2. { Small Churches Small Churches Doing Theology as Thriving Base Communities BIG IMPACT

3.  The task of developing a relevant witness is necessarily an exercise in doing theology  The church understands its missional vocation as bearing witness to the reign of God in the world. (As opposed to manufacturing the kingdom of God) Two Propositions

4. Read the Bible with the world before you and dream!  Noticing what God is doing in the biblical context? in our rural context?  Where is God’s shalom being disrupted in the biblical context? in our rural context? Doing Missional Theology

5.  Trust the Church more than the World  Economic Development as Congregation- based Ministry Rebuilding the Bridge: Seven Planks for Relevant Witness

6.  Trust the Church more than the World  Economic Development as Congregation- based Ministry  Rejecting Victim Identities in Shrinking Communities  Theologically-driven Health Care Solutions  A Theology of Food  Acting as Hosts to the Nations  An Alternative Theology of Retirement On Earth as in Heaven: Seven Handles for Relevant Witness

7. What is asked of adults now is that they stop going forward, to retirement, to Costa Rica, to fortune, and turn to face the young….One can imagine a field with adolescents on one side of a line drawn on the earth and adults on the other side looking in their eyes. The adult in our time is asked to reach his or her hand across the line and pull the youth into adulthood….If we don’t turn to face the young ones, their detachment machines, which are louder and more persistent than ours will, say, “I am not a part of this family,” and they will kill any real relationship with their parents. --Robert Bly, Sibling Society, 1997

8. Rebuilding the Bridge: Seven Planks for Relevant Witness  Trust the Church more than the World  Economic Development as Congregation- based Ministry  Rejecting Victim Identities in Shrinking Communities  Theologically-driven Health Care Solutions  A Theology of Food  Acting as Hosts to the Nations  An Alternative Theology of Retirement