Sowing the Seeds: A Journey of Acting on God’s Dream for Rural America

Rural Realities…

• Over one-fifth of households in agriculturally-based counties have annual income less than $15,000.
• The percentage of people living below the poverty level in the smallest agriculturally-based counties is over 60 percent greater than in metropolitan counties.
• Agriculturally-based counties lost nearly 9 percent of their population from 1990 to 2000.

Does your rural church want to make a positive impact to reverse these trends?

Sowing the Seeds is a six-week adult curriculum which seeks to tie rural issues to the Christian faith, and God’s vision for community.  This curriculum will energize an adult class in reflecting on biblical themes for the rural context, exploring current trends, and engaging your rural congregation in action to better your community.

Sowing the Seeds offers four foci: a just economy, sustainable environment, local food networks, or health care.  Here are the goals for the six one-hour sessions:

         1. Create space to hear the voice of God and be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
         2. Encourage discussion about trends in rural America communities.
         3. Explore biblical understandings of care for creation.
         4. Discuss how public policy shapes our future.
         5. Discuss the pros and cons of policy proposals for a better future.
         6. Things YOU can DO to help create a better rural future.

The current curriculum is United Methodist based, an ecumenical version will be available soon. Download the full PDF of the curriculum at this link.

If you decide to use the curriculum, please contact Sabrina Miller at sabrinam@cfra.org, so we can track which churches are using it, and follow up.
 
Contact:

Sabrina Miller
Young adult intern, Rural Response Committee
Nebraska Conference of the United Methodist Church
sabrinam@cfra.org