As long as there are people in rural communities not being reached by the gospel, we need to revitalize and plant healthy gospel-centered churches there. It takes gospel partnerships and some bold new thinking to do it well.

Do we really need more churches in rural America? When I first moved to the States from the UK, I remember being struck by the number of church buildings scattered across rural highways. The saying “church on every street corner” is not far from the truth in some towns.

Few people question the legitimacy of church planting in major cities. Yet more than 62 million people live in rural America. Pockets of the unchurched and dechurched are scattered throughout rural communities and small towns. And the most effective means of reaching them is church planting. We must plant churches, then, both in metropolitan America and in small-town America.

Small-town churches need a vision for planting churches. Let me share two different examples of small-town church planting that I’ve experienced.

1. An Unengaged Community

New Hope is a small community in the heart of Kentucky. It is the home of the Abbey of Gethsemane, an active monastic community. New Hope celebrates its rich Catholic heritage and natural beauty, but it is also blighted by rural poverty, drug use, and alcoholism. It has been a community without gospel witness.

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