ABSTRACT
A number of studies have sought to categorize churches according to their location in situations which can be said to be rural or urban, or some mix of each of these two types of settlement patterns. Such categorization has uncertainties, and the attempts to refine systems sometimes give rise to debate about the criteria to be used, and to contradictions between the resulting scales suggested by different studies. This article seeks to question existing criteria and systems of categorization by using a local church’s experience as a case history, and also to point up other issues related to small church experience in an isolated situation. It also seeks to draw attention to the value of the study of the local church for more general issues in rural theology.
