroles.
And they pitch in to make their community strong and resilient.
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This is what churches are supposed to be, right? Places of faith, hope and charity. Real spiritual depth.
But in fact this church is not regarded as a model for others. Its
people are never asked to share the secret of their success at regional
church gatherings. They are not treated as religious gurus or asked to
write books.
In fact their national church body wants to shut them down.
This church, you see, is rural. It has eight members. Once there
were 100 but farms got bigger, the processing plant closed, people
moved away. There have been a lot of goodbyes.
But even in that grief, this congregation discovered, to its
surprise, that getting smaller had benefits. Now they often meet in the
coziness of a home – soft couches instead of hard pews! Now everyone
can share their gifts in worship: Mary quilts the banners; Bob tells
stories from his travels; young Jamie plays her flute. Each one shares
the details of their hopes and struggles, framed by their scriptures.
They are small enough to know they can’t tackle big projects alone
so they teamed up with the local school and another church in town to
help raise money for a handi-bus. Several new friendships were made.
The prayer of this church is not the one that comes so quickly to the lips of other congregations.
You know, the McDonald’s prayer: super-size me.
In this rural church, the lust for size and power is dim. They know
they’re not a crystal cathedral. They simply pray that God will help
their little flock be yeast and salt in their community. And so they
have been.
There are thousands of small strong congregations across rural
Canada; in most Christian denominations they still constitute a
majority of member churches. But they are often treated, and see
themselves, as palliative care patients.
Yet they are rich in resources. I ask rural churches to imagine that
overnight God burnt down every church, gave the clergy heart attacks
and evaporated all church bank accounts.
“Now what’s left to do ministry with?” I ask. After a respectful
moment of silence we start to list the gifts: skills, experience,
knowledge, relationships, access to other institutions and natural
resources, things people could lend or give – a great treasure.
Out of these they construct ministries, not conventional perhaps,
but effective, imaginative and usually deeply connected to the
community.
You know, when the Christian church began, small meant strong. Jesus worked with 12.
Even the thousands that later joined first met in home groups, not vast arenas.
Maybe we should start giving our small rural churches more credit.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon.
