Rural Ministry

Upon successful completion of this unit, it is expected that students will be able to:

Undergraduate

1. Articulate the ways in which theology relates to context, with particular reference to Australian rural contexts.
2. Identify and interpret the social, environmental and spiritual needs of a rural community.
3. Describe and engage both challenges and opportunities of missional work in a rural context.
4. Create a personal and community-based plan of missional engagement within a particular rural context.
5. Identify and apply biblical passages which shape faith in a rural context.

Postgraduate

1. Articulate the ways in which theology relates to context, with particular reference to Australian rural contexts.
2. Identify and interpret the social, environmental and spiritual needs of a rural community.
3. Describe and engage both challenges and opportunities of missional work in a rural context.
4. Create a personal and community-based plan of missional engagement within a particular rural context.
5. Identify and apply biblical passages which shape faith in a rural context.
6. Develop a theology of land and ministry.

Undergraduate

• Book review (1,000 words) (20%)
• Essay (2,000 words) (40%)
• Weekly forum posts (2,000 words) (40%)

Postgraduate

• One book review (1,500 words) (25%)
• One essay (3,000 words) (40%)
• Weekly forum posts (2,500 words) (35%)

Set texts recommended for purchase are highlighted in blue

• Berry, Wendell and Norman Wirzba. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays. Berkeley, CA:
  Counterpoint, 2002
• Brodie, Marc and Graeme Davison. Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia. Melbourne: Monash University ePress, 2005
• Brueggemann, Walter. The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. Minneapolis, MN:Fortress Press, 2002
• Davis, Ellen F. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009
• Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2011
• Habel, Norman C. The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth: An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1–11. The Earth Bible vol. 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011
• Hawkes, Nicholas. The Country Is Different: Ministry and Hope in Rural Australia. Collingwood, Victoria: JBCE, 1995
• Inge, John. A Christian Theology of Place. Aldershot, Hampshire, England; Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate, 2003
• Theodore Hiebert, “The Human Vocation: Origins and Transformations in Chri stian Traditions,” in Hessel, Dieter T. and Rosemary Radford Reuther (eds). Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-being of Earth and Humans. Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 2000
• Main, George. Heartland: The Regeneration of Rural Place. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005.
• Muenstermann, Ingrid “Too Bad to Stay or Too Good to Leave? Two Generations of Women with a
  Farming Background: What Is Their Attitude Regarding the Sustainability of the Family Farm?,” in Luck, Gary W. Demographic Change in Australia’s Rural Landscapes Implications for Society and the Environment. Dordrecht: Springer, 2011.
• Rickard, Lauren. “Critical Breaking Point?” The Effects of Drought and Other Pressures on Farming
  Families.” Department of Agriculture. January 1, 2008. Accessed February 12, 2014.
  http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/842246/Birchip_Cropping_Group.pdf
• Stehlik, Daniela “Australian Drought as Lived Experience: Social and Community Impacts,” in Beyond Drought People, Policy and Perspectives, edited by Linda Courtenay Botterill and Melanie Fisher. Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO, 2003
• Wright, Christopher J. H. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004