In a small rural town, Latter-day Saints and Methodists share a church. The arrangement keeps it from closing

COLEBROOK, N.H. — Along a quiet residential road leading into the center of Colebrook, a rural New Hampshire town of about 2,000 people, two signs adorn a lawn in front of a spare white church with two dark green towers.

“Trinity United Methodist Church” says one sign, noting that Sunday worship begins at 10:30 a.m. Across a paved walkway, a smaller sign announces that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints service starts at 1 p.m.

The two faith groups worship separately, but for 15 years, they’ve been sharing a home — a historic Methodist church built in 1870.

By renting space from the Methodists, Latter-day Saints from Colebrook and the surrounding area can worship closer to home without driving to the closest chapel in Randolph, a town 60 miles away. For the Methodists, welcoming the Latter-day Saints into their building offered a necessary financial boost. The congregation that’s been aging and dwindling in size now has the funds to pay for heat during biting New England winters and can make the necessary repairs to keep the building safe and up to code.

While the arrangement was born out of need, the shared stewardship of the church spurred a unique partnership, and even a friendship, between the two congregations. Many of the members didn’t know much about the others’ faith before they started worshiping in the same building. As both congregations have declined in size over the years and struggled growing, sharing a church has become a way to sustain each other and stave off yet another church from closing its doors in a state that ranks the highest nationwide for people who seldom or never attend church, according to Pew Research Center . The population claiming to rarely or never attend church in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine — all ranging between 66 and 75% — is much higher than the national average of 46%, according to this year’s Axios analysis .

Earlier this year, Gallup found that only about 20% of people in the U.S. report weekly church attendance—Latter-day Saints a notable exception, with two-thirds saying they attend a service each week.

In Colebrook, New Hampshire, there are five churches and all are struggling, according to Sylvia Goodrum, a member of the Methodist congregation and a longtime resident of the town. “None of us have big congregations, but none of us want to give up our church,” she told me.

It’s not uncommon for faith groups to share a building with another denomination or local community groups. For instance, in Manhattan, the evangelical Rock Church hosts a Reformed Baptist congregation, a collaboration that allows the evangelical church to relieve its high rent costs. In Ramona, California, a United Methodist church announced plans to rent its space to the Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church. Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, Vermont is sharing its building with Muslims, Buddhists and Jews, as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous group and yoga practitioners. And during the renovations of a Latter-day Saint temple in New York City, the West End Collegiate Church will temporarily host the Latter-day Saint congregation.

In rural communities especially, these collaborations can offer sustainable solutions that allow churches to remain open when they otherwise might have to shut down . “The churches are the public gathering places in many rural communities,” said Rochelle Stackhouse, senior director of programs at Partners for Sacred Places, a nonprofit that helps communities use and maintain historic houses of worship. “That’s why when a rural church closes, the impact on the community is even greater than in an urban church.”

Dwindling congregations

In the early 20th century, the Methodist congregation in Colebrook was thriving. As automobiles became more widely used, Methodists came from the countryside into Colebrook and in 1908, an addition was built onto an 1870 church to accommodate a growing congregation. During its peak, around in the 1940s and 1950s, nearly 200 people filled the church on Sunday, according to Arnold Goodrum, who is part of the Colebrook Historical Society and Sylvia Goodrum’s husband.

The church had a Methodist Youth fellowship, which then had more than a hundred people and was active until 2000. “One family would take up one pew,” Arnold Goodrum told me.

Today, the Methodist congregation no longer has the same vibrancy. The pastor is responsible for seven churches and the parishioners sometimes get the sermons via broadcast. Officially, there are about 50 members, but only about 20 come on Sunday — if nobody is sick. The youngest member is in their 50s and most members are women in their 80s, Goodrum told me.

The Latter-day Saints’ group is slightly bigger — around 40 people on Sundays — in part because of all the children and a few youths.

On a recent weekday morning, Goodrum and three other women gathered inside the Methodist church to walk laps around the pews, away from the heat and the sun. One woman has been a member of the Methodist congregation since she was 8 years old. “It feels like home,” she told me. Two other women were Catholic, but joined in for the weekly routine.

The church makes for a stunning location for exercise. Colorful panels of stained-glass windows commemorate various social and service organizations: the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, The Knights of Pythias and the Colebrook Grange, an agricultural community organization. The original organ, made by Vermont’s Estey Organ Company, is nestled into an opening in the chancel area, framed by a wooden arch. A rose-colored window glows over the altar area.

There are also signs of the Latter-day Saints’ worship: the green Latter-Day Saint hymnal sits next to the Methodist one in the rack in the pews. A community news board features an ad for the FlexGE program at Brigham Young University, a program that allows nonadmitted students to earn university credit.

‘These people are our neighbors’

Goodrum played a key role in facilitating the lease of the Methodist church. She was the trustee chair of the Methodist church 15 years ago, a role that oversees the use of the buildings. So when the Latter-day Saints approached the Methodists, looking for a place to meet, she signed the contract to lease the building.

Back then, not everyone in the Methodist congregation supported the decision. “Some people didn’t like it when I signed the contract with them,” Goodrum told me. But she’d known Latter-day Saints for years; some were her neighbors. “I said: ‘I don’t think there is a problem,’” Goodrum recalled. “They were looking for a space, they weren’t trying to convert us.”

Her husband Arnold shared her thinking. “These people are our neighbors — they’re people we know,” Arnold told me. “It would be turning your back on people who were your neighbors.”

The money the Methodists received from the lease was helpful, too. With the funds from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they reshingled the steeple, repaved the parking lot and heated the building in winter, which can cost up to $8,000 per season. “They have certainly helped us survive and pay our bills,” Arnold said.

A steady warming

Bob Ferrini, 86, a Latter-day Saint who lives in Colebrook, was the branch president when the two congregations started sharing the church, and recalled the initial skepticism from the Methodists about the new arrangement. “It was difficult at first,” said Ferrini, who grew up Baptist and converted to the church in his 30s. “It’s not that they didn’t like us — they didn’t know what we were all about.”

But over the years, as the two groups intermingled more and overlapped during various activities, the preconceived notions seemed to ebb away. For a time, Latter-day Saint missionaries helped serve meals for the community, although the tradition has died down since the COVID-19 pandemic. Goodrum said she occasionally saw Latter-day Saints at the Methodist service, and in winter, they all pitch in to shovel snow. “We’re friendly now,” she said.

Ferrini echoed the warmth between the two groups. “They took us for what we were and lived with us,” Ferrini told me. “Now, they like us.”

Dan Skousen, who is one of the leaders in the Latter-day Saint congregation and owns a phone and electronics store down the street from the Methodist church, told me that by sharing a building, they feel more part of the community with other religious groups in town. Before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints secured the space within the Methodist church, the branch met in his living room.

It’s up in the air where the branch is going to meet long term, he told me. The youth group is small, and many young adults tend to move out of town. “We have a difficulty growing,” said Skousen, who is from Arizona. All of his 11 children left Colebrook and scattered throughout the states: Utah, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas. “There aren’t a lot of economic opportunities here,” he said.

Partnering with local community organizations to maximize the use of the church building for the arts or a healthcare clinic can also help sustain churches on the brink of closing, said Stackhouse from Partners for Sacred Places. “Church buildings and synagogues are really civic spaces, and they have civic value,” she said.

I asked Ferrini if worshipping in the Methodist church, which has a more ornate interior than a typical Latter-day Saint chapel, feels different. “We’re mostly listening, we’re not looking around,” he said. “As long as you’ve got a seat and as long as you’re with other members there, it’s like our church.”

Goodrum recited the Methodist church’s motto to me — “ Open hearts, open minds, open doors .” She continued: “So if that’s what you believe — what are you going to do?”