Pastoral Brain Drain

This is in response to a post a facebook friend posted on her wall earlier today. Basically, as I thought about the issue, I realized that I had a lot of thoughts on the issue. It's not a fleshed out and beautiful sounding as I would have liked, but hey COMLEX is on Wednesday. I don't think any part of me is fully fleshed out right now!

Here is the link to the original article and my response:


this is quite the interesting read. I have worked with several churches in my day, but never really thought of the rural church being in so much need. As someone who "grew up" in the urban church, I think a lot of it is the churches perception on need as well - or excuse me, the Christian perspective.

For example, when I was going on my summer project with Campus Crusade for Christ in 2000 part of me felt like I was not sacrificing enough b/c i was only going to inner city Detroit, while my closest friends were going to East Asia. Then again, when I went to Nigeria everyone was like, "wow, you're off to Africa. they need Jesus so badly." But when I was going to Croatia, a lot of response I got was (well, after where's that) was "oh, Europe?"

I think that a lot of Christian American's have it in their mind that unless you are going to Africa, the Middle East or Asia, you are already "preaching" to a crowd that knows who Jesus is. they may not believe He is the son of God, but they at least have heard of Him.

Extrapolating that to Urban vs Suburban vs rural America: forgive me, but this is about to get political too (and a little sterotypical, but I think my generalizations fit 85% at least).

Look at the demographically differences between the 3 groups of people. Naturally, the urban people need more ministers b/c they are going to be the group that is most likely not from America (1-4th generation) so they most likely don't know about Jesus. They are also the poor (i know rural is pretty darn poor too, but I'll get to them in a minute). So, to the seminary kid who wants to reach people that have never heard of Jesus and are poor, they want to go Urban.

Suburbia - I don't really have much to say here other than it tends to be middle to upper class white people. This is where we find mega churches and comfort. I think the blog hit this group perfectly. But what I think is missed is the perception these people in suburbia tend to have about rural folk. For most Urban/Suburban Americans, Rural America is a republican, highly moral, highly churched area. This is one of the big disservices the Evangelical Right has done to our society. It gives the perception that all of the rural “red” areas on the map area already saved.
Therefore, why would a seminary kid or even just Bible college kid think they need to go to rural America. For starters, it’s not as cool to say “I’m planting a church in Novinger, Mo” compared to “Inner City St Louis.” Then when you add on all of the comfort issues mentioned in the article, it makes it even harder to want to go there. Lastly, this perception of a “churched” area gives us “city folk” the illusion that we are not really needed out here.


Hopefully after boards I will be able to blog more - and give more insight into life as a medical student. Because I am sure it is about to get more exciting!