Mission-Shaped and Rural
Growing churches in the countryside by Sally Gaze, from Church House Publishing (2006) contains numerous examples and reflections from all over rural England. £10.99. Available from CHP here
Centre for Rural Mission
'Rural Sunrise'; This is linked to Rural Evangelism Network (above) but also offers Barry Osborne as consultant/Evangelist. More here.
Rural Ministries
Impact Magazine available from this group; more here
Germinate (The Arthur Rank Centre)
A plethora of resources and training courses to see here, including:
- 'Country Way' magazine which is produced three times per year
- Multi-church ministry workshops
- Rural Ministry training courses
Some other general resources listed through the Germinate site are;
- Parish Resources is maintained by the Church of Englands National Stewardship Department, and contains a wide range of material supporting all aspects of stewardship in local churches. Find them here. Specifically, they have a useful Stewardship Toolkit for Rural Churches, which can be found here.
- Presence published by the Methodist Church (2004), and available from the Arthur Rank Centre, is a workbook that helps promote and sustain an effective Christian presence in rural communities.
- Re-Shaping Rural Ministry: a theological and practical handbook is from Canterbury Press (2009) edited by James Bell, Jill Hopkinson & Trevor Willmott. It adds a useful dimension to many of the areas covered in Making Connections. Available here.
- Seeds in Holy Ground published by ACORA (2005), and available from the Arthur Rank Centre, is a workbook for rural churches. Available here.
- Journey To Faith: a Local Rural Church Training Course in Evangelism. Details here. This is a low key, simple training programme that can be run by any local church or group of churches - over 2 half-days. It requires no outside or expert help; all the material and resources that are required are freely available to download. Besides the material required to run the two course sessions, there are other resources, optional supplementary material, links to good material and ideas elsewhere, and a Resource Manual that every participant can take away with them to use in their own church to improve their ministry of witness and evangelism. This has already been trialled to good effect in Chichester Diocese.
- Equipping for Rural Mission: a simple toolkit to help you understand your local congregation and the community your serve; here. This toolkit helps provide a firm foundation for longer-term planning for community-based mission by small, rural or dispersed churches. There are four significant elements to it: Gaining an accurate picture of the nature, state and population of the local communities served by the church(es) - which includes an understanding of what needs are most acute there, and what resources or facilities already exist to help meet those needs; gaining an accurate picture of the resources, abilities, gifts and people present within the local church(es) - which enables an assessment of what may and may not be realistic for the local church; investigating what possibilities exist for partnership with other local bodies, agencies or organisations whether church-related or otherwise; realistically assessing in what areas and in what ways the local church(es) can and should engage with and serve their communities.