Town & Country e-mail newsletter   

Welcome to the new e-newsletter from the Northwest Conference Town & Country Commission aimed at resourcing and encouraging our Town & Country churches.

The Town & Country Commission has recently been working on its goals for the coming year. Out of that discussion it was decided that we start an e-newsletter and a web presence for our T & C churches. The goals of our newsletter will be to offer articles on topics related to Town and Country church settings, and to highlight different ministries or events that our Northwest Conference T & C churches are doing.

On our web page, which is hosted on the NWC website, we will work on building a list of resources ... books, webinars, seminars and trainings ... available for T & C churches, as well as links to other sites that could be helpful.

We are here to serve you. How can we be of help and encouragement to you?

If you have a topic you would like addressed in our newsletter, or you have something happening at your church that you would like to share with us that might be considered for our newsletter or you have a great resource that has helped you, please e-mail the information to Nancy King at rudynancy.king@gmail.com. Our commission and the conference office will make the final decision on what will be included in each newsletter.

To start with, we plan to put out a new e-newsletter Jan. 1, March 1, May 1. After that we will re-evaluate and decide how often to put out a new newsletter.

For years, many of our 66 town and country churches in the Northwest Conference may have legitimately felt like they were geographically isolated. The communities that they ministered in were great distances from any population centers. This sense of isolation manifested itself in different areas.

The Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate and access knowledge. Information that was once remotely located and inaccessible is now available electronically to anyone who has access to the web. The ushering in of the Information Age and the Internet brought a great deal of consternation that rural areas and remote communities would be left behind and become even further isolated. It would be the demise of these communities and also of the churches that minister to them, many feared.

The good news is that these dire predictions have not materialized. Most rural areas are as "connected" as large populations centers. In fact, many rural communities have greater access to the Internet than some neighborhoods in metropolitan areas. Town & Country Covenant Churches in the Northwest Conference are not isolated, either. A recent study of Town & Country Covenant Churches in Minnesota is very encouraging. Our churches are not in the cyber wilderness. They have the broadband connectivity available to them that is needed for ministry opportunities right around the corner.

Town & Country pastors are no slouches when it comes to using the Internet, either. The study of Covenant Town & Country pastors in Minnesota shows that 88 percent of the pastors indicated that they were either very familiar with the Internet or consider themselves avid users of the Internet. This means that not only is the latest technology available, but our pastors are ready and able to use that technology. For the vast majority of them, they understand and use the Internet and feel comfortable with it.

But not only are our town and country pastors comfortable using broadband technology, but their congregants are also. In the same recent study, the congregants for 3 town and country churches in Minnesota were also surveyed. Over 3/4s of the congregants surveyed indicated that they had the Internet at home. This is slightly higher than the general population of rural Minnesotans where 71% have the Internet in their homes. Additionally, over half of the congregants believe that they were either very familiar with the Internet or were avid users of the Internet. As important as it is for town and country pastors to be comfortable with using the Internet, it is essential that their congregants also be comfortable using it. And it isn't just the younger congregants who are comfortable with the Internet. All of those congregants between the ages of 50 and 65 felt that they were very familiar with using the Internet.  

So, if our town and country churches have access to high speed Internet and our pastors and our congregants are very comfortable using the Internet, what can our churches do to take advantage of this technological resource? The list is almost endless. There's the obvious-websites and electronic newsletters. But there is much more. Is your church on Facebook and Twitter? These are great avenues for not only communicating with your members, but also showing your presence in your community and advertising your programs. This is particularly successful with your youth. How about conducting your prayer chain via e-mail rather than telephone calls? Or how about podcasting your worship services?  

There are other uses utilizing video over the Internet that can be very effective tools for churches, particularly town and country churches. Videoconferences can be used for seminars and conferences between pastors and denominational or conference leadership.  

Videoconferencing can also be used for staff and leadership training. With increased travel costs, this is a great way of getting training from anywhere in a very convenient and cost effective way. Is the nearest Christian counselor located in a distant community? How about conducting pastoral counseling referrals by videoconferencing, eliminating travel time and costs?

Speaking of videconferencing, how about connecting up with the missionaries that you support using Skype or similar services? What a great way to stay in touch and come along side your missionaries.

Are you in a two-point parish, sharing a pastors? An alternative is having your pastor preaching from one church and videoconferencing it to the other church. Another variation of this has been employed by a Covenant town and country church in Kansas. Periodically this church connects with a large Covenant church in Oklahoma for their sermon.

Prairieview Covenant Church in New Richmond, WI, likes to do 3-4 E.W.O.K.s every year as a way to reach out to our church family and families from outside our congregation. We hang posters around town advertising it and our church family personally invites parents to bring their children.

E.W.O.K. (Evening With Out Kids) is a evening (6-9 p.m.) of free babysitting for families with children preschool through elementary age. We provide 3 hours of babysitting, including supper for the children. We ask for an RSVP so that we have adequate food and supervision for the children.