RURAL CHURCHES

To be perfectly honest, I don't think they are as happy to have us as you might think. This is not criticism of them but they didn't quite seem all that happy we were there. (I was very generous with the offering and especially the Uganda project: DeLONE gave them a hundred
bucks I think). I tried to work the crowd and got very little response. 

Sorry to hear that the congregation wasn't too friendly.   That bothers me but not sure what I can do..However, I am going to mention that to the Session....think they should know.


No worry about congregation. We are a bunch of strangers and it is a perception thing. The question, Dave, is whether we even need to go to church or not. DeLONE wolf is the only one of that group that ever goes. I rarely go to church and it is for the reason we are discussing here. When I go, usually I feel worse when I come out than I did when I went in and it is precisely for the reason of yesterday. The preacher and the congregation are as good as a small church in a small community can be. They don't need some guy coming in like me critiquing the service which I can't help if I go, i. e., the preacher is prancing around like he is on TV, trying to be smart, he's overweight. The service is OK but the guy reading the Scripture wants to preach himself and the youngster is reading a difficult Old Testament passage which has to do with Abraham passing his wife off as his sister and King Abimelech marrying her and God getting ticked off. Please! Why would we have some kid to read that? The congregation Is good but we are a bunch of interlopers who just came to eat, plus maybe we should not be hunting on Sunday desecrating the sabbath. The preacher probably got on me because he sensed that I wasn't paying attention and was writing in my DayTimer or he might have remembered me from before. He gets credit for catching me although calling it to everybody's attention was not so "cool." but it is not like a thing that is important at all. 

I have found that people in small rural communities often come off as
"unfriendly" to visitors/guests.  In fact, visitors that come to the Church
where Sandy and I attend have told me several times that "this is an
unfriendly Church."  I don't know all the reasons, but I have concluded that
there are a couple of reasons.

1)  People that grow up in rural communities primarily associate with
family/extended family; people with whom they grew up such as neighbors,
church members (normally few in number)  Consequently, they sit, talk, and
eat with the people that they have been sitting with, talking with, and
eating with for the last "hundred" yrs.

2)  Because they have had limited exposure to "outsiders", meaning people
from outside the community, they have a lack of confidence in meeting and
visiting with "strangers."  

3)  Residents are comfortable talking about the weather; the shortage or
abundance of rain; the winters, etc..I notice that people in the Dakotas
talk about the weather like people in big cities talk about the
traffic...meaning that seems to be the primary subjects.