The Little White Church Is Empty

Jerry and Wendy Goldsmith’s church is dying. Every Sunday, the congregation in Tipton, Iowa, draws about 30 of the town’s 3,000 residents to its morning service. The building, constructed in the late 19th century, is slowly falling apart. The church doesn’t have enough money to make repairs. Since the pastor retired last June, they’ve had an interim minister. Almost all the congregants are over 60. Their story is a common one. Many rural churches like Cedar Street are suffering a major decline in attendance. Part of the problem is the gradually decreasing population in small towns. But many more traditional country churches also aren’t effectively reaching younger generations and are struggling to fill pulpits. That’s turned rural America into one of the next mission fields ripe for harvest. Next Mission Field Tim Lubinus, executive director of the Baptist Convention of Iowa, has witnessed these religious and demographic changes playing out firsthand. The Iowa town Lubinus grew up in had around 500 residents when he was a teenager. Now, it has about half that number. The town where he attended high school had 1,600 people. It too has shrunk by nearly half. “When you have a 50 percent reduction in population, it’s hard to keep church attendance,” Lubinus pointed out. It’s also difficult to find and keep pastors in these areas. As the expectation for pastoral salaries goes up, the willingness to go to a smaller congregation—and take the often associated pay cut—goes down. In the absence of available clergymen, many churches are forced to rely on temporary solutions to fill their pulpits while they search for a long-term pastor. Rural America is one of the next mission fields ripe for harvest. Oakville, Iowa, has just under 200 residents. When Oakville Christian Church’s pastor retired last winter, 25-year-old Gabe Lockin of Iowa City got a text from his friend and fellow seminary graduate, Justyn Wyatt. Wyatt wanted to know if he’d be interested in starting a preaching rotation while the congregation—which included Wyatt’s grandparents—looked for a pastor. Wyatt and Lockin, along with some other friends, jumped at the chance to practice preaching. On Sunday mornings, they take turns driving over an hour to Oakville. The unassuming white church building holds about eight pews, but they don’t all get filled during services. “It depends on the weather,” Lockin said. “Around 20 to 30 people in the winter, with sketchy roads, and 30 to 40 in the summer.” Lockin described the congregants as sweet, hospitable, and eager. Most are farmers. Every Sunday, someone rattles off old hymns like “Happy the Home When God Is There” on the upright piano as an elder lights the altar candles with a brass lighter. On Mother’s Day, the congregation’s five children pass out flowers to their moms. After each service, people serve coffee and homemade cookies. Lockin wasn’t expecting much when he started preaching there. But soon, he was blown away by how fervently the tiny congregation loves Jesus. The church split from the United Methodist Church in 2023, becoming completely independent to hold to its biblically sound doctrine on the definition of marriage. The decision severed the congregation from its entire network of money and pastors. But even as their numbers dwindle, they’re confident God will provide. Lockin will preach his last sermon there in June. His schedule no longer allows him to make the weekly drive. Oakville has yet to find a full-time pastor. Looking for Hope Deep red, rural Iowa seems like a state that would be highly churched. But according to Ryan Burge, a political scientist who analyzes religious trends in America, it’s not. He said almost three in five Iowans go to church less than once a year. “That’s not a particularly religious state,” Burge said. One grim study estimates that a third of churches in America, about 100,000, will close in the next several years. At the very least, Burge expects tens of thousands of churches to close—many of them rural. While some aging churches pray for revival, other rural communities are planting new churches focused on converting and discipling the next generation. Six years ago, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, eight small-town families started meeting near Urbana, Iowa. They huddled inside a garage, live streaming services from Veritas Church in Cedar Rapids, longing for their own pastor. At the same time, Jordan Howell, a pastor at Veritas, was preparing to plant a congregation with the Salt Network—a church-planting organization prioritizing large university cities. But in February 2024, the Veritas elders decided to help the Urbana families become an autonomous church. There was just one catch—they needed to find a pastor. Howell tagged along for the announcement. After the meeting, someone jokingly told him, “Well, hey, if your church plant doesn’t work out, you could always come to Urbana!” That night, driving down I-380, Howell began to seriously consider the suggestion. Is this crazy? he wondered. But he couldn’t shake the idea or the memory of the little congregation’s need. It’s so biblical, he thought. You have sheep without a shepherd. It’s right in front of my face. Howell reached out to Salt Network executive director Ryan Hill for advice. Hill told him lots of his peers wanted to do national church planting. But few of them expressed an interest in serving rural areas. “I don’t think there are a lot of young men your age who feel called and equipped to do rural church planting,” Hill said. That was it for Howell. In a matter of three weeks, he decided to take the job. Ripe for Harvest In a rented office space in Urbana—every seat filled, with more people standing in the back—the elders announced Howell’s decision. The room, full of people who had waited four years for a pastor, erupted into applause and tears. Howell remembers John Leonard, one of the founding members of Veritas Urbana, leaping out of his seat. “I imagine he cheers like that at most Cyclone football games, but probably not at many church member meetings,” he said, laughing. While some aging churches pray for revival, other rural communities are planting new churches focused on converting and discipling the next generation. Veritas Urbana now draws from 15 surrounding communities and averages 215 attendees on a Sunday morning, not counting children. Howell sees their church as a terminal, gathering people together and sending them out. That’s counterintuitive to a lot of small-town churches focused on preserving their familiar community rather than searching out those who don’t have any church background. Howell’s strategy acknowledges the countryside as the mission field it is. He says that without the grace of God, none of his church’s growth would be possible. He says he watches people who had no interest in church end up in the baptism tank. All because their banker or neighbor started talking to them about Jesus. Even as Veritas Urbana splits at the seam, hundreds of other Iowa parishes like the Goldsmiths’ are still waiting for a shepherd. Jerry Goldsmith is praying for someone to come preach the gospel message. “We’re all supposed to be missionaries,” he said. “We want to bring more people to Christ, but we don’t know how to do that.” Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’ Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it. In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ. TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.