By Richard Siemers
The Rev. Mark Yackel-Juleen’s first call to be a pastor was to a two-point parish, First Lutheran Church in Dundee, and Grace Lutheran Church of rural Dundee. In October 1989 he went to Dundee to interview with the congregations.
Duane Jans, a church council member, was showing him around the countryside. Yackel-Juleen grew up in the Twin Cities. He recognized the corn stalks, but asked what the low green plants were. Jans informed him they were beans.
A whole field of green beans? No, Jans told him, they were soybeans.
“My (rural) education began in Duane’s pickup truck before I was even called, learning what soybeans were and what importance they were to the economy out there,” Yackel-Juleen said.
He accepted the call, and soon realized that knowing how to identify soybeans was the least of what he didn’t know. “The two small churches that I was serving were caught in the midst of that financial crisis in the 1980s, and I really knew nothing about it, yet there I was walking side-by-side with people who were being dramatically impacted by it.”
City pastors, rural churches
He and his wife, Margaret (who is completing her seminary education and will soon be ordained), found themselves trying to minister in a context that was totally new to them, as it is to a majority of the pastors who serve in rural congregations. About 80 percent of seminary students come from metropolitan backgrounds, he said, but in his denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, about 70 percent of the graduates end up in rural parishes.
“What little I had learned about small town and rural life and ministry and the land, I learned in a classroom in St. Paul,” Yackel-Juleen said. “That’s not the best way to learn, so we decided to establish a place where people could come and experience it firsthand.”
The couple had a vision — to provide a place to educate future church leaders about small town and rural life and culture. With what he describes as “an early inheritance from Margaret’s parents,” they purchased a Cottonwood County farm northwest of Windom, not far south of Storden and Jeffers. Then they formed a non-profit organization and gifted the farm to it. It’s called Shalom Hill Farm. It is situated on a gravel road, so students get the full experience of living in a rural area.
Humble beginning
Shalom Hill Farm started in 1993 with one building that had guest rooms, kitchen and meeting space. In 1999 they completed the Prairie Spirit Commons, a multi-level retreat center built into the southern face of a hill. Here seminarians come and stay for varying lengths of time to experience rural life firsthand. Shalom Hill has two large gardens, and raises chickens, sheep and goats, but it is not a working farm.
“I always say right off the bat to our students that I’m not a farmer — I’m not smart enough to be a farmer — but I know a lot of people who are engaged in that vocation and do it very well and can speak about it,” he said. The students visit farms of different sizes and styles, and meet non-farmers involved in management, conservation and rural economics.
“Those folks can also speak of their faith, what their involvement is in their local church, and the interplay between their faith life and their vocation,” he said.
Rural education
The learning comes primarily from site visits to farms, main street businesses, related businesses such as ethanol and packing plants, and the University of Minnesota research center at Lamberton. On Sunday morning they worship in small town and rural congregations.
Shalom Hill provides meals from its gardens and chickens, and buys much of its other meat and food from local producers. It is intentional about having a chemical-free garden, but the curriculum is broad.
“In our educational programming, we show the students the full spectrum of food production and let them draw their own conclusions,” Yackel-Juleen said. “We want folks to understand that farmers have good reasons for the choices they make, and how they run their operation. There’s a temptation, I think, in a larger society to make judgments about ‘this way is good, this way is bad.’ In my life and experience in ministry out here, it’s never that simple and there are problems and challenges in all forms of agricultural production. Virtually every farmer I know is doing the best they can to be effective business people and to produce food that is safe and healthy for others to consume.”
While in seminary, Yackel-Juleen often heard fellow students speak of rural ministry as being like the “minor leagues.” The successful would move up to the “major leagues,” up to a city congregation. Once he experienced rural Minnesota, he soon learned this is not minor league stuff. It is important if for no other reason than that it is the source of food and fiber, and now also fuel.
Firsthand experience
When he and his wife talked about what caused these two city kids to become excited and engaged in life and ministry in the country, they realized that it was simply by being a part of it.
That’s when they decided that the way to get others excited about rural ministry was through firsthand experience. They started out working with five seminaries in Minnesota. Now they’ve expanded to work at various times with 12 different seminaries.
“One thing I’ve been pleased and impressed with is that a wide variety of Christian denominations now are really taking this seriously, and care about the dynamics of what farmers are going through,” Yackel-Juleen said. “They are serious about helping leaders become better servants in rural settings.”
Shalom Hill also hosts University of Minnesota philosophy camps, congregational and church groups, workshops and public school field trips. The farm is a part-time endeavor for the Yackel-Juleens. Both are part of a team of four ordained and lay ministers who serve five congregations.
Close encounter
“My folks still laugh when I remember the story of when I saw my first combine in the field at night,” he said. “I was driving back to Dundee from a council meeting at Grace. I thought it was a UFO — lights shining down, dust kicking up. I was expecting the car too stall and have a close encounter. That’s how much I didn’t know.”
It is the goal of Shalom Hill Farm to see that future pastors have a close encounter with agriculture and rural life, so they can approach rural ministry with a knowledge that Yackel-Juleen had to learn on the job.
For information about Shalom Hill Farm and its programs, phone (507) 831-2232 or e-mail shf@rconnect.com. Their website is www.shalomhillfarm.org.
