What a 17th Century Country Parson Can Teach Rural Pastors
Portrait of George Herbert (poet) by Robert White in 1674. From National Portrait Gallery (UK)
Let me introduce myself first. My name is Rob Parson, and I’m a pastor in the country. Specifically in the rural region of North Northumberland, very close to the border of Scotland. Therefore, when I first came across a piece of writing, entitled ‘The Country Parson,’ by a poet named George Herbert, you can see why he had my attention. Therefore, in short, the question his writing raises is: what does a rural minister from 1652 have to teach us today? Unsurprisingly, it turns out, a fair bit, and I’d like to suggest, not just to pastors, nor just to parsons. I think his wisdom is applicable for every member who is involved in ministry. So yes, that is hopefully everyone.
George Herbert
George Herbert was born in 1593 and served in verdant and rural Wiltshire until his death aged only 39. This means he lived through the tumultuous times leading towards civil war in 1639. During his life he is most well-known for his poetry that he wrote, but this essay was one of, or perhaps even the only one of, the few prose pieces he penned. In the essay, he meanders across a multitude of topics including home life, prayer life, catechizing, preaching, judging matters of dispute in his parish, advising health remedies, training his church wardens and so on. His job in a rural place was certainly not just one day a week, he lived and breathed his vocation, day in and day out, and saw himself very much as being part of the lifeblood of his community.
Not all of his advice is necessarily to be taken without due care and attention, and some of his choice of language is far from what we might choose today. To give one slightly unflattering example, he recommends the use of stories in sermons “especially with country people; which are thick and heavy.” But don’t let the language cloud the love. The love is there in spades for these earthy people he considers to be his flock. He begins the essay by telling his reader that his aim is “to feed my flock diligently and faithfully since our saviour hath made that the argument of a pastor’s love.”
His self-confessed aim in writing this advice is not to give an autobiographical sketch of success. Far from it. He aims to describe the ideal character and form of a pastor so that he “may have a mark to aim at” which he sets as high as possible “since he shoots higher that threatens the moon than he that aims at a tree.”
So what is his advice? There are 37 short chapters which challenge, inspire, humble, and may cause you to chuckle, but I wish to draw out two specific aspects of the life of a country parson that come up throughout his essay. Firstly the character of the pastor, and secondly the communication of the pastor.
Character
Firstly, Herbert reveals a heart that has understood grace and therefore wants to show grace to those around him. This will, of course, also be true in urban areas, but the point he makes is that country people ‘live hardly.’ By which, he doesn’t mean they are barely alive, he means they live a hard life, and so he says, take care not to burden them further. This could be both spiritually, not to lay down the law and to make those who feel weak, feel broken, and it could also be physically, learning not to overburden a rural congregation with ministries upon ministries. Know grace and show grace.
Secondly, he observes that honesty and consistency are essential character features in rural life. He says that we should be “very strict in keeping our word, [even] though it be to his own hindrance, as knowing, that if he is not so, he will quickly be discovered, and disregarded: neither will they believe him in the pulpit, whom they cannot trust in his conversation.” Rural life relies on trust and fairness, and not just our friendships but our preaching may be at stake on this. If someone senses an injustice or a lack of consistency in words and actions there is likely to be trouble, “which the parson by all means avoids, knowing that where there are such conceits, there is no room for his doctrine to enter.” None of us can control misunderstandings but let’s not be the cause of controversy without need.
A final character trait he encourages is that of generosity. He observes again that rural life can sometimes mask the rural poor. Those with next to nothing are neither seen nor heard. Yet he turns to Galatians 6:10, to say that “after the consideration of his own [flock], he enlargeth himself to the neighbourhood, for that also is some kind of obligation.”
Communication
Herbert also has much to say about the way we communicate. He has spoken of the character of the communicator, now he turns to the content of the communication.
Firstly, he issues a call for clarity. To be clear, he tells his reader, we need to speak in the language of the locality, “even to the knowledge of tillage, and pastorage, and [make] great use of them in teaching, because people by what they understand, are best led to what they understand not.” It is worth underlining that not all rural folk are farmers. This is perhaps obvious to anyone living in a rural town, as farmers make up only a segment of the community. But that said, his point stands; be clear for clariti’s sake. Be clear, as Paul prayed for himself in Colossians 4:4. Use the images, the illustrations, the anecdotes, the facts and the metaphors that will connect and clarify. He refers to his library of illustrations being all around him, in nature as well as in print. Beautifully so, the majority of Jesus’ parables and teaching illustrations happen to be agrarian in nature, so perhaps we have a timeless head start over our brothers and sisters in cities, never dreamed of in the first century.
Secondly, we are encouraged to use questions and answers. Catechesis. This is not just the Socratic method of all questions and no answers. This is the form of teaching used for centuries, where answers are carefully crafted and standardised, taught and then hopefully retained. Whilst we may, temptingly, have rapid searching internet algorithms do the hard work for us, this seems to encourage a lack of memory use. So why not try to store these questions and answers in our own minds and hearts, and the minds of those around us, rather than in a data bank buried beneath the Arizonian desert?
Lastly, he speaks of using stories and challenging his hearers, being specific in his application by seeking to aim at each targeted heart. This helps avoid the inevitable dodging of application, by the most deceitful of all organs, the human heart. And is both harder and easier to do with smaller congregation sizes, deeper discipleship, and honest sharing of life in a small-town rural ministry, which can make challenges more painful, but also more rewarding.
Finally, I couldn’t leave out one of the passages that made me smile. I came across the following as Herbert calls upon preachers to discourage distractions such as any of the following: “talking or sleeping, or gazing, or leaning,” or “hudling or slubbering,” “gaping, or scratching the head or spitting” during the sermons. I must say that sleeping and gazing I have had, but slubbering is a new one to me and I’m not really sure what to look out for. Later, he then takes a tangent to describe the garden remedies best used medicinally for health care opportunities when they arise; whether to raise pigs or chickens in the back garden, and matters of jurisprudence that a pastor should be aware of to deal with legal disputes, none of which I can necessarily recommend any readers follow, though it wonderfully shows that he was a man of his time, and desirous not only to share the gospel with his flock, but also his life.
And so we come to the end of a very reduced set of lessons from a country parson, on how to be a country parson, written and summarise by a country Parson. It is sage advice, not perfect, and sometimes having said he speaks of grace, there are notes of a lack of grace as he wields the carrot of bribery, or the stick of the law to induce his hearers to action rather than using the gospel. But his love of God shines through, his love for his flock seeps into each sentence, and his wisdom, often beyond his years speaks through the years, to echo into our own day. I can only recommend reading the full version if you get a chance, which can be found online in PDF format for free. That is George Herbert’s ‘On Being a Country Parson.’
Rob Parson
Rob was born in the big city of London (UK), but now lives in the small rural town of Wooler in North Northumberland, which is in Northeast England. With a transatlantic connection, he is married to a Virginian, Robin, and they are blessed to have five small boys. Having graduated from Durham University in 2010 he then spent time working as a children, youth and student minister, before studying for his BA and MA in Theology at Oak Hill Theological College in North London. He’s an elder and pastor at Wooler Evangelical Church and has been since summer 2022.
