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CANADIAN RURAL CHURCH NETWORK Index
News Update - Conference for Small and Rural Churches - Trail, B.C.
- International Rural Church
Association (Brandon) Conference
- Faith & The Common Good
Rural Issues
- Good Health Initiative - A
Follow-up
Rural Ministry
(life and faith)
- Our Mother, the Earth
- Food for the Soul
- The Creation: an appeal to
save the earth - a Book Review
Worship
Resources
- A Service of Lament, Hope and
Praise for Rural People
International
News
- Rural Ministers: Outstanding
in their Field (from New Zealand)
Links
- Agriville.Com
- Faith & the Common Good NEWS
UP-DATE
Conference For Small and Rural Churches in B.C.
"Connections: Rediscovering
Vitality"
- June 1-3, 2007 at Trail United
Church, B.C.
- Keynote speakers
- Julia Wallace - Director of
Ministries of Small Churches, united Methodist Church, USA
- Walter Farquharson - former
Moderator of United Church, long-term rural pastor, retired
- Keri Wehlander - writer,
liturgical dancer, and so much more "Cry
From the Heart: how can we find hope in the rural landscape"
- July 2-9, 2007, Brandon
University, Brandon, Manitoba
- 4th international
gathering of the International rural Church Association (IRCA),
hosted by Canadian Rural
Church Network
- key resource people
- John Ikerd - noted
agricultural economist from Missouri who speaks on the necessity
of practicing sustainable
farming
- Roman Juriga - from Orthodox
Academy and Centre for the Application of Renewable
Energy, Czech Republic - on
what's happening in Europe
- Daniel Tiagarajah of Sri Lanka
- Bible Study leader along with David Webster from B.C.
- Christine O'Reilley and Peter
Bush (Canada) - worship leaders
- Web Site -
www.irca-canada.org Faith
& The Common Good
Ontario's Minister of Energy applauded the success of St. Gabriel's Roman
Catholic Church. It was the first church in Canada to receive the Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification for its
exceptional environmental performance and energy efficiency. The
announcement was made by Faith & The Common Good, a national inter-faith
inter-cultural organization whose web site is
www.faith-commongood.net. "As
people of differing faith and cultures", their web site says, "we affirm common
values of justice, peace, participation, human rights, ecological
interrelationship and compassion as cornerstones of a healthy society."
"The
organization works out of the Toronto School of Theology and is currently
focusing on Renewing the Sacred Balance (integrating faith, spirituality
and ecology). One of its projects is Greening Sacred Spaces, another is
The Green Rule - "Do unto the Earth as you would have it do unto you." RURAL
ISSUES
Good
Health Initiative - A Follow-Up (In the 6th
Newsletter of CRCN, Aug 3 / 06, I wrote about the Good Health Initiative in my
community whose blue-print was based on the belief that rural health care is a
specialized practice. The medical team sought guidance from the people they
serve as they developed their programs. The local weekly newspaper proudly
reports "Pincher healthcare become a flagship for province". Pincher Creek
Echo, Jan. 26 / 07.)
Ten years ago health care in Pincher Creek was considered a disaster. Today the
Pincher Creek Health Centre has become a flagship for rural health services in
Alberta, says centre Site Manager Mary Schnell.
"It didn't seem too long ago that there was a lot of confrontation and
problems," said Schnell. "Community support and passion has made health care in
Pincher Creek what it is now."
Over the past 18 months the health centre has found itself becoming the new home
for the majority of the community's health services. Community health, public
health and wellness, vaccination and baby clinics, children's care and mental
health are now all housed under the same roof as the hospital and health clinic
revolutionizing the way health services are administered in Pincher Creek.
"The physicians are so excited to have them there and see what other services
they can offer," says Schnell.
One thing that has helped cut down on the number of return visits from patients
suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes or congestive heart failure
has been due to the work of the Good Health Team, who has helped patients learn
how to look after and monitor themselves at home ...
There has been an expansion of the surgical program ... And we can boast of
having one of the shortest wait times in the province for bowel cancer
screening. "They want other rurals, High River and Drumheller doing the same
things to save Calgary money." (Noted by Joyce Sasse, January
2007) RURAL
MINISTRY Our
Mother, the Earth
Each spring as the cold and darkness of winter fades, my sense of vitality is
restored. The awakening starts as the hours of sunlight lengthen. I receive a
special boost when I smell the earthly dampness of fresh spring rain. My
awareness is tweaked with the appearance of the earliest of spring flowers.
I watch the cows with their calves, I listen for the over-flight of ducks, and
marvel at the unfolding saga of nature ...
Think about our connectedness with the Land. Some call us "earthlings". The
ancient Hebrews referred to us as "Am Ha' Aretz" - grassroots people. The
Chinese talk about humans as the "hsin" of heaven and earth, and "hsin" is
written as a pictograph of the human heart. In this simply way they seem to be
saying humans are the "understanding and heart of heaven and earth".
From the Hebrew legends come stories of our source. "The Lord God took some
soil and formed a man: he breathed into his nostrils and the man began to
live."
In real life, my dad showed me God's handiwork as we worked and fished
together. One Grandmother shared her love for garden flowers, and the other her
love for her cattle. An agricultural professor revealed a sermon text in a
handful of soil. A child opening her first pea pod helped me marvel at
mysteries hidden away. I will never forget the sound of awe in the voice of a
friend who told me "Yesterday's sunset was so beautiful, I just had to stop the
car and have a cry!"
The Earth is our Mother. It is from her that we are created. It is in her that
we are rooted. It is out of her that we draw nourishment. It is into her that
we shall return. To her we give thanks!
(Written by Joyce Sasse, January
2007) Nature Feeds the Soul
A story from out of the tragedy of the Porcupine Hills fire in December 1997 is
a reminder that our spiritual roots are planted in the natural world.
150 km/h winds propelled a spark into an inferno that raced across 85 sections
of brittle grassland. The flames separated as they bore down on one tiny ranch
in the lee of the hills, leaving the house-trailer intact amid an ocean of char.
For almost six months the smell of burnt sod and the scene of desolation were
constant reminders of that day-of-terror.
"We've always loved our Big Sky Country," the mother recalled, "especially the
tiny clump of bush we could see from our kitchen window." It was there they
looked for evidence of changing seasons.
"Nothing was left but a few blackened twigs, so we had to make sure the family
went somewhere each week in search of something beautiful. That was the only
way we could nurture our spirits and keep from falling into despair."
In these times, as weather events become more radical, as extremes of drought,
wind and fire become the order-of-the-day, we need to give close attention to
what we can do to feed and nurture our spirits and the spirits of those around
us.
Through telling our stories, developing and celebrating rituals, searching out
what is beautiful and life-giving, through cultivating our cultural and
spiritual gardens, we can prepare ourselves to face the changes that lie ahead.
The ancient ones told of how we humans are made from the dust of the earth,
attached to Mother Earth by a life-giving umbilical chord.
"To show by touch and word / devotion to the earth, /
to hold in full regard all life that comes to birth, / we need, O God, the will
to find / the good you had of old in mind." (Kaan) (Written by Joyce Sasse, January
2007) The
Creation: An appeal to Save Life on Earth - A Book Review
We, the giant meteorite of our time, are creating a less stable and less
interesting place for our descendants to inherit, Edward O. Wilson reminds us in
his book "The Creation". These descendants "will understand and love life more
than we do, but they will not be inclined to honour our memory."
This interesting book, written to bridge the gap between evolutionary science
and the literal interpretation of the Bible, has nuggets of wisdom all of us can
appreciate. Furthermore, Wilson seeks to enlist the help of the religious
community in advising how to avoid mass extinction.
Wilson grew up a Southern Baptist in Southern USA, and is now a recognized
entomologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. His appeal to save
life on earth flows from a life-time of accumulated wisdom.
The Creation, he pleads, is the greatest inheritance given to humanity.
Furthermore, the natural world is "embedded in our genes and cannot be
eradicated" from them. It is essential for our mental and physical well-being.
Together religion and science, the two most powerful forces in the world today,
can find ways to save this inheritance. To succeed in our endeavours it is
mandatory for us to teach our children to respect the world of Nature.
Wilson gives numerous reminders of how fragile the membrane is that sustains us,
but marvels at how it has done so in a self-regulatory way until now. But there
is so much we don't understand. Only about 10% of the life-forms on earth are
known to science. Less than 1 % of those have been studied in depth.
"Conserving biodiversity is the best economic deal humanity has ever had placed
before it since the invention of agriculture."
One gains a whole new respect for the essential role bacteria plays (at least
700 species survive in the mouth), for the pharmacopoeia discovered in wild
plants, and for the countless unthinking ways humans have been carriers of pests
that have caused economic devastation to crops and ways of life.
This is a master story-teller who uses his skills wisely and with passion. All
of us need to give thought to what he has to say. FOOTNOTES:
(Written by Joyce Sasse, January
2007) WORSHIP
RESOURCES A
Prayer Service of Lament, Hope and Praise for Rural People INTRODUCTION
Prayer: "Listening God, Creator
of all that has life, you are here among and within us. May our words- spoken
and unspoken - and our deeds reflect your grace and give you honour and glory.
Amen." In this service of prayer we will bring to God our laments, our hopes and our
praise. In each portion of the service, there is a Scripture reading and a
reflection. These form the basis or theme for prayer. During those prayer times,
opportunity will be given for you to pray - silently in your heart, or by
writing your thoughts on paper or by speaking them aloud. Each section will end
with a hymn.
Dr. Cam Harder, pastor and professor at the Lutheran Seminary in Saskatoon has
done a great deal of work on the church and rural issues. During the recent
drought years on the prairies he prepared sermons and liturgies to assist
congregations in their worship in difficult times. The material in our worship
today is adapted from Cam Harder's resources. LAMENT
We want to bless God with our
praise and thanksgiving, but that is a hard place to begin when we are hurting,
when our families, churches and communities are facing tough times for whatever
reason. We must begin with lament. The path to blessing runs through our
anxiety and fear and the pain of our uncertainties and loss.
Listen to Jeremiah during a time
of drought in Israel. Read Jeremiah 14:1-9
How do you feel when there is no
rain, or there is too much rain? When you have been unable to plant? Or when the
crops you've planted are consumed by grasshoppers, get frozen, or lie rotting in
the field?
How do you feel when input costs
keep going up but the prices for your products bounce up and down, and you never
know if you will make a living each year?
How do you feel when your
friends and neighbours move away from the community, when city folk don't
understand, when economic and political policies hurt rather than help the
family farm?
How do you feel when you have to
work off the farm, when you can't pay your bills, when there's so much tension
at home and so little time to spend with your spouse and your children?
I'll bet some of you feel like
Jeremiah - exhausted, angry, worried, ashamed - wondering if you've done
something wrong. Perhaps you wonder where God is in all of this. Jeremiah
wonders why God seems so deaf, but he's not afraid to knock on God's door. He
say, "Yes, we've sinned, but God, you claim to be our saviour and full of mercy.
Why don't you help us?
Jeremiah isn't afraid to tell
God how much he's hurting. And he isn't afraid to hold God to account. He
challenges God to keep his promises, to defend his creation.
We don't have to hide our hurts
from God. God has big shoulders, and though it may not seem like it, God is
listening. Jeremiah knows it: "Yet you, O Lord, you are in the midst of us and
we are called by your name." Prayer Time:
. Let us name what has been hard for us this past year, our fears, our pain, our
laments. Know that expressing ourselves this way is
our prayer to the God who listens and loves us. As we offer our laments to God,
we also share our concerns with each other.
.............. Allow time for
silence, spoken or written prayers...................
"Hear the cries of our heart, O
God, and give us your Spirit to sustain us, to draw us to the source of life
where despair is known no more. Amen." Hymn:
Healer of our Every Ill, Light of Each Tomorrow HOPE
Where does our hope come from?
Our hope is in the Lord, in the promises of Scripture and in finding support in
the community.
What do we hope for? We hope for
spiritual and physical renewal.
Listen to the prophet Habakkuk
in a time of war and drought. Read Habakkuk 3:17-19
Habakkuk has good reason to
despair. He and his countrymen are losing their livelihood and their land. It
seems hopeless.
Yet Habakkuk can say, "Though
everything fails, yet will I rejoice." Why? Because "God, the Sovereign Lord,
is my strength." God makes me sure-footed as a deer and keeps me safe in those
places of trouble, suffering or responsibility.
Is this overly idealistic? Is
this pie-in-the-sky spirituality? We can't live without food, but food
ultimately comes from God. Land is a place for community and families, but we
really don't own the land, God does. It's a gift - for awhile.
Land and food are precious
gifts, but they are not God. They are not the ultimate source of our life, God
is. So even if we loose the gifts, we still have the Source. This is what
Habakkuk and the Israelites discovered - that they were in the hands of Almighty
God, and in God's care nothing could destroy them, not drought nor relocation
nor death nor any kind of trouble.
Listen to the apostle Paul. "Who
will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord."
We belong to Christ Jesus. Our
worth, our identity and our future are given to us freely, gifts of grace from
God. When everything is taken from us, God is still there. And God is enough.
So, our difficulties and hard times will not destroy us. Prayer Time:
Let us now become silent before God. After a time of reflection on God's
presence, let us tell God our
hopes, our heart's desire. You
may speak aloud or pray silently.
..............Allow time for
silent, spoken or written prayers .....................
"God of Creation, stir in our
hearts the true hope of your enduring presence and abounding love, promised to
us in your word and made tangible in the person of Christ and other people.
Amen." Hymn: The Lord is King, O
praise his name BLESSING
As our hope is stirred, we
become open to God's blessing in all aspects of our life - our work, our
families, our communities. And as God blesses us, so do we bless the Lord by
offering our lives as a sacrifice of praise and worship.
Hear what John says in
Revelation 22 about how rural people might bless the Lord in how we live.
Read Revelation 22: 1-5
"The leaves of the tree are for
the healing of the nations." Our nation needs healing. It's not hard to think
of the many kinds of dis-ease and brokeness in our communities, our country, our
world.
The passage from Revelation
suggest that it will be a form of agriculture that heals the nations: "On
either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,
producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing
of the nations." The twelve kinds of fruit on one tree suggest many different
farming operations all working together.
Today there are opportunities
for that healing to begin.
- We can demonstrate that every
member of our community is essential, that all have a contribution to make, that
all are valued by God and by us as God's people, the church.
- We can do the hard work of
sharing with each other - sharing our creative ideas, our resources, sharing our
heartaches and our successes, our work and our worship.
- We can cooperate with instead
of competing against each other.
These Christ-like actions move
us from asking for blessings from God in a self-focused way. They move us to
blessing God by our daily living. God delights in being blessed in this way. God
delights in using Christ's followers to be a blessing, to bring healing, in our
communities, right where we are. Prayer:
Let us now pray for God's blessings and offer our prayers of praise and
thanksgiving to God.
............ Give time for
silent, spoken or written prayers............... Hymn: Great is thy Faithfulness SENDING PRAYER
"As we leave this place of
worship and prayer, may we go knowing that God will never leave us or forsake
us. Help us to go in faith, with the peace of the risen and ascended Christ in
our hearts and his Spirit to protect and lead us. Amen." OPTIONAL SCRIPTURE
(This may be inserted after the opening words of the Blessing segment.) Litany:
The Psalmist frequently moves between lament and hope and praise in his worship,
in how he blesses God. Let us read together selections from Psalm 65. Leader: Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion;
People: and to you shall vows be performed,
Leader: O you who answer prayer! To you all flesh shall come.
People: By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,
Leader: O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
People: and of the farthest seas.
Leader: You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it;
People: the river of God is full of water;
Leader: you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.
People: You water its furrows abundantly,
Leader: settling its ridges, softening it with showers,
People: and blessing its growth.
Leader:
You crown the year
with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
People: The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird
themselves with joy,
Leader: the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves
with grain,
People: they shout and sing together for joy. (Prayer Service Prepared by
Naomi Unger in 2006) INTERNATIONAL NEWS Rural
Ministers: Outstanding In Their Field The
following notes are from an essay by Chris Bedford from New Zealand. LINKS The
official website of the International Rural Church Association's 2007 Conference
(hosted by CRCN) www.agri-vill.com/spiritualvignettes
contains writings by Joyce Sasse Ninety
First
Edition of the Prairie Forum on Church and Community THEME:
The Season of Lent gives opportunity for us to acknowledge our pain and give thanks for our blessings.
SPECIALIST'S COLUMN
- Pouting Politicians
Outclassed
SPIRITUAL VIGNETTES
- Walk Softly In
Springtime
- Prayers from the Ark
- The Sorcerer's
Apprentice
- Sawdust in the Butter
ADULT CONTRIBUTIONS
- Resurgence of Religion
Evident
- Spirituality is a Gift
that Requires Practise
GLIMMERS OF HOPE
- Putting People Ahead of
Money An
inter-faith inter-cultural organization based out of the Toronto School of
Theology. www.schoolofministry.ac.nz/RuralMinistry
Archive of "Rural Network News" - occasional newsletter edited by Roby McPhail,
chairperson of the
International Rural Church Association. |
