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The Forgotten Church: Why Rural Ministry Matters for Every Church in America
Winner of Christianity Today 's Award of Merit for The Church/Pastoral Leadership 2018 Whether it’s because of the 2016 Presidential election or books like “Hillbilly Elegy,” Americans are beginning to understand the tremendous influence people in rural areas have in our nation. But rural America—not urban America—is also the new center of poverty. Thus, the rural church stands at the crossroads of strength and struggle. It carries the gospel, the very hope and power needed. Yet its ministry efforts are hamstrung because urban and suburban churches often don’t realize their need for rural churches, and the rural church itself rarely understands its unique assets and values. The Forgotten Church addresses these problems This book is essential for any pastor—whether from the city or the sticks—because we are one body and we need each other.
- GenresChristian
256 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2018
16 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Glenn Daman
11 books4 followersGLENN C. DAMAN is the author of Leading the Small Church, Shepherding the Small Church, Developing Leaders for the Small Church, When Shepherds Weep and Shepherding the Small Church (ECPA Gold Medallion Finalist). He grew up on a farm in Northern Idaho and attended Big Sky Bible College, Western Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Since 1991 Glenn has served as the pastor of River Christian Church in Stevenson, Washington. He has also served small rural churches in Montana and Oregon. He has served as the director of Village Missions' Center for Leadership Development and has been an adjunct professor for a number of Bible colleges and seminaries in the area of small church studies. He has also taught in Russia, the Philippines, Canada, and Mexico. Glenn enjoys photography, woodworking, camping with his family, and spending time on the family farm.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 1, 2018
In the book The Forgotten Church, small church pastor Glenn Daman, takes us on a journey through The Forgotten Church and the forgotten parts of America. With scholarly passion, Daman shows us the importance of rural ministry and why it is different from urban ministry. He writes:
“The rural church focuses upon community and relationships while the urban ministries are driven by vision and mission. Because they fail to recognize this chasm, urban-trained pastors often struggle in rural churches. They seek to implement urban principles of church leadership and practices within the rural church. In the end, the pastor becomes discouraged, the congregation becomes frustrated, and the ministry struggles.”
As a rural pastor for over 25 years I have witnessed much of what Daman writes! He has put into words the struggles of many rural pastors and the frustration of lack of recognition for those faithfully serving.
This is an excellent resource for all pastors but especially rural pastors and a battle cry not to neglect rural ministry! I would highly recommend this thought provoking book. I received a copy of this e-book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
“The rural church focuses upon community and relationships while the urban ministries are driven by vision and mission. Because they fail to recognize this chasm, urban-trained pastors often struggle in rural churches. They seek to implement urban principles of church leadership and practices within the rural church. In the end, the pastor becomes discouraged, the congregation becomes frustrated, and the ministry struggles.”
As a rural pastor for over 25 years I have witnessed much of what Daman writes! He has put into words the struggles of many rural pastors and the frustration of lack of recognition for those faithfully serving.
This is an excellent resource for all pastors but especially rural pastors and a battle cry not to neglect rural ministry! I would highly recommend this thought provoking book. I received a copy of this e-book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 15, 2018
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Moody Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]
I get the feeling that I would have appreciated this book's contents had it been written by someone with a different mindset. In general, it could be said that far more than most people I have an appreciation for the struggles of the rural ministry [1]. Speaking personally, I regularly serve as a lay speaker within a rural church in my own denomination although it is a considerable drive from where I live. In addition, I grew up in the country and regularly saw the situation of the rural church in the area of Central Florida where I grew up as well as in Western Pennsylvania where my father's family lived. The problems discussed by the author, including the destruction of the rural economy and the longstanding issues of history as well as the fondness for tradition and community that can make things difficult for city slicker ministers--like the author--are things I have personally witnessed in some fashion. In theory, then, I should like this book. Only, I don't.
The author divides this book into thirteen chapters after a foreword and a discussion about seeing as Christ sees, which is problematic since the author has an unbiblical view of Jesus Christ as some sort of rural peasant. The author talks about the rural ministry as both forgotten (1) and misunderstood (2), and attempts to give a historical perspective of both rural life (3) and the rural church (4). He talks about understanding rural culture (5) as if he does, and also discusses poverty in rural America, comparing it to a ghetto (6), before going full social justice warrior in discussing illusory structural racism (7) as if he were bell hooks' long-lost brother. He then discusses the role of the church in the rural community (8) before attempting to develop a theology of rural ministry (9), and show the contribution of rural ministers to their communities (10). Finally, he comments on how ministers can develop strategic partnerships (11) with others, view the rural community as a mission field (12), and speculates on the future of rural ministry (13) before talking about some aspects of rural ministry that church history books (?) don't tell in an appendix. After some notes and acknowledgements the material takes up about 250 pages of material or so.
There are a great many ways this book fails to be as good as it should have been, but it would appear most of all that this book is written by someone who serves as a rural pastor but who was educated in seminary in Portland (and his ungodly progressive political worldview shows way too much) who is assuming that this book is written to other social-gospel-wielding hipsters like himself. In the case of this reader at least, this assumption was mistaken. One can see an almost Janus-faced hypocrisy in the mindset of the author, who notes that rural churches themselves value tradition and are (rightly) suspicious of progressive ideas from urban areas, but whose attempts at framing racial and cultural issues (including the conversion of indigenous peoples) is itself ungodly and unbiblical and sharing more in common with the leftist wing of the Democratic party than the transracial but deeply culturally conservative view of the Bible. Ultimately, if rural ministry is going to be undertaken by people like the author, it would be better for the rural church to remain forgotten and misunderstood rather than be corrupted by the author and his ilk. Unfortunately, this book is about a worthwhile subject but the author does not provide a worthwhile perspective on it.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
I get the feeling that I would have appreciated this book's contents had it been written by someone with a different mindset. In general, it could be said that far more than most people I have an appreciation for the struggles of the rural ministry [1]. Speaking personally, I regularly serve as a lay speaker within a rural church in my own denomination although it is a considerable drive from where I live. In addition, I grew up in the country and regularly saw the situation of the rural church in the area of Central Florida where I grew up as well as in Western Pennsylvania where my father's family lived. The problems discussed by the author, including the destruction of the rural economy and the longstanding issues of history as well as the fondness for tradition and community that can make things difficult for city slicker ministers--like the author--are things I have personally witnessed in some fashion. In theory, then, I should like this book. Only, I don't.
The author divides this book into thirteen chapters after a foreword and a discussion about seeing as Christ sees, which is problematic since the author has an unbiblical view of Jesus Christ as some sort of rural peasant. The author talks about the rural ministry as both forgotten (1) and misunderstood (2), and attempts to give a historical perspective of both rural life (3) and the rural church (4). He talks about understanding rural culture (5) as if he does, and also discusses poverty in rural America, comparing it to a ghetto (6), before going full social justice warrior in discussing illusory structural racism (7) as if he were bell hooks' long-lost brother. He then discusses the role of the church in the rural community (8) before attempting to develop a theology of rural ministry (9), and show the contribution of rural ministers to their communities (10). Finally, he comments on how ministers can develop strategic partnerships (11) with others, view the rural community as a mission field (12), and speculates on the future of rural ministry (13) before talking about some aspects of rural ministry that church history books (?) don't tell in an appendix. After some notes and acknowledgements the material takes up about 250 pages of material or so.
There are a great many ways this book fails to be as good as it should have been, but it would appear most of all that this book is written by someone who serves as a rural pastor but who was educated in seminary in Portland (and his ungodly progressive political worldview shows way too much) who is assuming that this book is written to other social-gospel-wielding hipsters like himself. In the case of this reader at least, this assumption was mistaken. One can see an almost Janus-faced hypocrisy in the mindset of the author, who notes that rural churches themselves value tradition and are (rightly) suspicious of progressive ideas from urban areas, but whose attempts at framing racial and cultural issues (including the conversion of indigenous peoples) is itself ungodly and unbiblical and sharing more in common with the leftist wing of the Democratic party than the transracial but deeply culturally conservative view of the Bible. Ultimately, if rural ministry is going to be undertaken by people like the author, it would be better for the rural church to remain forgotten and misunderstood rather than be corrupted by the author and his ilk. Unfortunately, this book is about a worthwhile subject but the author does not provide a worthwhile perspective on it.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
October 11, 2018
"The Forgotten Church" is a book that definitely caught my eye recently. I am enrolled in the Contenders Discipleship Initiative through Village Missions and am exploring the Lord calling me from my current job into the mission field and specifically being a pastor.
This was a fantastic read to understand the background of the rural church and the unique mission field that pastoring the church entails. Also the challenges, both short-term and long-term that awaits a pastor called to the rural ministry. There also will be the "obscurity" that may/likely bring, but Mr. Daman notes, "success is measured by faithfulness and obedience" (p. 25).
I found myself highlighting key verses or experiences/stories that Mr. Daman would share given his long service to the rural church. A few passages that stood out to me:
*"What do you see when you drive through the fields and forests of rural America? ... Christ sees people who are without a shepherd."
*"For rural people, work is not just a job one does merely to earn a living; it is a way of life....their work as their life and their life is their work."
*"Within the rural community...[adults] see the church as a place not just to learn religious truth, but also to teach their children the values shaping the world in which they live."
*"The land is more than just a location...it is intimately connected to their identity."
It was also important to learn that the community may see a pastor as "their pastor" and even people may introduce the pastor to others as "my pastor," even though that person might not have ever attended that church. My wife grew up in a rural church in a small town in the midwest, and could relate to a lot of the wisdom and guidence that Mr. Daman provided in this book (I would share with her what I was reading). My wife and I were married in that rural church (her church) by a pastor that loves God and loves his flock and loves being a man of God in rural South Dakota. I can see aspects of her church in this book.
This is a wonderful book for those considering rural ministry, or already starting to serve in a rural church. It is a vital wake-up call to the church, as Mr. Daman warns near the end of the book: "I believe that if we lose the rural church, we lose the nation."
This was a fantastic read to understand the background of the rural church and the unique mission field that pastoring the church entails. Also the challenges, both short-term and long-term that awaits a pastor called to the rural ministry. There also will be the "obscurity" that may/likely bring, but Mr. Daman notes, "success is measured by faithfulness and obedience" (p. 25).
I found myself highlighting key verses or experiences/stories that Mr. Daman would share given his long service to the rural church. A few passages that stood out to me:
*"What do you see when you drive through the fields and forests of rural America? ... Christ sees people who are without a shepherd."
*"For rural people, work is not just a job one does merely to earn a living; it is a way of life....their work as their life and their life is their work."
*"Within the rural community...[adults] see the church as a place not just to learn religious truth, but also to teach their children the values shaping the world in which they live."
*"The land is more than just a location...it is intimately connected to their identity."
It was also important to learn that the community may see a pastor as "their pastor" and even people may introduce the pastor to others as "my pastor," even though that person might not have ever attended that church. My wife grew up in a rural church in a small town in the midwest, and could relate to a lot of the wisdom and guidence that Mr. Daman provided in this book (I would share with her what I was reading). My wife and I were married in that rural church (her church) by a pastor that loves God and loves his flock and loves being a man of God in rural South Dakota. I can see aspects of her church in this book.
This is a wonderful book for those considering rural ministry, or already starting to serve in a rural church. It is a vital wake-up call to the church, as Mr. Daman warns near the end of the book: "I believe that if we lose the rural church, we lose the nation."
June 7, 2018
Most of the advertising of churches comes from large churches in the city. Many books are aimed to help urban churches grow. Rural churches, especially ones with small membership rolls, are often ignored. Glenn Daman shares how these churches are still important to God and His work in The Forgotten Church.
I am a member of a small, rural church, and I was curious what this book had to say. Most of what I've seen as far as church resources tend to require larger budgets and more people than most of the churches where I live have. In fact, this is the first book I've seen in a long time that is specifically aimed to bring the rural church back into the minds of people. Glenn Daman does a good job of telling the history of rural churches, and how they helped, and still help, the people who live outside of the city.
There is a school of thought that says rural people need to catch up with their urban counterparts. Daman says that there is nothing wrong with rural areas, and the churches in these areas are needed in order to share the gospel with those around them. In fact, rural areas are as much in need of hearing the gospel as cities are. People who live out in the country will talk about religion, but many don't actually trust Christ as Lord and Savior.
Whether you attend an urban or rural church, this book can help you better understand the culture of rural people. It would be beneficial for anyone that is interested in reaching out to non-urban residents.
I received a free copy of The Forgotten Church from Moody Publishers in exchange for my honest review.
I am a member of a small, rural church, and I was curious what this book had to say. Most of what I've seen as far as church resources tend to require larger budgets and more people than most of the churches where I live have. In fact, this is the first book I've seen in a long time that is specifically aimed to bring the rural church back into the minds of people. Glenn Daman does a good job of telling the history of rural churches, and how they helped, and still help, the people who live outside of the city.
There is a school of thought that says rural people need to catch up with their urban counterparts. Daman says that there is nothing wrong with rural areas, and the churches in these areas are needed in order to share the gospel with those around them. In fact, rural areas are as much in need of hearing the gospel as cities are. People who live out in the country will talk about religion, but many don't actually trust Christ as Lord and Savior.
Whether you attend an urban or rural church, this book can help you better understand the culture of rural people. It would be beneficial for anyone that is interested in reaching out to non-urban residents.
I received a free copy of The Forgotten Church from Moody Publishers in exchange for my honest review.
February 1, 2020
A good, well-researched book. Covering why Rural Ministry matters, a number of the cultural and societal issues facing the rural church, and offering practical suggestions for ministry, Daman’s book is very practical. At times I think he overstated his case, but given the neglected nature of the subject matter this is understandable.
If you’re interested in rural ministry, involved in it, or curious about why anyone would “throw their life away” on small town small church ministry, this book is worth a read.
If you’re interested in rural ministry, involved in it, or curious about why anyone would “throw their life away” on small town small church ministry, this book is worth a read.
February 27, 2019
This was an excellent book. I was pleasantly surprise that it covered so much sociological aspects of Rural America. It was fascinating. The author really gave a call for the uniqueness, importance and lack of support for Rural Ministry and Rural Missions. Rural churches are often small churches, and its not just different numbers than urban or suburban communities, but rural communities have an entirely different culture. Wonderful, must read!
March 3, 2020
An important read for the whole church. A cogent argument for the critical need to support rural church ministry. Helpful insights about the impact of tradition and culture, denominational and theological education's myopic focus on urban ministry, and ways to keep rural ministry vital. Author's firsthand experience in rural ministry comes out often and in instructive ways. Highly recommended!
February 11, 2021
I picked this book up a couple of years ago at the RHM Small Church Conference. My only regret is that I didn't get around to reading it sooner... It was fantastic! If you're in ministry in a rural community this book is a must read!
April 5, 2022
One of the best books on rural ministry. Daman shares from his personal experience and conviction, along with copious amounts of research. Highly recommend to anyone serving in a rural setting or desiring to understand rural ministry better.
August 29, 2018
Awesome book
This is great book especially for those in rural communities
I am rural church pastor really felt that book was full insight!
This is great book especially for those in rural communities
I am rural church pastor really felt that book was full insight!
July 22, 2019
A wonderful read about rural ministry.
November 3, 2021
Fantastic, well-needed analysis of the needs of rural ministry in America
May 12, 2022
A great defense of calling to rural church ministry with anecdotal tidbits of history and sociological analysis. Must read for ministers of all kinds in rural to small town settings.
December 31, 2020
Wonderful, there's not really much to comment on..
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews