Student give rural congregations a 'new lease of life'

Small communities and the Atlantic School of Theology team up to keep churches going

Dr. Laurence DeWolfe, director of the Atlantic School of Theology’s distance program, oversees 30 students who are on the path to becoming ministers. Photo: Douglas Gelevan

Near Sarnia, in town called Dawn, the only object breaking the transition from land to sky on the horizon is a small white church.

Like many other rural towns, Dawn's population is declining. The school is gone and farms are vacant. But the church holds on.

Dr. Laurence DeWolfe used be a minister in Dawn. Now he runs the master of divinity distance program at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. The program has 30 students studying to be ministers and about 90 per cent of them study from rural areas such as Dawn. The program saves some smaller churches from shutting down.

Rural ministers often work circuits, where one pastor visits several churches. Smaller churches rely on this system, since the search for a permanent pastor can take years. There are 23 job vacancies listed on the Maritime Conference of the United Church website alone.

"In some of these places (our students) are giving smaller rural congregations a new lease on life," DeWolfe says.

Gerald Blaquiere, 57, is in his first year of the five-year program. He works a circuit of two United Churches in the area of Tyne Valley, P.E.I., population 227.

Before he arrived this August, the congregation had been without a pastor for nearly eight months. But Blaquiere said he doesn't like to think of himself as a saviour.

"A student minister is a great fit with our congregation," says Blair Cotton, 59, construction foreman and parishioner at Victoria West United Church. "Gerald gives us continuity and stability. He holds things together."

Blaquiere wouldn't be able to be a student at all without the theology school's distance program. Students get credit for working as a full-time minister, while following courses online. Every summer they return to Halifax for six weeks, completing intensive courses on campus.

The program prepares students to move to rural communities because culture shock and isolation are real issues. DeWolfe is aware that some students "feel like a fish out of water" when they arrive in a tiny village.

Dr. Susan Willhauck, professor of pastoral theology, says "students have no choice but to go to rural areas" and the school teaches peer-support techniques to cope.

Most of the peer support happens online. If rural towns have a high-speed Internet connection, it increases the chances of a student going there.

"We have Internet, high speed. I don't think I would have chosen a place that didn't have it," Blaquiere says. "I rely on it too much for the courses and staying in touch."

Blaquiere has five friends in the program that he emails almost daily.

DeWolfe firmly believes that the future of education relies on using technology. Small congregations might have to lobby government for Internet connections in order to recruit ministry.

Thanks to the theology school, Tyne Valley won't be fading into the horizon anytime soon.

"I live modestly and the program is set up that I can survive," Blaquiere said, "I love it. It's exactly where I should be."

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