November 26, 2024
A food ministry in a tiny, rural town has helped hold a United Methodist church together across denominational divides
Volunteers from a small North Carolina church feed their neighbors each week with a hot meal and companionship in an outsize effort to the community.
February 21, 2023
Rural churches are economic powerhouses for their communities
The outsize economic impact of rural churches on their communities calls for a renewed vision of their importance, according to a two-year study in North Carolina.
February 4, 2020
A North Carolina nonprofit helps churches convert property from liabilities into assets
Leaders of a community development corporation believe that even struggling congregations can survive and thrive if members take stock of their assets and put them to use as resources for their communities.
February 19, 2019
Allen T. Stanton: Rural churches can thrive beyond numbers
Small churches learn to evaluate their growth by impact rather than attendance.
November 14, 2017
A small rural church is bringing together people affected by the opioid epidemic
The congregation organized a campaign to distribute signs with #2069 — representing the number of opioid deaths in Massachusetts last year. This simple strategy has had a powerful impact on people struggling with the epidemic.
May 30, 2017
Allen T. Stanton: What can the rural church offer a declining community? Hope
Many rural communities face decline. The church has a unique ability to stand in the hard realities and still preach hope, writes a rural pastor.
October 6, 2015
A community grows its way out of poverty
A pastor in rural North Carolina has developed a farming and beekeeping operation that improves the health of local residents while training a new generation.
October 6, 2015
Allen T. Stanton: Community engagement and the rural church
In declining rural communities, churches are some of the few viable institutions. They can use this position to help strengthen the wider community, writes the rural church fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues.
December 1, 2014
A small N.C. church reaches out in big ways
At Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Haw River, NC, numbers don’t matter, as the small rural church becomes a model of a kind of community outreach that many larger churches can only dream of.