Reimagining Rural and Remote Ministry

Although there are several ways the Uniting Church is present in rural and regional areas, the centrality theme of this Future Direction statement for Saltbush is: Reimagining Ministry with rural people. For Saltbush this is about demonstrated creative team ministry, encouraging lay leaders, challenging preconceived structures including the way we place ministry in rural regions, opening conversation about the nature of Christian community, and in the future, shaping and supporting new forms of Uniting Christian community.    

In a Synod which seeks to embrace a “blended ecology” of diverse ways of expressing “church”, and in which 43% of our congregations (and people) are in rural and regional areas, reimagining ministry in and with rural and regional [people] is surely central to who we are and what it means to be a broad church. 

Each edition of Ruminations, which Saltbush publishes three times a year, is part of our story telling of rural people, lives and experiences.  These are the people of the great outdoors, of strong local community, supporting each other in the challenges of life. These are the people who are connected to both the past and the future, wrestling within that tension of tradition and change. These are people whose faith and connection to the church is known and who are instrumental in the ongoing work of their local congregations. Reimagining Ministry amongst rural people is about embracing all our people and affirming them irrespective of size or location. 

Reimaging Ministry amongst rural people is also a recognition that the vast majority of our rural congregations do not have ordained ministry in any traditional form and will not have in that form in the future. Reimaging Ministry amongst rural people is realising that our lay leaders are weary and our current forms of worship, oversight, training and structure are part of the weight we place upon them.   

Of course, part of our response to this as a church is to grasp on to process and structure, to believe in programmes and see ourselves as professionals, to look at reasons and statistics or to cling onto past denominational styles and practices that seemed to “work” and have been much loved.  But in doing so we are making the “story” about ourselves.  We see the “crisis” of the church as being our greatest challenge and in response the story, yet again, becomes about ourselves. 

Reimagining ministry is strangely not about us, and it’s not about relevance, but about living out the encounter with God who is God.*  You see this as Jesus went about the way amongst the rural people and villages, as he sat with the fringe, sailed beyond, ate with the motley, talked to the silenced and fed the hungry in body and soul. 

No doubt, reimagining ministry, is more than we ever thought!