Sundays in the Country by Joel Tom Tate

Sundays in the Country

Joel Tom Tate on the Surprising Joys of Pastoring a Rural Flock

Several years ago I was living next door to one of the nation’s best Evangelical seminaries. It seemed obvious that this was an opportunity to act on, a providential gimme. So I enrolled there, took one class, and then felt strongly that the Lord was telling me that my seminary career was over. Ironically, that one course was on the denominational distinctives of the church I belonged to at the time, so that the one course I did take does me absolutely no good now as I pursue my ordination in the Wesleyan Church.

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Joel Tom Tate is the Director of Student Activities and the Campus Minister at the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont, in addition to being the pastor of North Chittenden Wesleyan in North Chittenden, Vermont, where he lives with his wife Christine, their three daughters, and a flock of ducks.

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