An important role in ministry in a country parish is to be out there and get to know your parishioners in their environment, develop understanding and friendship.
One Sunday I said to a farmer I would like to visit him at home at a convenient time.
He said, \u201ccome to lunch\u201d, and I did.
We had a beautiful roast and the best of hospitality.
Then we took a walk around the farm and I learned much of his skills, in good and bad times.
We began a friendship. He could trust my integrity and the fact that I was ready and able to listen to his problems.
After more chatting and afternoon tea, I excused myself with many thanks.
I drove back to the Manse with more appreciation of life on a farm.
A friendship developed and we knew we could be open with each other.
I learned much about farm life in good and difficult times.
He knew he could to speak to me at any time and a special pastoral relationship developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An important role in ministry in a country parish is to be out there and get to know your parishioners in their environment, develop understanding and friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-member-blogs"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Rev Bill Pugh","author_link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/author\/billpugh"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Member Blogs<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"An important role in ministry in a country parish is to be out there and get to know your parishioners in their environment, develop understanding and friendship.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8681,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8679\/revisions\/8681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}