The history of this century is the story of the fragmentation of rural cohesive communities by the encroaching influence of Technology. The mobility of transportation technologies and the mass culture spawned by mass communications have been tearing apart the web of social relations within which rural people enjoyed and maintained their culture. That's how I'll often begin my lecture on pastoral approaches to ministry in rural communities and churches. It's my attempt to express how primary, foundational and pervasive is the influence of personal relationships among people who share experience in a place over time. Reality in rural communities, as in small churches, is consummately relational.
Relationships influence a person's identity and their sense of place in the rural community.
One of the chief entertainments at social gatherings is the recalling and recounting of connections between people. Time is shaped and given meaning by relationships. Events typically won9t begin until everyone who is supposed to be there is present, and those who are absent are accounted for. Often, time is seen in terms of events related to people and their experience. Time isn't just measured and numbered, it is recounted and remembered, celebrated or grieved, and given meaning by what happened to people in the process.