The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life OpportunityFiske, George Walter
History
The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life Opportunity
Fiske, George Walter
Sociology, Rural
While there are some small men with little training serving churches under
the above conditions, there are also thousands of other churches striving
to do God's will in the service of men, many of them with earnest, able
pastors. These men usually win the respect and confidence of their
community and are given great opportunity as community builders when their
leadership proves equal to the task. As the new rural civilization has
developed, the title Country Minister has become once more a title of
honor, just as the term Country Gentleman has again come to its own. In
the readjustment of country life to the new agriculture and the new social
ideals of cooperation, a new and brighter day has dawned for the country
church. It is a day of new prosperity and of widening service.
This means a new opportunity for the right sort of a country minister
sufficient to claim the life service of strong men. In fact, the task of
readjustment is too difficult for any but strong men. Broken-down
ministers, or men who have failed in the city, must not look to the
country parsonage to-day as a refuge from toil or a temporary harbor for
repairs. The insistent needs of the Kingdom of God in the country to-day
demand strong, efficient men, specifically trained for country service and
thoroughly acquainted with country folks and their life needs. _We must
have a permanently loyal country ministry for life, men who plan to devote
their lives to rural redemption._
_The Modern Type of Country Minister_
College men of earnest spirit, who have determined to consecrate their
lives to any life mission to which they believe God has called them, must
listen to the call of the country church. The very difficulty of the task
will challenge their interest and their courage. Would they know exactly
the type of leadership the country church to-day requires? Let them study
word by word this splendid description by Dr. Butterfield, unequalled in
its clear analysis:
"The country church wants men of vision, who see through the incidental,
the small and the transient, to the fundamental, the large, the abiding
issues that the countryman must face and conquer.
"She wants practical men who seek the mountain top by the obscure and
steep paths of daily toil and real living, men who can bring things to
pass, secure tangible results.
"She wants original men, who can enter a human field, poorly tilled, much
grown to brush, some of it of diminished fertility, and by new methods
can again secure a harvest that will gladden the heart of the Great
Husbandman.
"She wants aggressive men, who do not hesitate to break with tradition,
who fear God more than prejudice, who regard institutions as but a means
to an end, who grow frequent crops of new ideas and dare to winnow them
with the flails of practical trial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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