Church of Small Miracles

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Get to know the people in your church and find out what their real needs are—food, clothing or maybe just a smile and a hug.

When Pastor Danny Dunlap talks about how his church is remodeling its “outside” bathroom, he’s quick to explain with a laugh that it’s actually an inside facility with an outside door. He knows the misconceptions that come with a rural Arkansas address.

But while this 126-year-old church might have given up outhouses and hitching posts many years ago, it remains a small congregation. In fact, when Dunlap and wife Carrie arrived to pastor the 75-seat church in 2011, attendance had fallen to six or seven per Sunday. Now that’s up to 24.

“If everyone were here at the same time, we’d have a pretty good group, but some miss here and there, and so the number fluctuates,” Dunlap says. “Even though our numbers have increased 400 percent, that’s still not a huge amount of people, but we are back to holding our own financially.” Keep reading