--- title: Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie | TIME description: In the rural Midwest, a shortage of clergy means pastors visit more than one church on Sundays, sometimes driving dozens of miles canonical: https://time.com/video/zkr03AsW/ og:title: Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie og:description: In the rural Midwest, a shortage of clergy means pastors visit more than one church on Sundays, sometimes driving dozens of miles og:url: https://time.com/video/zkr03AsW/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zkr03AsW/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie twitter:description: In the rural Midwest, a shortage of clergy means pastors visit more than one church on Sundays, sometimes driving dozens of miles twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zkr03AsW/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie [Watch (HLS stream): Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zkr03AsW.m3u8) (6:42)  _Published 2009-01-29. In the rural Midwest, a shortage of clergy means pastors visit more than one church on Sundays, sometimes driving dozens of miles_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:05 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Trump's Top Pastor](/video/A9Hi3DBO/) ### Trump's Top Pastor [Pastor Rick Warren on The Daniel Plan Fitness Program](/video/h9vucXtH/) ### Pastor Rick Warren on The Daniel Plan Fitness Program [Huckabee Pastor](/video/U0v3MQWj/) ### Huckabee Pastor --- ## Transcript >> I think probably one of my first surprises coming up here was the cultural collapse that I experienced. I did my internship in Urban Seattle, and some of the challenges facing the church there, trying to make an inroad into people's lives. I see that-- that's gonna be the case here. Before long in many ways it already is. >> Pastor Nathan Baker- Trinity is one of many pastors in Northern Minnesota who make their rounds to more than one parish every Sunday. >> The church having a central-- being a central focal point for the culture on a Sunday or weekend doesn't have as much sway anymore. I think the only difference between here and the rest of the country is that it's just a more recent memory when the church kinda held that central privileged position. We stand for confession and forgiveness, page 116. Alright, after the race is-- >> Farm consolidations in these rural communities has resulted in a dramatic decline in population leaving fewer and fewer residents to support local churches. And when churches can no longer sustain themselves many rely on sharing pastors to keep cost down. >> For me to be a pastor, two churches here is not unusual. In fact in many ways I have a probably-- a much more manageable situation than some of my colleagues. I mean, one of my colleagues serves three churches and they're about 10 miles apart. Two of my colleagues are clergy couple, they serve five churches together, and that's been that way for years. >> While Nathan is optimistic about the future of his parishes, he is uncertain what his congregations will look like by the end of his stay. >> To be able to have the space and freedom to find creative ways to do-- to do an old thing in a new way in a less-- that's gonna take a long time and I feel like part of my job as a pastor here is to plant some of those seeds to get the conversation going. >> According to the Fund for Theological Education, a non- profit trying to remedy the situation, in the Midwest the proportion of rural churches with seminary ordained pastors runs as low as 2 out of 10. The National Average for countryside areas is 5 out of 10. Many churches here in Minnesota's Red River Valley have not been able to attract new members or have been forced to close as changes in the farm economy have forced more and more people to commute longer distances and sometimes move out of the area entirely. >> Went to Sunday school there, everything in that church, got married in that church even. >> The First Presbyterian Church of Euclid, established in 1880, closed its doors in 1998, and was then burned to the ground to avoid creating a hazard. Carol Porter, a lifelong member of the church lived two doors down. >> It was a disgrace when they burnt it down, tore it down, I mean it was really sad but we tried to get members in but that was impossible, you know. >> Yeah. >> We tried to get the younger generation to come back I mean, a lot of it. And then there was a lot of them that just absolutely did not go to church. They were all confirmed and baptized in the church but as they grew older they just didn't go to church. >> Uh huh. One of the most devastating effects church closings and a dwindling pastor- ship have had in this region is the loss of the traditional support network for those hard hit by the changing economy. With fewer pastors making home visits, depression and suicide attempts have become problems that laymen like Willard Burnell, have tried to find new ways to address. >> There's not enough clergy that understand the hurts of the people out there. >> Burnell kept working years after a farm accident that claimed his foot, but was eventually caught up in the same economic spiral that affected all his neighbors. But he used this experience grappling with depression that followed to reach out to others who were struggling to get by. >> I've done nearly thirty suicide attempts, you know, you see these people and I'd meet with them now every six month-- every six months, you know, and see how they're doing, and make sure they go fishing or do something in between. >> Uh huh. >> And visit with the wives, make sure they're doing fine and they-- they come out of it. >> Despite what may appear to be a hopelessly negative trend in Faith as an institution, Pastor Daniel Wolpert of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, hopes innovative approaches to rural ministry like MICAH, the Ministry for Contemplation and Healing, will help cultivate a new generation of parishioners. >> What I'd see more and more really over these last couple of years is that more people are now turning towards the future. They're beginning to say well, yes this loss is happening it will continue to happen perhaps in a lot of ways. But we're now beginning to be more interested in what are the new things that are emerging. This cross has been in the rural church and the rural church eventually died. And I think in many ways it's very symbolic of this whole process, the story that we're talking about. I pray for my grandma Nora-- Norma that she gets better. We start with the assumption that just because we're having this great change it doesn't mean that God is dead, or God has disappeared, and that Faith is going to stop. But quite the opposite we make the assumption that yes, there is this dramatic change but God must be at work in some kind of new way. >> David Van Biema for TIME. com in Crookston, Minnesota. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Vanishing Pastors on the Prairie","description":"In the rural Midwest, a shortage of clergy means pastors visit more than one church on Sundays, sometimes driving dozens of miles","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zkr03AsW/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2009-01-29T23:39:49.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zkr03AsW.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/zkr03AsW/","duration":"PT6M42S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/zkr03AsW/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```