Eastern Iowa’s shrinking rural churches struggle to survive

On some Sundays, the Rev. James Davis sees 40 to 50 people in the pews at church.

Those are his busy days. During some services just four or five people are scattered throughout the sanctuary.

Rural churches across the country are struggling to remain open as a mobile society leads churchgoers to larger cities for services. Some churches, like the United Methodist church in Ohio, Iowa, that Davis also serves, host a half-dozen congregants or less.

As memberships begin to decline, so do the numbers of pastors willing to serve rural congregations - a trend that furthers the decline in rural churches. The Fund for Theological Education reports that less than half of rural churches in the United States have a full-time pastor. In the Midwest, that number drops to about 20 percent.

Davis is pastor to five United Methodist churches in Iowa and Poweshiek counties and has a combined congregation of “maybe 100.”

Studies on church leadership and attendance show a church should have an average of 110 people in attendance to maintain sustainability. The buildings where Davis preaches in Guernsey, Ladora, Victor, Kofzta and Ohio don't meet that.

Davis and a lay leader alternate church duties: on one Sunday, Davis delivers sermons to three churches while the lay leader serves the other two. The following Sunday, they switch.

It's the best way they can meet the wishes of members who don't want to lose a particular small church.

“Even if the numbers were there (in the combined congregations) that doesn't mean that effective ministry is going on,” Davis said. “Effective ministry is what the struggle of rural churches is all about.”

Closing a church is considered a final option when no other exist.

“We're committed, if there's a church, to providing leadership,” said the Rev. Jill Sanders, field outreach minister for the Iowa Annual Conference United Methodist Church. “We've tried to come up with some models like what Jim is using, with a lay leader.”

Davis' five churches alternate the Sundays Communion is offered, making sure it's a day he is at the altar.

Sanders said decisions to close a building aren't done arbitrarily. “But we go in and see how this community has changed, how has the church changed and can we adjust our ministry and build relationships with the people who are here,” she said.

Reaching out to the community at large is an obvious option, Sanders said. “For a lot of churches, though, it's been too long since they followed that route,” she said.

The congregation at Oak Grove Church north of Shellsburg was losing members when church leaders, along with their pastor, the Rev. Larry Rodgers, began to reach out to younger members and focus on youth programs. At that time, in the late 1990s, about 40 people were in church on Sunday morning.

Now, Rodgers said, about 230 are in service and the congregation is getting ready to add a second service.

“If you're a rural church that wants to grow, change must really be the hallmark of what you're doing,” Rodgers said.

Sanders said she and other leaders are conflicted when a church closes.

“The tension that I often feel is that I really believe there's no shame in living the life cycle and there's no shame in dying, there's no shame in church closure,” she said. “But at the same time I believe in resurrection. If a church can sustain itself, how do we feel about missional outposts?”

That, she said, is the challenge for churches across the rural landscape.