I was raised a country boy. I lived in the manse next to a 100-year-old, mountain-stone church building. Those properties were bordered by two small farms, a creek, and railroad tracks. When people needed anything from the church, they would typically walk past our kitchen windows, where my 8-member family might be eating a meal, and knock on our back door. The elementary school was a mile down the road, and my parents knew where almost every teacher went to church. It seemed like everyone knew I was a preacher’s son, so accountability was everywhere. But love and kindness and support surrounded me too.

Few doors were locked. Almost daily I walked or biked to another house to pick up a needed ingredient for my mother’s cooking or to deliver an ingredient to another. Farmers routinely dropped off produce for the pastor’s family, which—to my chagrin—resulted in activities like husking hundreds of ears of corn for cooking and canning.

When trouble came to one house, you could expect the neighbors to help, typically without anyone asking. My father had an emergency-band scanner, and when church members or neighbors had an emergency, he sometimes reached their home before the ambulance.

As the suburbs crept nearer, the church grew. One of the adjacent fields was sold to make way for split-level homes. The variety of people in the church widened, and there was less farm-centeredness about us. As doctrinal drift occurred in many churches around us, it became more difficult to know who would stand with our congregation against the rising tide of evils like abortion and the so-called sexual revolution.

Technology has brought change to the farthest reaches, and, as mentioned on page 8 of this issue, the rural church has been caught up in the change. Even the category “rural church” is comprised of congregations in very different places and circumstances, so the challenges range across a spectrum too. Many challenges are similar to those that urban or suburban churches face.

But there are distinctions and differences worth mentioning. That’s the reason for this issue. Rural churches have been a staple of the RPCNA, and to this day are a pillar on which the denomination stands, even as we become more suburban and urban than in days past. I enjoyed reading the theme articles myself, remembering some of the blessings of my youth, and understanding better how I can pray for brothers and sisters in our rural churches.

God has set up His worldwide church so that it needs different kinds of people. By extrapolation it appears He has set up His church so that we also need different kinds of congregations, since no one congregation can possibly meet all the needs and provide all the resources in fulfilling the Great Commandment and the Great Commission (see Rom. 15:22-32).

—Drew Gordon