Being present in the local community

As we celebrate Harvest in this autumn season, Johnny Stewart gives an insight into what mission looks like for a congregation in the farming community. An important annual event for Ballywalter Presbyterian Church is its annual tractor run.

Our congregation in Ballywalter has a long and rich history in the local community. The current building was built 135 years ago and we will soon celebrate the congregation’s 400th anniversary in 2026.

Over the intervening years there have been many changes on the Ards Peninsula. Farms have become larger and more efficient, factories have closed, local industry has been outsourced offshore, and in some instances new businesses have sprung up in their place. The livelihoods and lifestyles in the village and surrounding areas have changed drastically with the arrival of the motorcar and the reducing need for farmhands as more modern and efficient technology has been introduced.

In a history of our local congregation, Settlers by the Sea (available on our church website for anyone interested), written by a former clerk of session, we learn that our congregation had a very broad range of occupations when the building was constructed in 1889.

These largely included redundant jobs such as coal merchant, lime burner, woollen draper and haberdasher, but by far the most common occupation was farmer and landowner. There was even a stable on site to store the horses for those travelling to church services from the surrounding countryside. How times have changed!

Our village also has a thriving Young Farmers’ Club which will soon celebrate its 95th anniversary – they regularly use our halls for the monthly meetings and annual parents’ night.

Despite all the changes that new technology has brought, food production and processing still remains a very vibrant part of the fabric of our local community and congregation. Even for those who aren’t farming in our congregation, there are strong family ties to the land and many still work in the wider agri-food supply chain.

For rural congregations, the idea of running a tractor run will be nothing new. That being said, connecting with the local farming and vehicle enthusiast community ties in well with the new three-year PCI initiative ‘Present’, which will encourage congregations and their members in their ordinary walk of faith.

As mentioned in the September edition of the Herald, Present “invites us to look around and see what or who is right in front of us” and that is exactly what one of our committee members did 20 years ago when they saw the opportunity to engage with the local rural community and meet them in their everyday lives.

They saw the isolation and loneliness that was facing the local farming community and the number of older members of the community (particularly men) who, whether still actively farming or not, took an interest in vintage vehicles, especially tractors, and enjoyed meeting with other like-minded individuals to display their vehicles and have a good time.

And so, our annual tractor run was born. We’re meeting people where they are, and we’ve also expanded the remit of the tractor run to allow lorries, cars and motorbikes to take part to further widen the appeal.

Initially the tractor run was about being active in the local community, being visible outside of our Sunday service, normalising being inside our buildings, and inviting the local community to form relationships with our members.

Drivers and spectators return to the hall for the barbeque afterwards. We’ve even had holidaymakers join us from exotic locations as far away as Ballymena, Legacurry and South Africa.

…the tractor run was about being active in the local community…

To run an event on such a large scale requires the full church to be behind it. Whether they ’re driving a tractor themselves or helping with the smooth running of the event by stewarding, providing food for the kitchen, catering, or helping with the tidy-up, there is a job for everyone.

Involving the whole church offers an opportunity for people to work alongside other members of the congregation that they wouldn’t normally speak with, and new relationships are formed as they work.

PCI recently recognised the isolation and hardship being faced by rural communities coming out of the pandemic when it appointed its first rural chaplain in October 2021. We want to pray for the work being done through Rev Kenny Hanna and the communities he is reaching out to.

The cost-of-living crisis, lockdowns, changes in weather patterns and the rising input costs for farm businesses are all having an impact on the financial sustainability of farm businesses and the mental and physical health of the families who run them.

We want to pray for the farmers, supply chain, politicians and officials who are working to tackle climate change in a way that helps farm families continue to have a livelihood. We lift them up before God and ask him to protect, guide and provide for them across all four seasons of the year. Whether in the dark winter mornings when many of us are still in our beds, or those long summer days when they work long hours to draw silage before they are rained off.

We know that it is God who “supplies seed to the sower and bread for food.” At the end of Matthew 9, Jesus spoke to his disciples about a different harvest. He told his followers to “pray earnestly that the Lord of the harvest would send out labourers into the harvest field,” and so we too pray that God would raise up a workforce of disciples across rural Ireland.

We pray that faithful men and women of God would give the everyday parts of their lives to God –their eating, going to work, walking around ordinary lives – to be present in their own communities and bring the good news of Christ to those they meet.

We also pray for the congregations that are currently vacant (whether rural or urban) and the newly eligible ministers as they listen to God ’ s guidance to decide what mission field God is calling them to.

We pray that the saving grace of our Lord and Saviour would been known and accepted by many throughout our rural communities in the time ahead.

Johnny Stewart is a member of Ballywalter Presbyterian’s church committee.