In 2020, the American church experienced a dramatic wakeup call. For decades the church had been plodding along doing what we'd always done, and then we couldn't. With very little warning, many churches were forced to stop their programs, shut their building doors, and stop worshipping together. Many of those churches never reopened. 

Since then, many churches have reopened and tried to go back to business as usual. But for many others, it seems that things have changed and will never go back. The trajectory of the U.S. church is downward. We've been steadily declining for over 60 years, and the Covid pandemic just accelerated the process. Church attendance, baptisms, and giving are all down. Bible colleges, seminaries, and church camps are closing around the country. Every year, thousands of churches are closing their doors.  This isn't the time to give up, but it is the time to change our tactics. 

After serving for 17 years at a church plant in Oregon, Erik and Laura Neilson recruited three other families to start a church-planting adventure in Idaho. The goal was to start a church that would become the catalyst of a new church-planting network. Four years later, the Small Town Network was born. 

STN is focused on starting new churches in smaller communities with bi-vocational pastors. We provide training and coaching for new and established churches. If that interests you, please contact us using this link.