Faith in Rural Communities

Our Vision

Faith in Rural Communities is a Rural Center initiative that helps rural churches transform their communities. We not only believe that churches already possess the neccessary tools to help their communities to thrive and prosper, we've also seen it happen.

Our programmatic mission is to build socially dynamic and economically vibrant rural faith communities across every town and crossroads in North Carolina.

Through partnership with The Duke Endowment and the Lilly Endowment, Faith in Rural Communities has served over 100 churches from the mountains to the sea of North Carolina and awarded over $1 million in funding since 2018.

You can get to know our programs — Connect Church, Community Connect, the Good Neighbor Experiment, and the Summer Literacy Initiative — below and also meet a few churches we've served and learn how our faith communities are changing the lives of those around them.

Pews in a historic church in the Netherlands

Stepping Out in Faith

"We believe that rural churches and people are the experts in their community. Our program allows churches to use their expertise to tackle challenges facing rural North Carolina."
Dr. Heather Kilbourne, Director of Faith in Rural Communities

Connect Church

Connect Church increases community engagement through coaching, resources, and grant assistance. Participating churches create a team of six to 10 church members who are ready to lead their church’s local missional engagement.

These teams meet monthly with a Rural Center coach for one year. The program helps the church define its resources, understand trends and opportunities in the larger community, and develop a strategic plan for increasing impact outside of the church walls.

Through Connect Church, we locate the powerful intersection between church assets and community opportunities.

The Rural Center offers Connect Church through three paths:

Leads and delivers the program in North Carolina to about 20 churches annually
Trains and supports selected hub partners across the nation to launch and sustain local versions of Connect Church
Developing a virtual curriculum to ensure remote rural churches throughout the country receive the same high-level Connect Church training as those in our in-person programs

Applications for the 2027 cohort of North Carolina churches open July 1.

For more information about Connect Church in North Carolina, contact Hamid Kamara at hkamara@ncruralcenter.org.

For more information about our Connect Church hub partners or our virtual program, which both work with faith-based organizations outside of North Carolina, contact Darren Crotts at dcrotts@ncruralcenter.org.

What Connect Church Offers

Monthly coaching for a team of church leaders
Assistance in understanding community and church assets
Networking with other churches asking the same questions
Executive Certificate for Religious Fundraising
A grant up to $10,000 for eligible churches to launch a new or expanded missional engagement project

MUMC_09202025-48 — The Sanford Circuit charge created a program designed to connect teens and senior citizens that included workshops, field trips, and a celebratory prom.

Community Connect

Community Connect is an 18-month program for churches with the desire and capacity to make an even greater impact on their community. Churches invited to this program identify a need in their community and then form a team of leaders across a broad range of sectors (government, local nonprofits, school board, churches, etc.) to address that need.

The team will receive training in collaborative leadership as well as asset-based community development and on-going coaching as they develop a project and work to implement it.

If you have any questions about this program, contact Andrew Hudgins at ahudgins@ncruralcenter.org.

Good Neighbor Experiment

The Good Neighbor Experiment is the result of a partnership with The Neighboring Movement in Wichita, Kansas. It is a four-month learning cohort that takes Jesus' call to love your neighbors literally and seriously. It is designed to help congregations move from inauthenticity to joy, draining program management to relationships, and scarcity to abundance using the tools of asset-based community development.

The program includes:

Four weeks of worship service resources (scripture and hymn recommendations, sermon outlines, children's moment illustrations, and more)
Fifteen weeks of small group study with practical applications to help the members of your church get to know their neighbors better
Monthly coaching with a trained coach while in the program, with access to additional support once you complete the program
Invitation to two in-person events with other churches from across the state also participating in the cohort

Black Man scoops food from buffet at a church hospitality dinner.

Summer Literacy Initiative

The Summer Literacy Initiative is a statewide collaborative effort working with rural faith communities in North Carolina to combat learning loss in their communities through evidence-informed summer literacy programs for rising first through third graders.

Kids receive reading instruction at Central United Methodist Church — Participants in the Summer Literacy Initiative program and Central United Methodist Church in Albemarle.

Celebrating the opening of the Wilson Read & Grow Community Garden

The opening day celebration at the Wilson Read & Grow garden.

IMPACT STORY

Stronger Together in Service

Joy. Hope. Possibility. That’s what Rev. H. Maurice Barnes, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in Wilson, feels as he watches children harvest cucumbers and play among the raised garden beds outside his church. Seeds are being sown in that soil, growing all manner of produce. But, for Barnes, something far deeper than those cucumber plants is taking root.

The garden at his church is the beginning of a much bigger community effort called Wilson Read & Grow. The collaborative project with five churches in downtown Wilson was designed for local students in elementary and middle school, aims to address hunger, boost literacy rates, and teach entrepreneurial skills.

“In this moment, in this season that we find ourselves, we have to use our voices. We’ve got to speak loud, and we’ve got to find a way to bring our strengths.”
Rev. H. Maurice Barnes, Calvary Presbyterian Church