How will you mark Rural Mission Sunday?

Many years ago, when working for another organisation, I started "Rural Evangelism Day".  That ceased after I left that organisation in 1988, so I was delighted when our friends at the Arthur Rank Centre (now known as Germinate) decided to promote an annual day with a focus on rural mission.

Slowly, awareness of Rural Mission Sunday is growing and across the country and across the denominations will be doing something special for SUNDAY 15th JULY.  Though it is now just a week away, it's not too late to join in and include something in your church next Sunday. 

Rural Mission is a large umbrella and covers a range of aspects. Unsurprisingly, we would like to ask that as you mark Rural Mission Sunday, that you ensure that you include a focus on the re-evangelization of the rural areas of the UK.  Here are some facts followed by some suggestions.

• 90% of England's land area is rural.  In Scotland it is 98%, Northern Ireland is 97% and Wales 96%.

• According to government statistics 17% of the UK population live in the rural areas, with about half of these in villages, hamlets and scattered housing.

• Regular church attendance in rural England is probably less than 5% and the average age is quite high.

• In England, the Church of England accounts for around two thirds of the church presence in rural area.  Many rural Parish Churches no longer have a weekly  service and almost all will have to share their priest with other churches .

• Among the Free Church denominations in England, the Methodist Church accounts for about a quarter of all churches in the rural areas of England, with Baptists the next most common but at only 5%.

• During the latter half of the 20th Century thousands of rural churches closed.

• While most rural churches will be active in social aspects of mission, very few engage in intentionally proclaiming the gospel.  There are several reasons for this including the constraint of living in a small intimate community.  We suspect that the majority of rural Christians would find it difficult or uncomfortable to talk about their personal faith.

• Around two million children live in the rural areas; most where there is not a church with a programme that seeks to help them find and grow in faith.

• There are rural churches that are alive, growing, and effectively evangelising within their local community.

• There are few dedicated rural evangelism organisations, including the Faith Mission, Rural Ministries, Village Voice, Farming Christian Link, and (of course) Rural Mission Solutions.  Their faithful ministry does not grab headlines in the Christian media.  They are generally under-supported and under-resourced.

POINTERS FOR PRAYER

• Pray for all rural Christians, that our love for Jesus will deepen and that we would have a passion to share the good news in appropriate ways within our local communities.
• Pray for rural church leaders, that they will not be so encumbered with responsibilities that evangelism is neglected.
• Pray for all who work in rural mission - and especially rural evangelistic - organisations, that our ministry will be effective and the outcomes sustainable.
• Give thanks for village schools, especially for those that run Christian programmes where children are able to learn about Jesus.
• Pray for many more to catch the vision for rural mission, and for growth in prayer and financial support for the specialist organisations.
• Give thanks for the steady growth in rural churches and individual Christians using the internet and video resources of Rural Mission Solutions.  Pray for a 100% growth this year in the number of those using these resources.

If you would find them helpful, there are excellent worship resources available for Rural Mission Sunday at http://germinate.net/mission/rural-mission-sunday/rural-mission-sunday-2018/

Post 2 -Building up resources

Please take a look at our previous post if you have not already done so.

In this post we will share with you the latest development in rural mission we have launched.  For some time we have been using 21st century technology in an attempt to turn back the 20th Century decline of Christian presence in rural UK.  During the second half of the last century several thousand non-conformist chapel were sold off - many in the rural areas.  At the same time reduced levels of Anglican clergy led to the development of multi-parish benefices and the loss of the local village priest for most villages.

For much of this time I was part of an evangelistic team conducting around 200 short-term high impact evangelistic missions for rural churches in various parts of Great Britain and for various denominations.  These were highly effective, but the declared mission for the organisation I was working in was "To evangelise rural Britain".  Also, during this period, I helped to establish the national Rural Evangelism Network.  That led to an awareness that the combined effort of all the specialist rural evangelism would not even evangelise 2% of the people in rural Britain.  And, of course new people were being born or moving into the rural areas, while others we were hoping to reach were dying.

While realising the limited potential of the evangelistic agencies, I was also aware that, despite so many church closures, there were still many thousands of churches in the rural areas.  Each of these had been established at some time as a result of an evangelistic vision and energy.  If that original vision and energy could be rekindled then the rural areas of the UK could be re-evangelised.  But how to do it?

Since 1988 we developed and refined a process for helping churches discover how to engage in mission in ways that fit their size and resources, and in a style and with methods with which they could feel comfortable.  This is our "Tailored Mission Solution" programme.  We have proved how well it works, but spreading the word has been hard work.

This is why we pioneered using Internet technology for mission enabling.  Slowly, the audience for our Rural Mission Webinars has grown.  Almost 200 people in rural areas have now expressed interest in these 45 minute teaching sessions.  Each month, our team is able to potentially reach many more than we could ever have done through conferences and consultations.  Those who have already attended are spreading the word to others.  One Anglican priest now shares the webinars with others in the benefice, a practise we are keen to encourage.  But there is more to be done.

All you need to benefit from a webinar is 45 minutes of your time on the day it is broadcast.  All the webinars are repeated several months apart and are updated.  To grow the audience, video recordings of the webinars are available on our website and also on a YouTube Channel.  This equates to many hours of helpful information and training material - all available free.

To this library we have just started adding another resource.  Realising that for some, a 45 minute video is a long time, and not everything in a webinar will be relevant to every church, we have started breaking down the video recording into bite-sized videos.  The first of these was launched this weekend.  It covers just one section of our most recent webinar.

In a few weeks time the school summer term will end and the long summer holiday will begin.  The video suggests various ways in which rural churches can engage with their local primary school.  This opens up possibilities, even if a village church does not have its own regular children's work. With only a few weeks to go before the end of term, now is an excellent time to take a look at this video.

If there are any young people in your church or the village starting university this autumn, you will find very helpful information and suggestions also in this video.

As this is a new venture it is a little rough around the edges when it comes to editing, but we expect to get a lot better quickly.

To watch the video CLICK HERE.

If you find the video helpful there are two things you could do please.

• Firstly, please click on the subscribe link on the Channel.  This will ensure that you receive  notifications as we add more and more resources that can help your church.

• Secondly, spread the word to others in your church,benefice, diocese, organisation, etc.  Please work with us as we seek to enable rural churches to engage appropriately and effectively in rural mission. Thank you.

A New and Useful Resource

I have been blogging for several years, mostly using this for Praise & Prayer News which carries activity information and a biblical reflection.  These have proved very popular and several hundreds welcome these as they are published each week.

So what will be "new" in this blog?
The focus of the bog will be matters that relate directly to rural mission and evangelism.  News of events, resources and trends will be featured.  While many will be directly related to Rural Mission Solutions, we will be keen to share with others the things that encourage and excite us.

While the blog will enable comment on these matters, it is not expected that this will include theological reflection as that is more likely to find a more appropriate place on the Praise & Prayer News,  However, the blog will provide greater opportunity for helpful comment to supplement what appears on Facebook and Twitter.

Making a start.
On Saturday 16th June, Rural Mission Solutions held a webinar on ideas and resources for the mission of rural churches during the coming autumn.  The timing of the four regular seasonal webinars has been adjusted to provide greater opportunity for churches to apply ideas and use resources.

There has been a growing number of people interested in the Rural Mission Webinars and an encouraging number registered for this webinar despite limited opportunity to promote it.  Those who missed the webinar for any  reason as Rural Mission Solution managed to publish the recorded webinar on the website and its YouTube Channel within 24 hours.  There are additional supporting documents available for download on the website.

The webinar presented ideas and resources for several key events during the autumn, including the start for the school and academic year, harvest thanksgivings, Halloween, bonfire night, and remembrance.  Some of the suggestions will take a little programming so it is not too early to start planning now.

Some of the ideas have featured in previous seasonal webinars but have been refreshed.

Feedback on the presentation by Gordon Banks and Barry Osborne has been very positive.  One church leader attending the webinar wrote "I enjoyed the webinar, well presented with enthusiasm and good content. It was very appropriate and relevant for our churches."

To be sure you benefit from the blog...
To pick up key information as it appears in this blog, please subscribe now.  In this way you will receive notifications each time a new post appears.  We have a lot of helpful information to share with you so please do not miss out.