Rural ministry: are seminaries paying attention? - Column

Christian Century, Feb 2, 1994 by J. Stephen Rhodes

SEMINARIES ARE FAILING to prepare graduates for rural and small-town ministry. A recent survey found that at least 60 percent of all U.S. seminaries have no educational offerings related to rural or small-town ministry. Yet according to Mary Lee Daugherty, the director of the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resources Center (AMERC), more than half of all seminarians will serve a small town or rural church in their first pastorate. Since the majority of seminarians come from urban or suburban backgrounds, and the majority of U.S. seminaries are in urban centers, it is easy for urban and suburban worldviews to exert a subtle but powerful influence on theological education. To their credit, many seminaries have instituted courses and learning opportunities that make use of their urban contexts. But this means that many graduates who enter rural churches do so unprepared, and may experience profound culture shock.

I vividly remember a seminarian serving a church in a dying town in the Mississippi Delta asking me, "Why have I and my people failed to make our church grow?" It was numerical growth he had in mind, but it had not dawned on him that his churchs decline was inextricably tied to the decline of his town and its farm economy.

Many new pastors in rural settings are also overwhelmed by the poverty and the lack of decent schools, of health care, and of jobs for their spouses. And they are dismayed by parochial attitudes. These new pastors may question their call and even consider leaving the ministry. They are also likely to regard rural and smalltown churches as stepping-stones to a "more fulfilling" ministry in a larger community. The churches, in turn, are likely to suffer from conflict and low morale.

Rural America pays a price for inadequately prepared church leaders at a time when churches are one of the few cohesive social structures left in communities. The outlook for a sustainable rural life is not improving. According to the Rural Sociological Society, the rural poverty rate between 1967 and 1990 was higher than the national poverty rate and higher than the rate in metropolitan areas. Many rural communities are losing doctors, factories, working-aged people and affordable farmland. Meanwhile, they must confront such issues as drugs, big-city gangs (like the L.A. Crips in rural Arkansas) and hazardous waste.

There are signs of hope for rural theological education. Several seminaries, including Dubuque, Bangor and David C. Cook seminaries, offer special programs in rural ministry. Six seminaries in the upper Midwest are beginning a joint effort to the same end. AMERC, located in Berea, Kentucky, provides rural theological education for the Appalachian region. With 44 seminaries supporting its programs, AMERC is the largest consortium among accredited seminaries in the U.S.

Rural churchpeople in mainline denominations are pressing for change too: if seminarians aren't available, they want to employ clergy who are not seminary-trained. The growing "commissioned lay preacher" program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a good example. Denominations that have hired clergy without seminary training want to provide better training for such pastors. Leaders from conservative evangelical, holiness and mainline denominations met this fall in Charleston, West Virginia, to consider ways to cooperate in educating both seminary- and nonseminary-trained clergy for ministry in Appalachia. Their intent is to enlist seminary support for this goal.

Seminaries must balance the need for education in rural ministry with the reality of limited resources. Some are reluctant to add one more specialized practical dimension to their overburdened curricula. Yet the gospel must always be incarnated in a specific context, and that means teachers and preachers must understand their context. Given the chance that a seminarian from an urban background will enter a rural parish upon graduation, and given the grim statistics facing rural America, the context of rural and small-town life needs the attention of seminaries.