Our Mission

Our mission is to equip clergy and lay leaders in rural and remote places to help their churches be catalysts for the development of healthy Canadian communities.

OUR VISION

Imagine...

- a place where clergy and lay leaders could get training that was specifically geared to rural contexts.

- if rural congregations were well-equipped to work with businesses, schools, health care facilities and other churches to address the needs of their communities.

- that rural church leaders had useful tools to help change the “palliative care” pastor-as-personal-chaplain of a dying congregation” mindset into a vital mission-oriented perspective.

- that there was solid research being done on the ways in which rural churches are already catalysts for hope and health in their communities.

- a place that helped denominational structures to recognize and value rural churches.

- that remote aboriginal churches could get training for their leadership in an accessible distance format.

- that denominational seminaries had a resource they could draw on to give their students a solid theoretical and practical introduction to rural ministry.

- that clergy new to rural settings had a trained rural mentor to help them learn the possibilities and pitfalls of rural ministry.

- a place where the best practices and resources for rural ministry that have been developed in all Christian denominations and parachurch organizations could be gathered and shared.

About Centre for Rural Community Leadership and Ministry

At CiRCLe M (Centre for Rural Community Leadership & Ministry) we care a lot about rural churches and communities! And we think that they ought to be more closely connected.

Our central purpose is rural ministry leadership development.

Our objective is to build bridges between rural churches and other institutions and organizations concerned with the well-being of rural communities.

Our method is to develop and coordinate instruction, research, mentors, materials and conferences towards our purpose and objective.

We are interdenominational and do not require the folks we work with to subscribe to a specific statement of faith. We work to help all churches strengthen their ministries.