Pulling Together
Collaboration Supports New Life for Sacred Places in Transition
By Dana Dabek
Director of Community Engagement
In the rural community of Reardan, Washington, a hamlet about 30 minutes from Spokane, the congregation at First Presbyterian Church struggled with how to transform underutilized space in its building into a home for a vital program benefiting the community and the church’ s long-term sustainability. At first, in a meeting with Partners for Sacred Places staff, members of the congregation were unsure how to pair its mission with the needs of the community. But during a community conversation, 12 local stakeholders, including members of the school district and city government, gathered in the Fellowship Hall and elucidated the desire for after-school programming in Reardan. There were no such programs in the town, so youth from the nearby middle school and high school would walk past the church to the nearest convenience store, which became their hangout space. After spending the next few months refining the idea in collaboration with the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest and the nonprofit Rooted Good, First Presbyterian Church of Reardan established community partners and transformed its space into a hub for youth in their community.
A first draft of a property mission statement for Onteora Cooperative Parish, the culmination of Property Mission Statement workshops for the " Thriving Cooperative Parish Initiative." Dana Dabek
SACRED PLACES • WINTER 2026 13