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Rural Mission: Insights From A Rural Church Planter
Rural Mission is written to help Christians see the specific nuance of carrying out the Great Commission in a rural setting. This book provides some practical tips about the beautiful simplicity of rural ministry. Doing simple ministry to reach simple folks in your rural setting will help you reach the lost in your town as well as start new discipleship ministries. The advice is deeply practical and applicable for pastors, church planters, and any Christian who is serious about reaching folks in a small town or rural setting.Religious undertones and the warm hospitality of many rural places make them easy places for ministry, primed for the gospel. We just need to get to work at this rural mission. And it can’t just be preachers. It needs to be all of us.Rural places lend themselves to isolated cultures and each of those cultures need biblically rooted missional strategies. Every unique subculture presents a variation of ministry strategy, but at the root of every missional strategy should lie biblical principles, centered on an unchanging gospel.The roots and remnants of religion that still remain in many rural places create some of the most wonderful opportunities for ministry. But these opportunities are quickly disappearing. Today’s generation must be won to Christ before religious traditionalism and false Christian identity take many to hell.
133 pages, Paperback
Published March 20, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 14, 2021
Finished this late last night but am just now getting to my review.
RM was a bit more coherent than OTR but there were still sections that didn't seem to have anything to do with the chapter title and, like with OTR, I found myself asking "how did we get to this point?" Still, it seemed better organized than OTR so I'm giving it another star.
As far as content and ministry philosophy, I disagreed with a lot of what Pastor Will has said here. This isn't the medium to hash these disagreements out but suffice it to say I don't think that "smashing misconceptions" is a particularly healthy core value for a church. I also think that local churches should be less focused on planting new churches and more focused on generational faithfulness where they are but, as stated, this isn't really the place for me to hash that out.
RM was a bit more coherent than OTR but there were still sections that didn't seem to have anything to do with the chapter title and, like with OTR, I found myself asking "how did we get to this point?" Still, it seemed better organized than OTR so I'm giving it another star.
As far as content and ministry philosophy, I disagreed with a lot of what Pastor Will has said here. This isn't the medium to hash these disagreements out but suffice it to say I don't think that "smashing misconceptions" is a particularly healthy core value for a church. I also think that local churches should be less focused on planting new churches and more focused on generational faithfulness where they are but, as stated, this isn't really the place for me to hash that out.
October 29, 2022
Will Basham recounts his time and experience as a rural church planter in West Virginia. To me, I thought this book gave only a small glimpse into what rural ministry is all about. I found that some of what he has to say in the book does really pertain well to rural ministry. As an egalitarian, I struggled with his complementarism in the book just a little bit. However, he did spark my interest into wanting to learn more about what rural ministry is like as someone who is wondering what being a rural pastor is like.
November 12, 2025
Helpful, faithful book on rural church planting. This book is more geared to the south, as he assumes rural places more easily will hear the gospel because they already know a lot about Jesus. As I hope to plant in upstate NY, I don't believe the same can be said for our region.
May 8, 2021
Rural Mission insights
While far different from our UK context which is very post-Christian, this is a great encouragement from a totally committed rural planter.
While far different from our UK context which is very post-Christian, this is a great encouragement from a totally committed rural planter.
September 28, 2022
Basham’s experience in rural ministry provides some unique and valuable insights.
March 21, 2022
An Appalachian pastor recounts some difficulties and uncommon benefits of pastoring in rural America. I've known Will several years, though we aren't particularly close or anything. So, I've kept tabs, so to speak, on the progression of his ministry from the early stages to the present day. There's a lot to learn here, especially in terms of the struggles one can expect to endure and how to overcome them, in terms of the unique opportunities that Rural America brings to the table. It's no wonder then, that the issues that Will brings up are common to the ones I've seen in my own communities.
As with "Old Time Religion", the co-part book from Rural Church Voices, there was areas where I could definitely sympathize with and other areas where the mentality and approach to the solutions offered go in opposite directions as my own. I grew up in charismatic church and saw the intense emotionalism that was present in any service, but all but dissipated when the pastor said "Amen" in his closing prayer. It was temporary and not constant. The thirst was quenched for the week. I let men like Driscoll and Chandler influence me and associated their way of doing things as the methods that got results. And they did. It was pragmatic. But it was not Biblical. I say all this to simply point out that there is a trajectory for men in Appalachia who pursue ministry and love theology. We let our past theological positions to influence our worldviews. We allow the popular and new guys to shape our theology and community involvement. This isn't always bad, but it is definitely pragmatic. And it's better to have a standard than none at all. When I read this book, I felt a similar thought as I did when I was making my way out of the Driscollian era, that is, there was a lot of intentional effort in the community, society, and other social work, but not a lot of intention in the worship, liturgy, and foundational ecclesiology. Now, some of this is simply a result of being Baptist and the void of catholicity that results from the individualism of local autonomy. But some of it is the result of wanting to strike a new path and start a movement of their own. Baptists as a result, tend to end up with a smorgasbord ecclesiology. Some of this, a little of this, and a bit of that. The more I understand the surface of theological belief, I find that, aside from our Christology, ecclesiology is more and more the foundation for everything else. There's a lot to unpack in that sentence, but here is not the place.
In any event, this was the better of the two Rural Church Voices books and it was easy to read and follow. I believe this was Will's first book, but either way, his writing style and prose is well-developed. For non-appalachians, this is a short and good introduction in the world of religious Appalachian. Looking forward to more.
As with "Old Time Religion", the co-part book from Rural Church Voices, there was areas where I could definitely sympathize with and other areas where the mentality and approach to the solutions offered go in opposite directions as my own. I grew up in charismatic church and saw the intense emotionalism that was present in any service, but all but dissipated when the pastor said "Amen" in his closing prayer. It was temporary and not constant. The thirst was quenched for the week. I let men like Driscoll and Chandler influence me and associated their way of doing things as the methods that got results. And they did. It was pragmatic. But it was not Biblical. I say all this to simply point out that there is a trajectory for men in Appalachia who pursue ministry and love theology. We let our past theological positions to influence our worldviews. We allow the popular and new guys to shape our theology and community involvement. This isn't always bad, but it is definitely pragmatic. And it's better to have a standard than none at all. When I read this book, I felt a similar thought as I did when I was making my way out of the Driscollian era, that is, there was a lot of intentional effort in the community, society, and other social work, but not a lot of intention in the worship, liturgy, and foundational ecclesiology. Now, some of this is simply a result of being Baptist and the void of catholicity that results from the individualism of local autonomy. But some of it is the result of wanting to strike a new path and start a movement of their own. Baptists as a result, tend to end up with a smorgasbord ecclesiology. Some of this, a little of this, and a bit of that. The more I understand the surface of theological belief, I find that, aside from our Christology, ecclesiology is more and more the foundation for everything else. There's a lot to unpack in that sentence, but here is not the place.
In any event, this was the better of the two Rural Church Voices books and it was easy to read and follow. I believe this was Will's first book, but either way, his writing style and prose is well-developed. For non-appalachians, this is a short and good introduction in the world of religious Appalachian. Looking forward to more.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews