The differences in pastoral role expectation between rural agrarian churches and urban churches in the Baptist General Conference in Alberta

This study was motivated by the problems and challenges that pastors and seminary graduates often face when they have had all their ministry experience and training in an urban context and then are called to a rural agrarian context for pastoral ministry, or conversely, where their training and ministry were in a rural agrarian context and then they are called to an urban setting.;The study attempted to identify the pastoral role expectations of the members of two rural agrarian parishes, one with longer pastoral stays, and one with shorter pastoral stays. It also attempted to identify the pastoral role expectations of the members of two urban parishes, one with longer pastoral stays, and one with shorter pastoral stays.;The study was conducted by way of four church case studies, two from a rural agrarian setting and two from an urban setting. Five leaders from each of these four churches were chosen by a "snowballing or chain sampling" technique to participate in the study. These leaders were asked to complete three survey instruments and participate in an open-ended standardized interview procedure to gather the data for the study. The data from the interview was collated according to pre-determined pastoral role categories, as well as any new categories that might emerge. This interview data was then triangulated with the data from the survey instruments.;The study also attempted to define the Biblical role of the pastor and then compare the parameters of the Biblical role with the pastoral role expectations that were found in the churches studied.;The conclusions of the study were as follows: (1) The laity ranked spirituality as the most important role of the pastor. (2) The rural agrarian churches ranked the relational role of the pastor as more important than the preaching role, whereas the urban churches reversed that ranking. (3) The Biblically defined pastoral role was pastoral care that included pastoral nurture and pastoral direction. (4) The pastoral role expectations from the four churches in the study fell within the parameters of the Biblically defined role of the pastor.