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Oakdale United Methodist Church is located where four Ohio counties meet at the corner of County Road A and County Road 1. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. View in Photo Gallery

Leipsic United Methodist, with stable finances and a healthy endowment, was the natural choice to anchor the parish ministry bolstering smaller churches within its radius. Leipsic pays 70 percent of the salary package for the four clergy, with the remainder divided among the four other congregations based on their attendance. Each church pays for its own operating, mission and building expenses.

Still, there are particulars to work out as the four clergy develop their “one team, one dream” approach to ministry.

The Rev. Bill Patterson, senior pastor of the multi-site parish, is looking at “the big picture,” trying to decide the best way the four pastors can cover five churches and four school districts. “One of the questions people ask is ‘Who is my pastor?’” he says. “Who do you call?’”

Many members of the five churches say the parish model was the right move.

Mel Arthur, 85, the son of a Methodist minister – and Gilboa’s lay leader under at least nine ministers – says he and his fellow congregants have found the multi-church parish “to be a real blessing.”

With four different pastors, “you get a new perspective,” he says. For the small church, the parish model is “about the only thing you can do.”

Hands of Jesus

Oakdale United Methodist Church, set at the crossroads of four Ohio counties, is a beacon in a sea of farm fields. The United Methodist cross and flame is displayed prominently on its white clapboard front, while its white steeple pierces the sky. It is the newest member of the multi-site parish, having joined in 2007.

Jim Burkey sings "I Walk with His Hand in Mine" during worship at Oakdale United Methodist Church near Deshler, Ohio. He is accompanied by Karen LaRue. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. View in Photo Gallery

Yet on a recent Sunday, it is the longest-serving clergy member of the new parish, the Rev. Janet Lewis-Catell, who is the object of their affection.

Standing in front of the altar table, with its cross, Bible, offering plates and candlesticks, church member Jim Burkey dedicates the song, “I Walk with His Hand in Mine” to Pastor Janet’s ongoing struggle with cancer. Lewis-Catell had posted on Facebook that recent test results were not what she had hoped for, but that she would “place her hands in the hands of Jesus.”

As Burkey sings, Lewis-Catell can sense the silent prayers of church members emanating around her. For the pastor, who has received food, prayers and understanding about her need to take time off on tough days from all five congregations, the song is a symbol “of how loving people are and how they’re willing to reach out and embrace you.”

Afterward, Lewis-Catell quickly returns the congregation to the routine of church announcements. When the nine youngsters in the sanctuary are sent downstairs for Sunday school after the children’s sermon, she quips, “I just wish that you guys would come in some day like that – so excited and running.”

The response of faith amid awareness of mortality is ingrained in many rural churches today. Some churches cannot be saved, and new models of ministry often call for consolidation to preserve the church in a particular region.

Here in Northwestern Ohio, Belmore United Methodist Church, one of the original partners in the Leipsic Multi-Site Parish, voted to close its doors in 2006 after the congregation’s lay leader died suddenly.

Corn grows up to the edge of the Sugar Ridge Cemetery outside Leipsic, Ohio. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. View in Photo Gallery

“Many of our smaller membership town and country churches … have not upgraded their facilities,” says the Rev. Roger Grace, executive director of the United Methodist Rural Fellowship. “They’ve kept what they’ve always had. Some of them are very nice, but some of the facilities are becoming liabilities.”

Loving thy neighbor

The Leipsic experiment, building up and stabilizing smaller congregations from the home base of a stable church, is considered a leading model for the future of the rural church.

Elsewhere in the West Ohio Conference, Trinity Church United Methodist Church in Van Wert formed a partnership with the village church in tiny Ohio City, a town of 700 residents seven miles away. An energetic associate pastor from Trinity has taken on the Ohio City congregation, increasing membership from 25 or 30 to more than 100 in less than a year.

In Iowa, the Rev. Ed Kail was assigned 10 years ago to lead a blended parish ministry model founded in 1986. An 1,100-member county-seat church in Humbolt, Iowa, teamed up with a nearby congregation in the village of Rutland, then was joined later by a two-point charge. What is now Faith United Methodist Church has four campuses and six worshipping congregations.

“The blended ministry parish appears to work best where you have a large energy center that provides stability for the others,” says Kail, who is now the field outreach minister for the Iowa Conference’s 15-county Southwest District.

Another option is the “circuit model,” using shared leadership. In one case in Kail’s district, seven rural churches share a lead pastor, one full-time licensed local pastor, one certified lay minister, a lay speaker assigned as employed staff and other lay speakers. “They’re into their third year now, and it appears to be working pretty well,” he says.

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