It has been quipped that you can’t kill a little country church with a stick, and an example of this is found in eastern Ontario where a decision to close a number of small rural churches was once made and enforced in a hasty way. The result was that many of these Church communities went underground and continued to live and minister within their communities long after the buildings were locked up, sold and even destroyed. Funeral teas, bazaars, hymn sings and other services where held by groups associating themselves with Churches that no longer existed … or at least no longer existed in the eyes of the courts of the greater Church. The existence of these little guerilla groups, as one clergy called them, not only defied the greater Church, but showed us the truth of the statement – “you can’t kill a small country Church with a stick …” you can try, but …
One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from Margaret Mead who once said – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world – indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Mead’s comment has been passed around social activist circles as a reminder that small groups can do tremendous things when there is a thoughtful and dedicated commitment to a cause … over and over we can point to examples of how and where her words ring prophetically true. Over the last twenty years of ministry, I have found that Mead’s words ring true for the work and ministry of our small churches scattered across the rural landscape.
Over and over small groups of people gathered in tiny almost insignificant congregations have done astounding and almost breath-taking things that have changed our world … small rural congregations like Eugenia United Church are the heart and soul of the United Church of Canada. Most of the change and transformation we’ve experienced and celebrated as a Denomination began in places like this …
Even this place has witnessed its share of transformation. It began in the 1890’s when the vision of building a building was first proposed. Wood was harvested and milled from farm land north of here, while the foundation stones were brought from far and wide after an appeal was put out asking folks that had particularly sparkly rocks lying around to bring them for the foundation.
As I read that the other day in our Congregational History, I could picture kids and adults in the early years of the 1900’s circling the building looking for the stones they had hauled on their wagons or buggies to add to the pile. Even 30, 40 or 50 years later maybe they came back as older more mature people and still searched out the sparkly stone they had donated …
This building, from the foundation stones through to the pews and windows was donated by a small group of people who wanted to have Church here in the village site of Eugenia. They donated their time, their labour, and whatever they could offer to make this vision a reality … and in 1895 they worshipped for the first time in their new Sanctuary … everyone played a part in making it happen.
And it’s interesting to consider that at its highest peak the worshipping population of Eugenia never really rose above 50 people … it has remained for generations a small church …
AND, that’s not a bad thing.
Canadian writer and theologian Tom Harpur points out that survey after survey has found that the majority of people today find their spiritual nourishment outside of organized faith communities. AND the majority of them find their souls fed among small like minded groups willing to explore and wrestle with issues of faith.
As I read that this past week I couldn’t help but think that Small Rural Churches, are perfectly poised to be that place where people can be invited in to share and explore the faith journey together.
We can be the place that opens the doors and invites people in to explore and share the issues of faith, because historically that is what small rural churches have ALWAYS been.
Alex Sims has written and studied Rural Churches in Canada and has shaped much of our thinking about rural churches in the last 40 or so years. Born in Saskatchewan, he was raised in Holstein before farming in the Ottawa Valley as an adult. It was Sims who noted in the 80’s that the very heart and soul of the United Church lies in the rural areas – in some Conferences over 70% of the church membership is rural, while in our Conference less than 35% is rural.
Realizing this simple reality opens the door new possibilities because it has historically been from the rural areas that our innovative ideas arise … ever heard of a little think called Universal Medicare? … a gift to Canada from countless discussions in Church basements and around rural kitchen tables.
That’s the power of rural – to sit down over coffee and literally (not figuratively – LITERALLY) solve the problems of the world … it happens here every Wednesday morning when the men gather for coffee, it happens after worship when we have a coffee time, and it happens over and over when folks sit down and talk under the broad umbrella that is ‘Church’.
It is what can happen when a community is formed and people can honestly, openly and passionately share their reflections and thoughts on life and the challenges and struggles we might face … it is the core of what formed Church communities in the first place.
We stand in a beautiful building that for well over a Century has been lovingly tended and maintained – but like the childrens’ song tells us – “the church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a meeting place – the Church is a PEOPLE.”
Services were held here in Eugenia LONG before a building stood on this site. Building the Church building was part of a vision and dream the original church members had – they brought together the skill and the material and over a two year period they built this grand building.
As I said earlier they brought everything from the stones in the foundations to the glass in the windows – did you know the minister at the time Rev. Wells who had arrived in 1891 and left before the building was complete donated the red and blue bits as his gift to the Congregation?
Everyone played a part because the Church was everyone – the Church was the people.
We need to reclaim some of that old time Spirit, and be willing to throw open not only our doors, but our hearts and minds and rethink what it means to be Church to our local community.
According to Alex Sims, one of the first step in this journey is to honestly inventory the many gifts, talents and assets we have around us. Instead of looking at what we think we lack, we need to actively celebrate what we HAVE.
It starts with things like the Mens’ Coffee – what an amazing act of ministry that gathers a diverse and enormous group of men from our community …
It starts with things like our inclination to sit down and break bread together … did you know when the building was first opened in November 1897, the occasion was marked by a fowl supper? … eating is in our genetics as a Church – we have done it since Moses guided the people into the wilderness, we did it when Jesus broke bread with his disciples, and we continue to do it … it’s part of who we are.
But this process of living our faith in a rural setting is also about how we see and interact with the world. Sims sums it up nicesly when he says: “A rural theology should speak to the world as it is today and still reaffirm the old values: neighbourhood and community caring for one another, sharing resources, smallness and intimacy, transcendence and spirit. Our best chance for survival is a revitalized ethic of restoration … it’s what the rural church has always stood for, but not it should do so with more vigor and self-confidence.”
Remember the tv show Cheers? When the character Norm entered the bar he would be greeted by a chorus of voices who called out his name. It was embodying the spirit of the place – in this case a bar – where ‘everybody knows your name.’
We want to belong. We want to go somewhere and have people know who we are and greet us by name.
We live in a world that is forever whirling with busy-ness and activity. We are often nothing more than a client number, or a name that is frequently mispronounced – I’ve lost count of the renditions I’ve heard for Ankenmann over the years … over and over study after study, survey after survey tells us that people LONG – they YEARN to be in a place where they are known by name, where they feel like they belong, where they feel welcomed when they arrive and MOST importantly MISSED when they don’t.
Over and over we hear people yearning for the very thing we have in abundance in our rural Church communities – a place of belonging.
The question that arose for me 20 years ago as a theology student, and that has repeatedly arisen for me as I’ve moved in ministry is ‘why is it so hard for us to be that place for these folks out there who want something more?”
If Alex Sims is right, it comes down to self-image. Rural Churches fail to see themselves as they truly are. We’ve lived for so long in a Denomination that values the bigger and the brighter, a Church that is very urban centric, that we’ve failed to see the wonderful gems that exist all across our nation. Little congregations that are tough and tenacious, congregations that offer care to one another and to their community, congregations that have the ability to address their wounds and bring healing to themselves and their neighbours, congregations that offer a mutuality of support and ministry that can and will change things.
Sims says over and over in his writings that it is ALL about perspective – we need to step back and see who we really are once in a while … Tom Harpur offers a good illustration of this when he compares our Spiritual Quest to a telescope.
He notes that a telescope is a beautiful thing to look at and to examine. Some, like early telescopes made of semi-precious metals are true works of engineering and art and are breath-taking in their detailing. But no matter how beautiful a telescope might be, its greatest value and strength comes when you LOOK thru it and open your eyes and your mind to new ways of seeing the cosmos and you see what lies OUT THERE beyond this moment.
Harpur was describing the spiritual quest many people are on, but as I read his analogy I thought – “he’s describing the rural church”. They are an object of beauty – WE are an object of beauty – but it’s when you look thru the Church, when you enter the doors and experience it, when you join in the fellowship – that our perspective changes and new visions and ideas are opened up for us.
The first Presbyterian Communion service was held in Eugenia in 1891 with 55 members gathered to break bread and now 120 years later, we’re still here and we can look back on what that 55 people started and wonder what we’re still capable of doing … remember, the world has been changed by the dedication of small commitment groups of thoughtful individuals who have decided to do something …
(one hundred years poem in EUC book)
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …
