wfn.org | Rural Life Sunday materials focus on family, faith

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

May 2, 2002      News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington    10-24-71B{200}

By United Methodist News Service

This year's Rural Life Sunday materials for local congregations will focus
on the theme "Faith and Family: The Fabric of Rural Life." 

The Rev. Don Barnett, a rural chaplain and pastor in Alabama, has compiled
stories of rural people and the ongoing crisis facing those who earn a
living from the land. The booklet is replete with worship resource
suggestions and a bulletin cover to copy.

Barnett offers new wording, adapted for the day's theme, for the hymns
"Faith of Our Fathers" and "We Gather Together."

Rural Life Sunday is a time for congregations "to celebrate the rural
heritage of the United Methodist Church, to recognize the ongoing crisis
occurring in rural areas of the national and world today, and to affirm the
interdependence of rural and urban communities," according to the
denomination's Book of Discipline.

Barnett has pulled together biblical references and various resources, and
written much original material.

He and Julia Kuhn-Wallace offer ideas for a sermon likening families to
colorful quilts and God to a quilt maker who is still stitching. Another
sermon or lesson tells a story of a woman whose family farm has been
foreclosed.

For a Sunday school class or discussion group, Barnett has provided
"Responding to the Ultimate Sacrifice: Can Family Farmers Count on Us?" to
study. The material includes a letter from a 9-year-old farm boy and facts
like this: "Americans lost over 81,500 hog farms and over 38,400 dairies
between 1994 and 1997." He points out similarities and differences between
the better-publicized farm crisis of the 1980s and the current situation.

"As a result of the 1980s farm crisis, nearly 1 million farmers were forced
out of business," Barnett writes. "For many families, loss of the farm also
meant loss of their home, their inheritance and their dignity.  For some it
meant ultimate sacrifices as farmers became depressed to the point of
committing suicide, losing a child to suicide or going through divorce."

He cites a study during the 1980s farm crisis on the effect of economic
stress on rural families. Youth were not affected negatively by the income
loss itself, the study found. Instead, "it is the degree to which income
loss affects parents' relationships with each other and their parenting
skills that matters for children."

Barnett also notes that farming accounts for only 7.6 percent of rural
employment and that 90 percent of rural workers have non-farm jobs. As of
1996, almost 22 million rural residents lived in areas designated by the
federal government as having a shortage of medical professionals or being
medically underserved, according to the Rural Policy Research Institute.

A service for the blessing of families, ideas for action projects, a
children's sermon and a litany for rural families are among the many
resources included in this booklet, produced by the Rural Chaplains
Association with the cooperation of the churchwide Board of Global
Ministries. It is available postpaid for $5 from Rural Life Sunday 2002,
Upper Sand Mountain Parish, P.O. Box 267, Sylvania, AL 35988; telephone:
(256) 638-2126; e-mail: usmp@farmerstel.com; Web site:
www.uppersandmountainparish.org.  

Annual (regional) conferences may set the date for the observance of Rural
Life Sunday. The voting members of the Board of Global Ministries approve
the annual themes. 
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United Methodist News Service
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