The Center for Rural Strategies is currently engaged in a multi-year project to document the novel and long-established ways rural congregations serve their communities.
Through audio storytelling, documentary work, and written stories, Rural Strategies aims to show how rural faith communities can bring people together, serve as anchors in small towns and the countryside, and help drive solutions for rural America’s biggest challenges. The project also aims to convene faith leaders and their congregations — to listen, to learn, and to support relationships within and across communities.
Leveraging its core programs, the Daily Yonder and Rural Assembly, Rural Strategies seeks not just to document how faith congregations can help rural communities but also serve as a connection point for people across the country.
This project is supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, made through its Ministry in Rural Areas and Small Towns Initiative, a national effort to help churches in rural areas and small towns enhance the vitality of their ministries and strengthen the leadership of the pastors and lay leaders who guide them. The Center for Rural Strategies is one of 20 organizations from across the United States receiving grants through the initiative, including colleges and universities, denominational agencies, church networks, and parachurch organizations, among others.
