COLEBROOK, NH — On a quiet residential street 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 simple white church with two dark green steeples.

“Trinity United Methodist Church” reads a sign, indicating that Sunday services begin at 10:30 a.m. On the other side of a paved walkway, a smaller sign announces that services for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints begin at 1 p.m.

The two faith groups hold separate services, but have shared a common home for 15 years – 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 having to drive to the nearest chapel in Randolph, a town 60 miles away. For the Methodists, welcoming the Latter-day Saints into their building was a needed financial boost. The congregation, which was aging and shrinking, now has the means to pay for heat during the biting New England winters and can make the necessary repairs to keep the building safe and up to code.

While this arrangement was born out of necessity, the shared management of the church led to a unique partnership and even friendship between the two congregations. Many of the members didn’t know much about each other’s beliefs before they began worshiping in the same building. As both congregations have shrunk over the years and struggled to grow, the shared church has become a way to support each other and prevent yet another church from closing its doors in a state that has the highest percentage of people in the nation who rarely or never attend church, according to the Pew Research Center. The percentage of the population who say they rarely or never attend church in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine — all 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 percent of Americans attend church weekly. A notable exception is Latter-day Saints: two-thirds of them say they attend a service every week.

There are five churches in Colebrook, New Hampshire, and all of them are struggling, says Sylvia Goodrum, a member of the Methodist congregation and longtime resident of the town. “None of us have large congregations, but none of us want to give up our churches,” she told me.

It is not uncommon for religious communities to share a building with another denomination or local community groups. For example, the evangelical Rock Church in Manhattan is home to a Reformed Baptist congregation. This collaboration allows the evangelical church to reduce its high rental costs. In Ramona, California, a United Methodist church announced that it would rent its premises to the Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church. The Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, Vermont, shares its building with Muslims, Buddhists and Jews, as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous group and yoga practitioners. And while a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York City is renovated, the West End Collegiate Church will temporarily house the Latter-day Saint congregation.

Especially in rural communities, these collaborations can provide sustainable solutions that enable churches to remain open when they might otherwise have to close.. “In many rural communities, churches are the public gathering places,” says Rochelle Stackhouse, program director at Partners for Sacred Places, a nonprofit that helps communities use and preserve historic places of worship. “So when a rural church closes, the impact on the community is even greater than it would be if an urban church were to close.”

Dwindling communities

In the early 20th century, the Methodist community in Colebrook flourished. As automobiles became more common, rural Methodists came to Colebrook, and in 1908 an addition was added to an 1870 church to accommodate the growing congregation. At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, nearly 200 people filled the church on Sundays, according to Arnold Goodrum, a member of the Colebrook Historical Society and Sylvia Goodrum’s husband.

The church had a Methodist youth group that numbered over a hundred members at the time and was active until 2000. “One family occupied a pew,” Arnold Goodrum told me.

Today, the Methodist congregation is not as vibrant. The pastor is in charge of seven churches, and parishioners sometimes hear the sermons on the radio. Officially, there are about 50 members, but only about 20 come on Sundays — if no one is sick. The youngest member is in his 50s, and most of the members are women in their 80s, Goodrum told me.

The Latter-day Saint group is somewhat larger—about 40 people on Sundays—partly because of the large number of children and some teenagers.

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

The church is a wonderful place for exercise. Colorful stained glass windows commemorate various social and charitable organizations: the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Colebrook Grange, a community agricultural organization. The original organ, made by the Estey Organ Company of Vermont, is housed in an opening in the chancel, framed by a wooden arch. A pink window glows above the chancel area.

There are also signs of Latter-day Saint worship: The green Latter-day Saint hymnal sits next to the Methodist one on the stand in the pews. A congregational message board features an advertisement for Brigham Young University’s FlexGE program, a program that allows inadmissible students to earn college credit.

“These people are our neighbors”

Goodrum played a key role in arranging the lease of the Methodist Church. Fifteen years ago, she served as chair of the Methodist Church’s board of trustees, which was responsible for the use of the building. When the Latter-day Saints approached the Methodists looking for a meeting place, she signed the lease on the building.

At the time, not everyone in the Methodist community supported the decision. “Some people didn’t like it when I signed the contract with them,” Goodrum told me. But she had known the church members for years; some were her neighbors. “I said, ‘I don’t think there’s a problem,'” Goodrum recalled. “They were looking for a place, not trying to convert us.”

Her husband Arnold was of the same opinion. “These people are our neighbors – we know them,” said Arnold. “That would mean turning your back on the people who are your neighbors.”

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

A steady warming

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

But over the years, as the two groups became more intermingled and overlapped in various activities, the preconceived notions seemed to fade. For a time, missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped serve food to the congregation, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, that tradition has waned. Goodrum said she occasionally saw members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Methodist services, and in the winter they all pitched in to shovel snow. “Now we’re friends,” she said.

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

Dan Skousen, a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and owner of a phone and electronics store on the street from the Methodist church, told me that sharing a building makes them 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 in the Methodist church, the group met in his living room.

It’s still unclear where the group will meet long-term, he told me. The youth group is small and many young adults are moving out of town. “We’re having trouble growing,” said Skousen, who is from Arizona. All of his 11 children left Colebrook and lived in the states: Utah, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas. “There aren’t many economic opportunities here,” he said.

Partnering with local community organizations to maximize the use of the church building for art or a health clinic can also help sustain churches on the brink of closure, said Stackhouse of Partners for Sacred Places. “Church buildings and synagogues are truly public spaces and have societal value,” she said.

I asked Ferrini if ​​worship felt different at the Methodist church, whose interior is more ornate than a typical chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “We mostly listen, we don’t look around,” he said. “As long as you have a seat and are with other members, it’s like our church.”

Goodrum recited to me the Methodist motto: “Open hearts, open minds, open doors.” She continued, “So if you believe that, what will you do?”