{"id":581,"date":"2009-12-03T02:46:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T06:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=581"},"modified":"2013-06-19T15:52:07","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T19:52:07","slug":"the-value-of-the-rural-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=581","title":{"rendered":"The Value of the Rural Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_xECWNO6yc9I\/SxdffEBoW4I\/AAAAAAAAAj4\/A8vyRoDmZcs\/s1600-h\/rural+church.gif\"><img id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410898464570104706\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px; cursor: hand; height: 177px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_xECWNO6yc9I\/SxdffEBoW4I\/AAAAAAAAAj4\/A8vyRoDmZcs\/s200\/rural+church.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div>For a few years now I have been wanting to write an essay on the value of rural churches and the need to appreciate them- for pastors to see them as valuable and not simply stepping stones to something really important.<\/div>\n<p>So I was delighted to see <a href=\"http:\/\/rcpc.com\/blog\/view.jsp?Blog_param=78\">Tim Keller&#8217;s recent post on this very topic<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/ericcsmith.wordpress.com\/2009\/12\/02\/tim-keller-ministry-in-a-rural-church\/\">Eric Smith&#8217;s reflections<\/a> of Keller&#8217;s comments. I encourage you to read both (neither are very long).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a few years now I have been wanting to write an essay on the value of rural churches and the need to appreciate them- for pastors to see them as valuable and not simply stepping stones to something really important. So I was delighted to see Tim Keller&#8217;s recent post on this very topic &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=581\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;The Value of the Rural Church&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2940,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}