Rural Ministry and the Changing Community

Rural Ministry and the Changing Community was written by Rockwell C Smith, 1971. Smith was "both a sociologist and a minister."

As I am reading this book I find myself challenged by my assumptions and perspectives, which R C Smith highlights as problems faced by clergy in rural settings. And maybe this can even happen to one who was raised in a rural setting. For the most part so far this appears to be a common sense book. It is still worth a peruse by anyone engaged in rural ministry. Though the volume I borrowed from a library does not appear to have had the privilege of being lent out previously.

Smith in the midst of his book draw particular importance to the book Small Town in Mass Society. (A partial reading is available at Google Books.)

As I read through this text I came across this:

the texture of our lives. Jews and Christians, as well as most of the great religions, reject the division of life into “sacred” and “secular”; they insist that all of life is the area for religious commitment and confrontation.

which is worth recalling in our own journeys of faith.