Living Prophetically in Rural Contexts

Revd Jo Allen is a pioneer minister in Oxfordshire, and co-director of Rural Ministries. She is currently engaged in doctoral research about the use of prophetic gifts in everyday life, and she is also a church leader in ReSource’s Alongside Scheme.

Can you recall a moment when God spoke with unmistakable clarity, guiding your path? For me, it wasn’t during a quiet moment of prayer or in my study, but while walking through a field, letting my fingers brush the soft, prickly wheat. “There’s going to be a harvest,” I heard in my spirit.I knew instantly: God was calling our community to plant something new. That field became the birthplace of a missional community, a Spirit-led adventure in a rural village. Some of the wheat from that field now sits in my office as a testimony, a reminder of what God promised and what the Spirit brought to life.

If we believe that mission is God’s, indeed, part of God’s very self-giving nature, then mission is not something we do, but something we are invited to join. The term missio Dei, meaning “the mission of God,” reminds us that mission belongs not to the Church, but to God. It is not an action we initiate, but a movement we participate in. When it comes to mission, listening must be our first and constant action, listening to God’s voice and discerning the Spirit’s guidance so that we, the Church, can join in with God’s activity and plans. But how do we do this?

Through the work I’m engaged in and the research I’ve been part of, I’ve noticed several ways that intentionally missional church communities discern the Spirit’s movement:

1. Prayer
2. Working together 3. The Prophetic

Each of these involves attentiveness, openness, and a posture of noticing, allowing those seeking God to remain sensitive to the often surprising and untamed voice of the Spirit.

One often overlooked aspect in
the missional conversation is the prophetic. While the term is familiar within charismatic and pentecostal circles, in a broader missional setting, it takes on a richer, more integrated meaning. The prophetic is not just about speaking God’s words aloud;
it involves a lifestyle of discernment, through creativity, imagination, and the recognition of the Spirit’s presence in everyday life.

Picture this: you’re sitting in the barber’s chair, chatting about family and local news, and the barber begins talking about the village’s need for a community space, somewhere for the young and old to come together. To the undiscerning ear, it’s just a thoughtful comment. To the activist, it’s a call to action. But to the prophetic missional ear, it prompts a deeper question: Is this a God-nudge?

When those nudges keep coming, again and again, and you take them
to God in prayer with your church community, that’s when the Spirit begins to reveal the next step... and the next. Before long, you find yourself serving in a café that God has called into being to bring people together in your village. And soon, those who serve or visit the café begin to ask questions about faith. This is prophetic dialogue, genuine conversation involving deep listening, both to God and to our communities (see work by Stephen Bevans and Cathy Ross). It’s about being dialogical with the world, and prophetic in response to God’s call.

In rural contexts, we are gifted with unique opportunities for prophetic discernment: access to nature;

moments of stillness rarely found in busy cities; tightly-knit communities where people naturally care for
one another; local gathering places like pubs and barber shops where stories and needs are shared; and small groups of believers who can build the trust needed for communal discernment. All of these are fertile ground for the prophetic to flourish.

In his book The Go Between God,
John V. Taylor wrote (in 1972), “To realise that the heart of mission is communion with God in the midst of the world’s life will save us from the demented activism of these days.”
It is still the case that too often, churches rush to do mission as if it were just another programme. But mission isn’t simply activity, it’s a deep alignment with God’s self-giving love. And if that’s true, then mission must begin with prayer, with listening, and with openness to the Spirit’s action, especially through the prophetic.