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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

postheadericon A Theology of Active Presence

10:18 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
In the book, Rural Ministry: The Shape of the Renewal to Come, the authors seek to develop a theology of rural life. Part of their theology focuses on God as actively present in rural life. They write, "At their best, rural Christians have had a deep certainty that God is present and active in the world" (133).
This, of course, leads to the question of how do rural Christians see God as present and active in their lives? Perhaps it is easiest to reflect here on God as Creator, as the One who creates and sustains life through the creation. God is present and active in the land, the sky, the clouds, the sun, the wind, the warmth, and the cold. God is present in the growing crops and the livestock. God is present in the harvest as we celebrate the gifts that come from the land. The praise psalms such as Psalm 147 and 148 give voice to praise of God in God's creation.
Additionally, God as Redeemer can be seen as the restorer of relationships, restorer of what has been broken; the One who brings beauty again out of what has been made ugly, and the One who brings fullness out of what had been barren. We may think here of God at work in the patient attending to the well being of the land through planting of crops not for production but for the healing of the land. We may think here of the important work of crop rotation and of farming in ways that resist erosion and the depletion of the soil.
Finally, God as Sanctifier may be seen in the enlivening power that sustains us through the hardships and toil of life. God here is the quiet strength of love over fear and hatred, the ongoing mystery of the victory of life over death. We are empowered to live faithfully to God's call in all areas of our lives through the power of God's Spirit in our lives.
In all of these ways, and more, God is present and active in our lives. Perhaps a daily practice for each of us is to seek to be open to this active presence of God in our lives.
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Thursday, October 13, 2011

postheadericon What is "rural"?

10:40 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
Ever wonder what makes a church a "rural" church? Is there something that "rural churches" have in common? Kent R. Hunter in The Lord's Harvest and The Rural Church offers this definition, "A rural church is a congregation of Christian people who live an agriculturally oriented life-style." A more complex analysis developed by R. Alex Sim and discussed in Rural Ministry: The Shape of the Renewal to Come (Shannon Jung et. al.) identifies four contexts of "rural ministry":

1. Ribbonvilles: small towns in the country that are changing from a free-standing town to part of city that has gobbled them up. Farmers are selling and moving. Sometimes there is a relocation of older urban churches to new suburban territory. There can be a challenge to old denominational identities and dominance. And a major concern is how to respond to increasing diversity as the transition from rural to urban takes place.

2. Agravilles: here the economic base is primarily agriculture but may also include mining, forestry, and related industries or small industries. These are often farm service towns where Wal-Mart has arrived. They are often further out on highway corridor from cities, beyond Ribbonvilles. Educational, health, government services have tended to consolidate into these towns. Still likely to have a dominant denomination, a church that is the largest and most influential.

3. Mighthavebeenvilles: these encompass the many thousands of six-mile hamlets, villages, and small towns that have fallen under the domination of an Agraville. Once thriving towns these are shrunken versions of their former selves as resources migrated to Agraville. Their former down towns are mostly abandoned, board up. Mighthavebeenville churches are often first pastorates for person out of seminary and the members often older and discouraged. They face a primary problem of how to pay the pastor and how to keep the church going given the cost of doing so.

4. Fairviews: Rural communities whose economic base is grounded in recreational activities and/or institutional towns serving a college, prison, military base. Here there are more city refugees, or urban folks who came here to work. Some Fairviews are reborn Mighthavebeenvilles or Agravilles. The churches need to address long time residents and newcomers, visitors. New congregations may be forming meeting a “niche” need such as retirement community that is growing. Such areas also attract people to low-paying service industry jobs and these jobs may interfere with regular church services scheduling. There may also be issues of economic justice for these workers.

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postheadericon There's an 'App' for That

10:33 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
Good resource for rural news, The Daily Yonder, www.dailyyonder.co
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Friday, October 7, 2011

postheadericon Mental Health in Rural Areas

7:10 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
I'm often struck by the connections between rural and urban life. I think it is safe to say that there is a close relationship between the two, with rural folks probably more aware of the relationship than urban folks. The obvious connection from an urban perspective is that those of us who live in urban areas mostly rely upon food production done in rural areas. But today I want to point to one area of shared concern: mental health. Below is a resource discussing mental health in rural areas. I'm aware from working with homeless persons in Memphis that mental illness plagues many of the homeless. And, a number of these folks come from rural areas.
I'm hoping churches might play a role in urging mental health resources in rural areas.

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postheadericon Harvest Celebrations

6:32 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
I'm wondering what folks are doing to celebrate the harvest. I went around searching various websites and a few of the resources I found are below. But what I'd really like is to hear from pastors and people about harvest celebrations in their local congregations. What are you doing? Why? Do you have any long-standing traditions as part of your harvest celebration?
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Friday, September 30, 2011

postheadericon What is farming from Alice Waters

7:36 PM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post
Farming is not manufacturing: It is a continuing relationship with nature that has to be complete on both sides to work. People claim to know that plants are living things, but the system of food production, distribution, and consumption we have known in this country for the last sixty years has attempted to deny they are. If our food has lacked flavor--if, in aesthetic terms, it has been dead--that may be because it was treated as dead even while it was being grown. And perhaps we have tolerated such food--and the way its production has affected our society and environment--because our senses, our hearts, and our minds have been in some sense deadened, too. ~ Alice Waters
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postheadericon Farming, Food, and Faith Bibliography

6:59 AM | Posted by Pete Gathje | | Edit Post

Farming, Food, and Faith Bibliography

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Sierra Club Books; 3rd edition, 1996, ISBN: 0871568772

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry,

Shoemaker & Hoard; First Shoe edition, 2003, ISBN: 1593760078

Douglas H. Boucher (ed.), The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World,
Food First, 1999, ISBN: 0935028714

Kennon L. Callahan, Small, Strong Congregations: Creating Strengths and Health for Your Congregation, Jossey-Bass, 2000, ISBN: 0787949809

Cathy C. Campbell, Stations of the Banquet: Faith Foundations for Food Justice, Liturgical Press, 2003, ISBN:0-8146-2938-5

Sara Covin Juengst, Breaking Bread: The Spiritual Significance of Food,

Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, ISBN: 0664253830

Kathleen Ray Darby, Theology That Matters: Ecology, Economy And God, Fortress Press, 2006, ISBN: 0800637941

Michael Eldridge, Theology and agricultural ethics in the state university: A reply to Richard Baer, (Unknown Binding)

Lawrence W. Farris, Dynamics of Small Town Ministry, Alban Institute, 2000, ISBN: 1566992281

Gary Fick, Food, Farming, and Faith (S U N Y Series on Religion and the Environment)

(State University of New York Press, 2008), ISBN-10: 0791473848, ISBN-13: 978-0791473849

*Mark E. Graham, Sustainable Agriculture: A Christian Ethic of Gratitude, Pilgrim Press, 2005, ISBN: 0829816062

William H. Jones, Looking for God's People in Rural Places, Brunswick Publishing Corporation, 2005, ISBN: 1556182066

*L. Shannon Jung (ed.), Rural Ministry: The Shape of the Renewal to Come, Abingdon Press, 1998, ISBN: 0687016061


L. Shannon Jung, Rural Congregational Studies: A Guide for Good Shepherds, Abingdon Press, 1997, ISBN: 0687031397

L. Shannon Jung, Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004, ISBN: 0800636422

L. Shannon Jung, Sharing Food: Christian Practices for Enjoyment, Fortress Press, 2006, ISBN: 0800637925

Andrew Kimbrell, ed., The Fatal Harvest Reader, Foundations for Deep Ecology, 2002, ISBN: 155963944X

Andrew Kimbrell, Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, Foundation for Deep Ecology, 2002, ISBN: 1559639407

Ben Mepham, Food Ethics (Professional Ethics), Routledge, 1996, ISBN: 0415124522

Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health,

University of California Press, 2003, ISBN: 0520240677

Anthony G. Pappas, Inside the Small Church, Alban Institute, 2001, ISBN: 1566992516

Anthony G. Pappas, Entering the World of the Small Church, Alban Institute, 2000, ISBN: 1566992362

Daniel Sack, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, ISBN: 0312294425

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Harper Perennial, 2002, ISBN: 0060938455

Michael Schut, Food & Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread, Living the Good News, 2002, ISBN: 1889108901

Paul Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, (Environmental Philosophies), Routledge, 1994, ISBN: 0415086221

Holly Whitcomb, Feasting with God: Adventures in Table Spirituality, Pilgrim Press, 1996, ISBN: 0829811532

Norman, Wirzba, ed., The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004, ISBN: 1593760434

Norman Wirzba, The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age. Oxford University Press, 240 pp.

Articles

Christian Coff, Consumers Food Ethics: Tracing the Production Story,” http://www.ethiclaw.dk/publication/consumersfoodethics.pdf

Jualynne E. Dodson and Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, “There’s Nothing Like Church Food”: Food and the U.S. Afro-Christian Tradition,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 1995; LXIII: 519-538

Food and Hunger Library, http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/index.php?id=23040

Food and Hunger issue and the set of six Study Guides

Todd D. Still, “Table Fellowship for God’s People,” 11-17

Jack Marcum, “Who’s Hungry, Who Cares?”, 26-32

Lori Brand Bateman, “We are How We Eat,” 89-93

Steven Hall, “Toward a Theology of Sustainable Agriculture,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, June 2002, Vol 54:2, 1-5

Wade Clark Roof, “Blood in the Barbecue? Food and Faith in the American South,” in God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, Eric Michael Mazur and Kate McCarthy, eds., Routledge, 2000, ISBN: 0415925649

Paul B. Thompson, “A Revitalized Production Ethic for Agriculture,” Center for Respect of Life and Environment, Earth Ethics Fall 1999, at website http://www.crle.org/pub_eeindex_spr98.asp

Zwart, H., “A Short History of Food Ethics,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Volume 12, Number 2, 2000, pp. 113-126, at web address: http://www.filosofie.science.ru.nl/cv/food%20ethics.pdf

The Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network (ASAN), http://www.asanonline.org/index.html

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