In a small North Carolina town, one pastor’s unique journey is proving that revitalization is still possible.
GATESVILLE, N.C. — In towns across rural America, churches aren’t just places of worship. They’re the heartbeat of the community. However, that pulse is fading as thousands close nationwide.
Nationally, as many as 15,000 churches could close this year alone, with the National Council of Churches estimating 100,000 closures in the coming years. Mainline Protestant and Catholic parishes are being hit hardest.
In Gates County, North Carolina, several churches have closed their doors. Yet one congregation seems to be opening its doors wider, finding revitalization while many suffer.
“We’re in a small town, everybody knows everybody — you live in a fishbowl if you are a pastor here,” said Pastor Eric Earhart of The Upper Room Assembly.
Gatesville has a population of 250 people and sits just south of the Virginia line. Roughly half of its residents attend The Upper Room, an Assemblies of God church on the edge of town.
A short drive through Gates County reveals a landscape of faith in transition as several have closed up altogether, while several dozen are waiting to finalize their decision.
“Probably five on paper that are open, have closed, and there’s a couple that have just literally closed and shuttered their doors,” Earhart said.
While restored sanctuaries and shining stained glass may look like revival from the outside, across parts of rural America, appearances can be deceiving.
“The caretaker group will care for this building — they’ll keep the grass cut and make sure the roof is fixed,” Earhart said, describing the fate of many closed churches. “So, it’ll be an edifice, it’s a museum to something that Jesus did generations ago.”
This quiet shuttering of sanctuaries is a phenomenon that Thom Rainer has seen accelerating nationwide. As the founder and CEO of Church Answers and an author of more than 40 books on church health, he has become a leading voice on congregational decline. After nearly four decades of consulting, his data points to a catastrophic milestone.
“Based upon the best data I have, 2025 may be a year where we might see what I think will be the most churches closed in any one year,” said Thom Rainer, CEO of Church Answers.
Rainer has helped churches on the brink for nearly 40 years.
“We at Church Answers cannot keep up with the number of consultation requests for revitalization,” Rainer said. “We can send resources, but for those who want us there at the church to look at it, we cannot keep up with it. That’s telling me that these churches know there’s a problem, more than ever.”
Rainer, an early leader in church revitalization, created The Hope Initiative, a model used across denominations to restore struggling congregations. He sees two critical warning signs that led to this year’s tidal wave of closures.
“Once you see a church that has no evangelistic intentionality, no gospel, along with a self-serving motive; you can pretty much guarantee that a church is in a decline, perhaps near death or dead,” Rainer explained. “We call the category of near-death ‘moribund.’ It’s a weird name, it just means really, really sick.”
Inside The Upper Room, however, it’s a different story. The pastor’s own journey serves as a testament to the possibility of renewal.
“Think about this — I met Jesus in prison, so something we call the church, I had never seen before,” Earhart said. “My church was in a cell block with four or five other believers and the Word of God.”
In the late 1990s, before Christ entered his life, Eric Earhart spent four years behind bars for drug distribution. That’s where he says God gave him a vision to open a church.
“We ended up launching this church, I’m the founding pastor, and we’re three miles from the prison camp that I was released from,” Earhart said.
In following an Assemblies of God revitalization model, Pastor Earhart represents what churches can achieve when they follow where God is leading them.
“Revitalization is predicated on lowering the barriers to entrance,” Earhart said.
He emphasized the importance of congregations developing “hearts that become tender to the fact that right outside those doors, there are people desperate for hope. That they’re desperate for Christ and they’ve never even heard his name before.”
While thousands of America’s churches are closing, Pastor Earhart believes that by lowering barriers and reaching beyond church walls, faith can still transform a community, even in a town of just 250 people.
