Priorities for Rural Churches
All the Gear and No Idea
Where I live is cycling country. Many people love to ride down the country lanes of Cheshire.
But there’s something I’ve noticed. The better the gear of any cyclist, the worse they are at cycling.
What seems to happen is this: they put the priority on getting the gear. They read on line how they need a carbon-fibre bike, lyrca clothing and energy gels.
But what they’ve failed to do is what’s most important: riding their bike. A lot.
You see, the fancy gear does make a difference at the top level. But what will make the biggest difference at the start is just getting out riding.
Whatever the bike, whatever the clothes, whatever the food. Riding makes the difference.
Christian Distractions
It’s much the same in church life. Churches often spend inordinate time on things that make very little difference:
Getting modern looking promotional materials
Researching the latest evangelistic event fad
Position papers on dozens of secondary issues
These things can make a difference. But the difference they make is minimal.
Four Priorities
Having realised this I sat down at one stage and tried to think of four things in my own ministry that would make the difference.
I ended up with a list very similar to Mark Dever but slightly modified.
I will go into greater detail about how these manifest themselves in rural areas, but here is the brief summary:
Proclamation: If we are never telling people about Jesus, how are people going to be saved?
People: Being face to face with human beings makes a huge difference, especially in evangelism.
Prayer: The priority of the apostles (Acts 6:4) but very rarely a priority for us.
Perseverance: Looking for the easy wins rarely works, we’ve got to keep going.
Putting these to use
I’ll discuss these in detail soon, but before I end today I want
Do you agree with these priorities? (If you don’t make your own)
Is the pastor able to prioritise these ministries?
Are there any ministries in the church sucking energy out of these priorities? People only have finite time.
Prayer is almost certainly the one you do least as a church and as leaders. How can you change this?
I’ll give some reflections on these in weeks to come, starting with proclamation next week.
