Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church - by Michael Adam Beck & Tyler Kleeberger (Paperback)

About the Book

"Can rural congregations flourish again? Can new Christian communities succeed in rural areas? Could healthy rural churches catalyze a better future for their declining communities? This book collects stories from the diversity of rural contexts across the US. It lays out a fresh theology for rural life and offers principles for harnessing the potential of what some consider the forgotten spaces. Each chapter includes a helpful Field Exercise-questions for discussion and suggested actions for leadership teams to work through together. Chapters conclude with a Field Story illustrating how the chapter's main ideas can work in a real church setting"--

Book Synopsis

Cultivate fresh expressions of church in your rural congregation with Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church by Tyler Kleeberger and Michael Beck. Congregations became the hub of rural lifefor a time. The place where people gathered not only on Sundays to hear a sermon but to help each other work the land, break bread, and form deep relationships. The rural church was the place where they found a community that could sustain them through the joys and struggles of life with the land. In many ways, a rural church expressed the essence of church in general: To be the guiding hand into the life of a place. After disruptions from agriculture, industrialization, and technology, many rural churches (like the people around them) feel forgotten. Has urbanization made life outside the urban sprawl irrelevant? Can rural congregations struggling to survive find hope and new life? If so, can healthy rural churches catalyze a different future for the world? Tyler Kleebergerand Michael Beck think so. They have served rural congregations for over a decade, Michael in North Central Florida and Tyler in Northwest Ohio. They have discovered the potential and beauty of life and faith in the rural setting. The ageing congregations they serve(in declining rural communities) found ways to cultivate "fresh expressions of church" with people who call rural simply home. They serve contexts in the often forgotten, wild places of our contemporary world. This book includes breakthrough stories from the diversity of rural contexts across the US. It lays out a fresh theology for rural life and offers principles for harnessing the potential of what some consider the forgotten spaces.

About the Author

Michael Adam Beck (Author)
Michael Adam Beck is the Director of Fresh Expressions for The United Methodist Church and a lecturer and program director at several seminaries, including the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary. He is senior pastor of St. Mark's UMC in Ocala, FL, and has served as co-pastor with his wife Jill, directing addiction recovery programs, a jail ministry, food pantry, and racial justice movements. He is the author of several books, including Doing Justice Together and A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions.

Tyler Kleeberger (Author)
Tyler Kleeberger is a church leader, writer, teacher, and community leader in Metamora, Ohio. He studied at Fuller Theological Seminary and leads The Farmhouse through connection, memory (honoring heritage - from barn parties and neighborliness to food emphasis and other more "traditional" components of church. His book (Abingdon, 2022) with Michael Beck is Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church. He publishes essays about building a better world on Medium through his channel, Becoming Human (tylerkleeberger.com).