Cochrane likens a giant modern corporation operating in a local community to a bull elephant in a China shop. The power of the giant overwhelms and shatters the local establishment. The SARD Initiative extends that ministry at a time of unprecedented change and challenge, unprecedented prosperity, and unprecedented inequality of access to the fruits of the world's agricultural resources. 23, no. 4, October 1999, 146-153. The Rural-Urban Connection in the United States Through the great mobility and mixing of the American people, thousands of former farm and ranch people have moved to towns and cities.
Urban dwellers move to suburbs and beyond, creating the phenomenon of urban sprawl.
And all are impacted by the same mass media and communications technology. Even as the dominant mainstream culture affects every locality, communities can still embody particular cultural expressions that distinguish them from other places and ways of life, and real differences do exist between rural and urban today - differences in the ways people live, interact, and make their living. While rural residents may be suspicious of urban agendas, urban and suburban dwellers can easily disregard rural areas as space to travel through on the way to other places, or as vacant, anonymous territory. Rural Life Sunday was introduced decades ago to bring the Church together around seedtime and harvest, the creative hand of God in nature, just as other occasions reminded the whole of the Church of its unity in global mission, race relations, and relief for the suffering in the inner city. Rural Life Sunday continues but as a shadow of its former profile.