Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Called to the coalfields: How an Appalachian church is spurring economic action
Called to the coalfields: How an Appalachian church is spurring economic action
Jul 8, 2025 2:51 AM

Due to a rapidly changing economy and a range of excessive regulations from the federal government, the American coal mining industry is facing serious challenges. For states like West Virginia, the effects are particularly painful, as mining towns munities struggle under a projected 23% decline in related jobs in recent years, leading vast numbers of residents to leave the state altogether.

Yet for Travis Lowe, pastor of Crossroads Church in Bluefield, West Virginia, the severe economic losses and doom-and-gloom forecasts didn’t spell the end of the story. In somepowerful reflections, Lowe draws heavily on Jeremiah 29:7, explaining how God showed him what it meant to be “sent” to his local munity.

“I realized that I had not been called to just pastor, but I had been called to a place: Bluefield,” he writes. “…We thought through what it meant to be ‘sent’ to our town and how we could seek its welfare. Through this cry, we began to minister in ways we had never imagined.”

After meeting with a range of business owners in the church and munity, Lowe realized that the pain and frustration demanded a response. “I sensed a deep-seeded desperation and a fear,” he says. “The economy in our mining town has been in a thirty year decline. They were scared that their life work was crumbling in front of them. I decided to try to help.”

Although many churches would respond by ing alongside their congregants munity in prayer and solidarity, Lowe saw a much bigger role and responsibility. Yes, they were called to mourn alongside those who mourn and point the way to hope, but they were also called to move forward toward in tangible ways toward actual economic transformation.

How might the church spur munity toward a remembrance of their creative capacity, regardless of whatever economic or political circumstances may exist? How might the church help munity move forward, helping to develop new skills, new partnerships, new innovations, or new businesses?

Lowe explains what came next:

I began hosting meetings of business owners in munity. We would meet in the warehouse of one of the businesses, I would teach a business principle with a Gospel message, encourage them to do business with each other, share a meal (that is paid for by the hosting business), and pray for munity. These meetings, which began with just a handful of men from our church, quickly began to grow. munity had a great need for hope and it just so happened that I knew the “God of Hope.” Business began to happen. To date, over half a million dollars’ worth of local business deals have been generated though these meetings. We have found unbelievable favor and influence in munity.

Lowenow talks regularly with roughly 100 business owners from the surrounding area, and has developed a formal network called REBUILD.REVIVE.THRIVE, which he describes as “a local business owner think tank for mon good.” “Empty buildings are (slowly) beginning to fill,” he explains, “metallurgical coal is seeing a (limited) resurgence, and we are playing a part in launching new businesses…In Bluefield’s welfare, we are finding ours. Our church is beginning to sense a renewed purpose and responsibility.”

Rather than responding to their disappointments and displacement by leaving munity altogether, many residents are staying to plant new seeds and new partnerships, creating value in new ways and expanding opportunities. This includes the development of their own Fab Lab, a platform from MIT that seeks to empower entrepreneurs and inventors and train workers in new skills and technologies:

We have chosen to establish a FABLAB, an initiative of MIT, in munity because we have recognized that the people of our area are makers but have only been trained on yesterdays tools. Our FABLAB will begin to train and resource makers to “make” in the modern economy and then turn them lose to create. This will be plished through partnerships with the local middle schools, high schools, and public and private colleges. Thereby giving creative power to those who feel powerless.

We understand that poverty is not just a lack of money, poverty is “shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness,” says Brian Fikkert. Through this initiative, we will be working to increase the quality labor supply (West Virginia is currently last in the nation in this category) and give marketable skills to munity with only 19.6% college attainment. We are also working with Bluefield State College, the nations oldest historically black college, to provide scholarships in engineering to young people who go through our program. But even more importantly we will be restoring dignity, hope, and power to our neighbors.

When es to “living on mission” — a buzzword monly bandied about the church — it can be easy to quickly or only think of humanitarian trips to distant countries or economic development in urban areas, all of which is needed, of course. But Lowe’s story reminds us that the application of that same cultural engagement extends to our munities and economic contexts, wherever they are and whatever they might currently look like — urban or rural, far or near, poor or prosperous.

“This is all happening because we recognize that we have been sent to a place and are prayerfully working to see transformation,” Lowe concludes. “…The road is still long and the way will not be easy but we have been sent here and are here to stay.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Ecumenical Witness or Ecumenical Tyranny?
Robert Joustra, writing on the website of the Canadian think tank Cardus, has published a thoughtful review of Jordan Ballor’s Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness. The reviewer understands that when, … controversial social science infiltrates ecclesial confessions, twin dangers promising the integrity of the Gospel, and splitting the church on political and economic issues. Ecumenical superstructures claiming to speak with ecclesial authority on technical matters worry me, even when technical experts are enlisted. The point...
Samuel Gregg: Europe’s Broken Economies
Acton’s Research Director in the American Spectator: Europe’s Broken Economies By Samuel Gregg During September this year, much of Europe descended into mild chaos. Millions of Spaniards and French went on strike (following, of course, their return from six weeks vacation) against austerity measures introduced by their governments. Across the continent, there are deepening concerns about possible sovereign-debt defaults, stubbornly-high unemployment, Ireland’s renewed banking woes, and the resurgence of right-wing populist parties (often peddling left-wing economic ideas). Indeed, the palpable...
Mere Comments: The Neo-Anabaptist Temptation
Today at Mere Comments I highlight what I’m calling the “Neo-Anabaptist temptation.” Check it out. ...
Trailer: Doing the Right Thing
The Colson Center for Christian Worldview is preparing to release a new study DVD this fall titled, Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Exploration of Ethics. The DVD is designed as a resource for small-group studies and features leading thinkers who explore the need for ethical behavior in the marketplace, public square, political life and other areas. Hosts Brit Hume, Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George and a distinguished panel — including Acton’s Rev. Robert Sirico and Michael Miller — undertake...
German Freedom and the Danger of Socialism
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I remember German reunification and reflect on its relevance for the present. Twenty years ago this Sunday, East and West Germany reunited, capping one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern history. Communism in the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites had collapsed; the oppressed nations of Europe rejoined the “free world.” My generation was the last to straddle the two worlds, pre- and post-Soviet Union. When I was in elementary and high school,...
A Federal Tax Receipt
There’s an old saying to the effect: “Show me a man’s checkbook and I’ll show you what’s important to him.” It may not be quite the same as a checkbook, but NPR’s Planet Money passes along what a receipt from the federal government might look like for an average taxpayer (HT): As Third Way, who put together the taxpayer receipt, argues: An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention...
Public Accountability for Public Officials
Via TechDirt: …a judge has tossed out the wiretapping claims pointing out that there was no expectation of privacy out in public. “Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public,” the judge wrote. “When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation.” There’s more here and here on the question of law enforcement and ‘citizen...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: KILL ‘EM ALL
I’ll admit – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Global Warming Consensus Alert because, frankly, any “consensus” that existed was blown apart by the release of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails, which revealed a whole bunch of underhanded activity on the part of scientists promoting the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. What’s the point anymore? The unshakeable climate “consensus” has been shown to be the fraud that it always was, and the catastrophic climate...
Questions on Work and Intellectual Development
Carl Trueman has a lengthy reflection and asks some pertinent and pressing questions on the nature of work and human intellectual development. Recalling his job at a factory as a young man in the 1980s, Trueman writes concerning those who were still at their positions on the line when he had moved on: Their work possessed no intrinsic dignity: it was unskilled, repetitive, poorly paid, and provided no sense of achievement. Yes, it gave them a wage; but not a...
Review: Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers began Witness, the classic account of his time in the American Communist underground, with the declaration: “In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return.” The line was most of all a deep recognition of the power of God to redeem what was once dead. Witness was a landmark account of the evils of Communism but most importantly a description of the bankruptcy of freedom outside of the sacred. “For Chambers, God was always the prime mover in...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved