Inspiring Rural/Small Town Resiliency

This past week, I found through some sources (which I name as I go along) some very inspiring stories about the resiliency of rural and small town America during this time of our history. They moved me and illustrated the growing truth (and perhaps reminded us of an old truth) that the rural and small [...]

‘Neighborhood Discipleship;’ Thoughts on “Land and Community;” and something for the funny bone….

Cooperative Ministry or ‘Neighborhood Discipleship’

For the past 6 or 7 years, I have worked my colleague and mentor Dr Arthur Kelly in leading what has been called Christian Education Roundtable Discussions during the North American Convention of the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana each June.

Because of my work here in Noble County and Kendallville [...]

A catching up potpourri of life and events here in Noble County

Hi everyone! I fully intended to post much sooner but it has been a very busy couple of weeks. This is a big weekend in our household as my oldest is in the local middle school musical this weekend, ‘Teens in Tinseltown.’ So practices have increased along with homework and then you add in my [...]

Rural ministry discussion moving: Building Capacity – what does it mean?: executive director search committee experience about to begin.

Rural ministry…
I have enjoyed writing and responding about Rural ministry in this blog but I have decided to move my discussion about it to my other blog, now renamed, ‘Small Town Sermons and Thoughts’ that you can visit at http://jimkane.wordpress.com

Building capacity…
Well, the Noble County Indiana Hometown Competitiveness effort is getting underway and next month [...]

A Considered Social Media Strategy: Social Media in the Rural Community

I remember way, way back in 1995 standing in front of computer screen with a bunch of people and watching America Online load. Then in 1997, I found out a company named Juno was starting a free e-mail service and I got my first e-mail address.
In 2001, I started searching the Internet for sermon ideas [...]

Being a Rural Pastor; Hometown Competitiveness Program

Time magazine published a story about the challenges of rural pastors in their January 29, 2009 issue and it can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1874843,00.html
I wrote something in my last post about this article but had not read it until last week.
I have been a rural/small town pastor for nearly 8 and 1/2 years now and [...]

The State of Rural America

One of my favorite blogs, Out of Ur hosted by Christianity Today, has just posted a report from Colin Hansen about the state of affairs in rural America based on a Time magazine report. You can read it here http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/02/the_hansen_repo_1.html
It speaks of the brain drain in the rural community and the fact that many our [...]

Reading Reflections 4: Leadership in the Rural Church and Community; A Rural Take on President Obama’s Inaugural Speech; A renaming of the blog; some more thoughts on being rural and missional

I continue to be impressed and inspired by Jung and Agria’s text: Rural Congregational Studies: A Case for Good Shepherds and especially with chapter 5 on leadership.

Two words define this chapter for me: process and listening. Both are skills and a mindset. I believe that their point that rural ministry requires a patience for process [...]

Reading Reflections 2

(I started this blog two days ago, the 29th, and on this quiet New Year’s Eve afternoon, having just finished my sermon (at least the first draft) I thought I would finish this blog and post it.
Before I return to my blog, I want to comment just briefly on the swearing-in event that I witnessed [...]

Tech, Social Media, and the Rural Community

When I was a graduate student at Western Michigan University (GO BRONCOS!) in the early 90’s, one of my profs required us to send him an electronic note from the student computer center. I cannot remember if I was successful or not, but I thought, ‘I’ll never use this!’
That was my introduction to e-mail.
Now, I [...]