Listening: Stories of Faith & Community

By K Scarry

Last summer we began hosting a series of story circles in rural places across the country, inviting community leaders to wonder out loud with us: how has your community impacted your faith, or your faith impacted your community? 

We listened as leaders shared stories of starting Habitat for Humanity in their communities. Or stories of when they organized multiple churches (who otherwise wouldn’t want to work together) to collaborate and respond when half their town was cut off from food because of flooding. They’ve started companies to be able to hire folks who had previously made their money selling drugs, they spend every monday in the local jail, visiting with folks. They ask the local principal to connect them to the 10 kids at the school who they think are least likely to graduate, and they double down and invest in those kids – sticking with them every day. They see that their community struggles with literacy and they dive head first into finding a way to tackle that, undaunted. They have had funding cuts for social services and found ways to stand in the gap.

We listened as they shared stories of real joy, hope, and possibility -- and stories of real sorrow, grief, loss. When we were debriefing the experience of sitting with all of these communities, my co-facilitator, Ben, said something along the lines of: You know, faith makes people do stuff that others wouldn't.

I'm K Scarry, and I have the joy of working with Rural Strategies + the community in Waynesburg on the Rural Faith initiative. This initiative is elevating how rural faith communities can bring people together, serve as anchors in small towns, and to help drive solutions for their community's biggest challenges. There are many reasons that people show up to do good work and to take care of one another in their communities. In this initiative, we’re specifically looking at the role of faith in that work, exploring the challenges but also asking what could be possible. What if we gather key faith leaders to work collaboratively, believing in the ways that there is, indeed, abundance in our collaborating towards a better future for all of us?

We'll spend the next 4 years in deep storytelling and facilitation work alongside Waynesburg, Pennsylvania and Letcher County, Kentucky, and we are so excited for the chance to start to introduce that work to you live, today. We hope you'll follow along as this work unfolds. Without further ado, it's my delight to introduce a video we made to show you a bit about who Waynesburg is, what good work they're already up to, and what's possible here in the coming years!