Micropolitan Areas Archives - Christian Standard

Articles for tag: Micropolitan Areas

September 22, 2017

Rural Church Planting: A Conversation with Pastor Jerry Harris

By David Dummitt Last month I had the opportunity to speak with Eric Metcalf in Chicago about the unique opportunities and challenges of urban church planting. But across America, millions of people live outside of metropolitan areas, and so I wanted to explore similar questions from a rural perspective. As I considered who could speak candidly and with authority on the subject of rural church planting, Jerry Harris, senior pastor of The Crossing, a multisite church located in three states across the Midwest, immediately came to mind.Â Jerry, how do you measure the health and success of a rural

September 14, 2017

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry

A Salute to Small Towns, Rural Areas, and Micropolitan Communities (Our Attempt at a Glossary of Terms)

By Kent Fillinger and Jim Nieman This issue of Christian Standard focuses on ministry in the lesser-populated regions of our country, but defining terms associated with our nation”s nonmetropolitan areas is surprisingly difficult. For instance, a town of fewer than 2,500 with a singularly dense pocket of population has what the U.S. Census Bureau classifies as an urban component. And a metropolitan county””defined as an urbanized area by the Census Bureau when 50,000 or more people live there””usually has at least one rural section. In 2010, in fact, only 29 counties in the United States were completely urban. By contrast,