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Faithfully Yours: Recovering what we’ve lost

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Published on Sunday, January 22, 2017

By Neil Strohschein
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

As I wrote last week, I am a farm boy. Farming and rural life are in my blood. My happiest and most productive years in ministry were spent in rural communities, working with people whose backgrounds are similar to mine. They became more than just congregations to serve– they became family– a family that is, in some ways, closer to me than my biological family.

These days, I am watching sadly as once vibrant communities are dying. Urban districts, even smaller villages and towns, are being absorbed into larger municipalities. In some cases, all that is left is a postal address (no post office, just a collection of mail boxes with their own postal code). Everything else is gone. Some church buildings still stand, but services are held bi-weekly or monthly– in some cases, not at all. Community facilities that may be in use this year could be closed next year because there are not enough volunteers or sufficient funds to keep them open.

But change is coming. As we all know, the cost of living continues to rise, thanks to new taxes, increases in service fees and the increased costs of producing the goods we buy. Any increases in wages or pensions we may receive will help, but they won’t cover the increases in the cost of living. We will have to cover those costs ourselves– and most of us will find ways to do that.

In the process, we will have to give up some old habits and learn some new ones. But the habits we learn will be ones with which our ancestors were very familiar. For example:

• Shopping trips to Brandon or Winnipeg may be reduced significantly. Instead of driving 200 km one way to get what we want, we will save the cost of fuel and buy locally; making do with what’s available. This will help ensure that local businesses can survive, create new jobs and increase the variety of products they offer for sale. Everyone wins when we shop at home.

• We won’t be taking extended vacations in other provinces, states or countries. We will spend our holidays at home, enjoying the beauty that is all around us. We will have more time for family activities, more time to visit with friends and more time to get to know our neighbours.

• We will stop expecting others (especially governments) to do for us what we are fully capable of doing for ourselves. We will learn how to build coalitions, cooperatives and committees that will come together and complete a task with little or no formal organization; just like our parents and grandparents did during the depression and war years. Community spirit will be revived and a whole new generation will learn what it means to be part of a caring community.

• We will stop fighting the religious wars we have been fighting since the Reformation and will start finding ways to come together, worship together, pray together and work together to ensure that those who need God’s help the most are able to find it and in the process, meet Jesus Christ– the one through whom they can find forgiveness of sin, membership in God’s family and the gift of eternal life.

Challenging times are ahead. But people of faith should not lose heart. We have an opportunity to help our communities recover the community spirit and togetherness we’ve lost. We must make the most of this opportunity. If we don’t, it will be taken from us and will never return.