Despite densely populated cities like Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, and Salt Lake City, Colorado and Utah are still very much rural in nature. Much of our local ministry takes place in smaller towns and cities located outside our metropolitan clusters. Whether it is ministry on the plains and prairies, mountains, subrural populations, or in the many tourist towns of Colorado and Utah, rural communities and their populations are important to God.
As an organization, there is a temptation to evaluate opportunities by the metrics of size, scope, and return on investment. Believing that large cities are more important than rural towns is a secularized perspective that does not hold up to biblical history. Nazareth, Galilee, Bethlehem, Bethany, and Cana, just to name a few, are all examples of small towns that made a huge impact upon God’s redemptive history. When it comes to lost people, Jesus challenged His disciples to do more than look at the natural; He challenged them to see lost people through the eyes of the Spirit.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:36-38).
One of the things that makes the Great Commission great is its unwillingness to consider any person, town, or city too small or insignificant. In God’s perspective, there just is no such thing as “flyover country.”
Many of our rural churches are the only gospel and or Spirit-filled witnesses in their communities. With nearly 40 percent of our Network churches being rural in some way, we must be intentional in embracing the cultural and geographic obstacles of our Network. For if we are to be truly effective in reaching lost people in Colorado and Utah, we must see our urban, suburban, and rural churches coexisting, collaborating, and working together.