Rural Church RESCUE: A Call to Restore Healthy Churches to Rural North America

By: Jon Sanders

Narrated by: Jon Sanders

Length: 3 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

At first glance it may appear that the church in rural North America is thriving. Nestled just below any average small town skyline of water towers and grain elevators one will find the steeples and stained glass windows of various church buildings.

From a distance it would seem that rural communities are being sufficiently served by the mere number of churches present. But a closer look within the walls of the average rural church paints a much different and disturbing picture.

Many rural churches find themselves stuck in a current of decline that is ultimately leading to their death. They lack a clear understanding of their purpose. They are floundering in an absence of leadership. They possess little to no vision for how a BIG God longs to impact their small community for His eternal kingdom. And instead of embracing the changes necessary to propel them into the future, they are clinging to worn out traditions of the past.

Rural Church RESCUE speaks directly to churches struggling with these issues. Speaking from his experience as both a rural church pastor and firefighter, Jon Sanders presents a unique perspective on these common problems facing the rural church.

Using a metaphor drawn from the world of the fire service, Sanders outlines six principles necessary for rural churches to be healthy and reclaim the vital role God has called them to in their communities.

©2018 Jon Sanders (P)2018 Jon Sanders

Great book!!!

A must read for pastors and leadership staff of rural churches! Thank you for writing! It exactly describes our small town church in NW Oklahoma. I’m sharing this book with everyone on our elder and deacon board. We needed this!

If You Lead a Small, Rural Church, Listen to This!

I pastor a very small, rural church in Central Nebraska, and it's a challenge to keep all the balls in the air, especially as a full-time bi-vocational leader. Pastor Jon Sanders does a great job getting you to think about priorities and putting things in perspective; what's important and what's not a priority. This is also an encouraging book, at least I found it so.

It's a quick listen and worth your time and money. I pray you enjoy it and get as much out of it as I did, and will again.

Tony

Great book for rural churches!!!

Loved the book and would highly recommend it!
Thank Jon Sanders for writing this book!

Rural Church must read!

I pastor in a rural setting, and I for one really appreciate the way Jon gets right to the issues. If you are a rural church leader, I highly recommend this book!

Great resource

To me this is a must read for any small church pastor in rural areas. No doubt it hits critical points and issues we face. It’s very practical in advice. I only disagree with a couple of parts which led me to a 4 star. But I still think it’s a valuable resource for any pastor of a rural church today.

How is this for "rural"? How is it "biblical"?

The performance is engaging. The author is a gifted speaker, and that makes it easy to pay attention to and follow. High points for style.

But the substance is lacking. There is much to say here, but I'll stick with two severe criticisms.

First, though the title leads you to believe this is aimed toward rural churches, it really isn't. There are a couple, brief asides about being in a rural context. But these are truly asides. This sounds more like standard modern business principles utilized for church growth that are currently in vogue in mid to large size communities, as much of the advice seems completely out of touch with actual rural communities and contexts. I say this as a pastor who has served in three different rural communities. And, by rural, I mean populations of well less than 1000 in the nearest towns. From what he says, he speaks to contexts and from experience with contexts that seem to think of rural as what most of us rural folks would never call rural. Thus, the advice is not particularly relevant to actual on the ground facts in truly rural areas.

Second, though he makes much of needing "biblical" leadership, he doesn't really cite how his definition of biblical leadership is biblical. This is pronounced and deeply problematic in his descriptions of "vision" as related to leadership. Everything he says about how God gives vision has no correlation to scripture at all, but just sounds like vague motivational speaking points. It's not clear at all how the biblical gives the sense that God will routinely give direct revelations to every church leader. And the "criteria" he lays out to discern whether some vision is given by God is downright anti-biblical. It's pop-psychllogy about big, grand visions and completely off the rails stuff about how "God will provide". Strongly would suggest you look for a work that uses actual biblical grounding to talk about how to lead the church. It isn't here.