Christian Standard | August 2017

®

AUGUST 2017

a new lease on life

First Christian Church in Canton, Ohio, comes rushing back

more on Page 20

now more than ever Embracing the DNA that created a movement

more on Page 32

flying higher: THE EASTPOINT STORY

In a state of 1.3 million people, not a single Restoration Movement church met in Maine . . . until God called Scott and Beth Taube to plant a church more on Page 26

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letter FROM THE publisher Jerry Harris Publisher | Christian Standard Media @_jerryharris /jerrydharris

I hope you enjoyed the new look, feel, and content of last month’s Christian Standard. The first issue under new ownership and leadership was placed on the chairs at the NACC and sent to all of our former subscribers (more than 12,000 of them) as well as all of our college presidents and campus-ministry directors. The goal of this new approach is to pull our movement together, being reminded of the great legacy we stand on, while focusing on new and innovative ways to make the greatest impact in our world for Jesus.

Because of these new initiatives, our print run went from 14,500 to 40,000 for July! While that’s incredible for the magazine, the magazine is not what I really care about. My heart’s desire is for this movement to leverage the incredible power that comes from our unity, and I believe that this magazine can be a tool for that purpose.

Many of us may not know that of the 5,300 churches in our movement, only slightly more than 300 report a weekly attendance over 250. That means that 94.3 percent of independent Christian churches average less than that. Instead of wondering how megachurches break the 2,000, 5,000, or 10,000 mark, I want to help empower 1,000 churches to break the 100, 200, 500, or 1,000 barrier. What are the best ideas and practices to help us get there?

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- LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER -

If 1,000 of those smaller churches of 100 grew to 200, the movement would grow by 100,000! Fresh, realistic ideas to make that happen are all around us—we just need a network to share them, start conversations, and build relationships.

Now you’re holding the second issue. As a pastor like many of you, I’m thinking about how to gear up for the fall. On my desk right now are ideas for an upcoming capital campaign to reduce debt and to reach out further than ever before, a monthly elders report in which I’m casting vision, four thank-you cards to fill out, a book I’m using for the present sermon series, my Bible, and a cup of coffee to keep me awake and alert. Sound familiar? There are people to visit, calls to make, sermons to prepare, staff to manage, bills to pay, a family to raise, and a marriage to cherish. It can get overwhelming, and it’s easy for the well to run dry.

I want to read a story that inspires me, that gives me hope, that puts the smell of fresh bread in the air. I want to be introduced to innovative ideas I can relate to, I can afford, and the elders of my church can get excited about. I want to have access to those ministries so I can drill down deeper and learn more. I wonder how Scott Taube would have moved forward without a relationship with Dave Dummitt or Doug Crozier. What are the relationships that I need to move forward? How do I align my church around core values instead of my own personality? What are the best models I can use to take new ground at my church by investing in a future leader?

You can probably see what I’m driving at, so here’s the question: Can Christian Standard deliver that on a regular basis, or is it a one-hit wonder? My pledge to you is to do my best for Christian Standard to continue to provide the very best in innovative ideas, inspirational stories, rock-solid spiritual truth, accessible relationships, and just plain hope as you battle it out in the trenches of ministry. Thanks for putting your trust in us!

Jerry Harris is publisher of Christian Standard and senior pastor at The Crossing, a multisite church located in three states across the Midwest.

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CHRISTIAN STANDARD —

FOUNDED 1866 BY ISAAC ERRETT Devoted to the restoration of New Testament Christianity, its doctrine, its ordinances, and its fruits.

18 TO BE RESTORED: “Not the Only Christians”

by trevor devage

The Staff Jerry Harris, Publisher Michael C. Mack, Editor Jim Nieman, Managing Editor Megan Kempf, Graphic Designer Abby Harris, Photographer Anne Steinbroner, Customer Service

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Subscription Information To order Christian Standard for yourself, your church, or your group, visit christianstandard.com or contact Customer Service. Bulk pricing is available.

a NEW LEASE on LIFE

by ryan rasmussen

CUSTOMER SERVICE

800.543.1353 info@christianstandardmedia.com Volume CLII. Number 8. Christian Standard (ISSN 0009-5656) is published monthly by Christian Standard Media at 16965 Pine Lane, Suite 202, Parker, CO 80134. Periodicals postage paid at Parker, CO, and additional offices.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®.

Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Christian Standard Media, 16965 Pine Lane, Suite 202, Parker, CO 80134. Phone: 800.543.1353.

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This publication is available in microform from UMI; call 800.521.0600.

26 FLYING HIGHER: The Eastpoint Story Not a single Restoration Movement church met in Maine, until God called Scott and Beth Taube to plant a church!

Christian Standard is published by Christian Standard Media, www.christianstandardmedia.com

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Copyright ©2017 by Christian Standard Media E-mail: christianstandard@christianstandardmedia.com Website: www.christianstandard.com

N OW more than EVER

Printed in USA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS —

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IN E V E RY IS SUE 2-3 | L ETTER F R O M THE

PUBL I SHER

Jerry Harris

H I T TING the TARGE T

6-7 | L ETTER F R O M THE

by tom harper

EDI TOR

“

On a spiritual compass, your mission statement is ‘true north’ and the core values are the boundary maps defining how to get you there.

44 LEADING through YOUR CORE VALUES

by l.e. mackenzie

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Michael C. Mack

10-11 | MOVEMENT 4 Key Reasons W hy N et wor k Ch urch Plan t in g I s S ucceeding David Dummitt

12-14 | METRI C S M ediu m-Ch urch I n sigh t s Kent Fillinger

16-17 | CREATI V E Don ’ t Designa te . . .

Release Lead ers!

Chuck Dennie

EVALUATE WISELY!

34-39 | FEATURE AR TI C L E

6 church humanresource leaders share their best!

Flyin g H igh er: T he East poin t St ory Not a single Restoration Movement church met in Maine, until God called Scott and Beth Taube to plant a church!

54 R E J U V E NAT E yo ur M I NI ST RY

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58-61 | HEADL I NES Chris Moon

62-63 | I NTERA C T 64 | COMMUNI O N

MEDI TATI ON

M an of Sor r ow s Jackina Stark

- LETTER FROM THE EDITOR -

letter FROM THE Editor Michael c. Mack Editor | Christian Standard

Some maxims should never be uttered again, especially by Christian leaders.

Like this one: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

I own an old dog, a black Lab named Lainey, and she still is learning new tricks. I figured she was simply smarter than the average dog. My vet, however, told me all older dogs can continue to learn, though it may take more work.

Like Lainey, we as individuals and the body of Christ, regardless of age, have the capability to learn new things, be transformed, and do more of what God created us to do. One of Satan’s oldest tricks is to make us believe we are too old or have too many challenges to accomplish more for God. If the enemy had his way, fear of failure or an obsession with security would keep us from trying anything new.

Let this issue be a reminder: You, the ministry you lead, and your church, regardless of how long you’ve been around or what your past looks like, have a mission, and a finish line is in front of you. So, as Paul reminds us, keep running the race!

Christian Standard is 151 years old, and look at us now! Jerry Harris and I believe God has a vibrant mission and future for this “old dog.” We will continue to capture the power that comes from our unity to provide our churches with innovative and trustworthy ideas and resources for years to come. You’ll see many of those ideas and resources in this issue.

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This month, we feature the story of a turnaround church in Canton, Ohio, that was founded in 1855. Under the leadership of renowned minister P. H. Welshimer, First Christian was at one time considered the largest church in the United States. Yet, as a Canton newspaper put it, the church “has had more ups and downs than a Cedar Point roller coaster” in recent years. Current lead pastor Ryan Rasmussen tells how he and the church have taken several leaps of faith, and he shares the commitments it takes to turn the corner.

We also tell the story of Eastpoint Christian Church in Portland, Maine, a relatively young church that has worked through many challenges and has taken many chances. I think their story will inspire you.

We include articles in this issue to help you and your church prepare for a new ministry season and new opportunities this fall. Our writers show how you can establish, communicate, and lead your church through your core values; how to measure outputs rather than inputs in ministry; how to evaluate staff members wisely; and, as a continuation from last month’s issue, where we are heading as a movement.

My prayer is that this issue will challenge you to do what my old dog can’t do—to look ahead with hope and trust in God: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:18, 19). @michaelcmack @michaelcmack @michaelcmack /AuthorMichaelCMack

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- MOVEMENT -

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4 KEY REASONS

BY DAVID DUMMITT

Why Network Church Planting Is Succeeding

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hurch planting has been a dynamic practice for 20 centuries, with methods and strategies morphing in response to context and culture.

Modern church planting is seeing tremendous success as it shifts from “traditional” to a network church-planting model.

The classic “parachute-drop” model is one of the most common methods we have seen in the last century. In this model, a church planter sets out like a pioneer to launch a church where there is no church. Typically, in this traditional, high-risk model, the church planter sets out with limited resources and few (if any) connections.

In the “mother-daughter” church-planting model that has been popular in recent centuries, an existing church provides the initial leadership and resources (financial and/or people) for a new church. It’s common for the mother church to select as church planter a person who has already bought into the DNA of the mother church.

A third way churches have been engaged in church planting is by supporting regional church-planting organizations. In this model, churches give financially to the regional group, and then the regional group plants new churches. Supporting churches may or may not be personally involved in the plant beyond their regular support to the organization.

As it has throughout history, church-planting methodology is shifting. At present, church planters are stepping away from some of these models and are instead practicing collaborative network church planting. We are seeing tremendous levels of success around the globe as churches work together as teams, rather than planting solo. Network organizations like ARC (The Association of Related Churches), Stadia, NewThing, and others serve as relational frameworks for churches to come to the table and strategically plant more churches together.

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David Dummitt is the lead pastor and planter of 2|42 Community Church, Brighton, Michigan, one of the largest and fastestgrowing churches in the country. He is also on the lead team of NewThing Network, a catalyst for reproducing churches worldwide. /DavidDummitt

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New church plants are influenced by multiple sending churches

The mother church model highly influences the DNA of a new church plant. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is important to remember that a church reproduces what it is, not what a team wants it to be. The mother-church model gives the new church plant both its good and bad DNA. Network church planting allows multiple churches to influence the DNA of a new church plant. A church planter can take on the thriving healthy parts of church partners and leave behind less desirable attributes. Additionally, because church leaders are in relationship with one another, they share best practices, thereby getting better themselves.

Teamwork sharpens every player at the table!

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A larger percentage of money goes directly to a church plant

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Network church planting accelerates reproduction

In my experience, network churches that are relationally involved in a church plant tend to give more money to a new church-planting project than to a more centralized churchplanting organization, which requires more overhead to run.

Network church planting minimizes overhead as each church shoulders some of the load, allowing for a significantly larger percentage of money to go directly to the plant.

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Network church planting allows churches of all sizes and budgets to get involved Some of the more traditional churchplanting models are possible only for larger churches with big budgets.

Network church planting allows all players to join the team, regardless of congregation size or budget. All church leaders have a place at the table to contribute what they can offer. Just as every individual person in a local congregation plays an important role in the local church, every local church has a role to play in church planting!

Planting a new church takes time; sometimes a long time. But church-planting networks allow churches to partner with other churches to shoulder the work of church planting as a team. Shared resources and leadership significantly reduce the burden church planting would have on an individual church and increase the likelihood that the same group of sending churches will plant more churches together. This team mentality accelerates the reproducing process.

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hurch planting is a critical part of Jesus’ mission. As church leaders, it’s our responsibility to get in the game. Network church planting is a highly relational, sustainable method of planting churches that plant more churches. It also allows each one of us to have a place at the church-planting table, no matter the size or budget of the church we lead. Our engagement means furthering the mission of Jesus,  while simultaneously being sharpened, Cstrengthened, - -1 11 1encouraged - - AUG HCRIS TIAN N DAR UST|22001177 by other church leaders.

H RIS T I A NSTA STAN DADR Dand J ULY

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MEDIUM-CHURCH

INSIGHTS

BY KENT FILLINGER

From Abingdon, Virginia, to Woodland Park, Colorado, medium-size churches are a vital part of our annual church survey. Over the last three years, 160 different medium-size churches (average weekly attendance of 250 to 499) from 37 states have participated in our research study.

On average, 93 medium churches have responded each of the last three years. Most recently, 88 medium churches completed the survey. I hope to see the number of medium churches that participate grow in the future!

Here’s a quick statistical overview of the 88 mediumsize churches based on 2016 data. The list of these churches was published in our May issue and is available online.

ATTENDANCE & GROWTH The average attendance for medium-size churches was 351 last year. This was up slightly from the threeyear average attendance of 347.

Medium churches grew a little faster on average than megachurches over the last three years. The average yearly growth rate of medium churches over that time was 2.8 percent compared with 2.7 percent for megachurches. The 2016 average growth rate was 2.1 percent for medium churches.

Sixty-two percent of medium churches grew in 2016— one percentage point better than both megachurches (average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more) and emerging megachurches (average attendance of 1,000 to 1,999).

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The three fastest-growing medium churches last year were Vernal (Utah) Christian Church, which grew 25 percent; Central Christian Church (Portales, New Mexico), 19 percent; and Northwest Christian Church (Acworth, Georgia), 18 percent.

BAPTISM RATIOS Medium-size churches in our survey baptized 1,793 people last year, an average of 21 baptisms per church, or 6 baptisms per 100 people in attendance.

The three-year average baptism ratio for medium churches (6.1) is the lowest of any of the four size categories of churches surveyed.

The medium churches with the best baptism ratios last year were Vernal (Utah) Christian Church, 25.5; Horizon Christian Church (Valrico, Florida), 15.8; and Verve Church (Las Vegas, Nevada), 13.1.

LEAD PASTORS The medium-church lead pastors have been in their positions an average of eight years, the shortest tenure of any of the church categories. By comparison, megachurch lead pastors have served in their churches almost twice as long—an average of 15 years.

It stands to reason, then, that the average mediumchurch lead pastor is younger than his megachurch counterpart, and he is (47.4 years old versus 52.3, respectively).

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medium churches grew by

2.1%

0f medium churches grew in 2016

in 2016

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ medium churches used their funds in incredible ways!

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giving in

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of medium churches met or exceeded budget

35% that’s more than any other segment of churches!

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reported being debt-free

- METRICS comparison, only 22 percent of megachurches have no succession plan.

FINANCES Medium-size churches invested a greater percentage of their budgets on ministry staff last year (48.7 percent) than did churches in the other categories.

This was an anomaly because, historically, medium churches tend to spend the least on staff.

Even with that change, medium churches continued to invest the greatest percentage of their budgets into ministry outside the walls of the church. In 2016, medium churches devoted 14.7 percent of their budgets to local outreach and global mission initiatives.

The giving in two-thirds of medium churches either met or exceeded budget. Total giving at medium churches averaged $525,367 last year, an average of $28.78 per person weekly.

The average medium church was carrying $982,366 of debt, an average of $2,799 per person. However, 35 percent of medium churches reported being debt-free last year, the best of any size church.

LOCATIONS & AGES Each of the last three years, Indiana has had 26 medium-size churches participate in our survey, the most of any state. Ohio had 18 churches reporting in 2016, the second-largest total, followed by California with 13. Sixteen of the 37 states represented in our survey had only one medium church reporting.

Just over half (54 percent) of the medium churches reporting in the most recent survey are located in a small town or rural setting, and only 8 percent are in a new suburb. By comparison, only 16 percent of megachurches have a small town or rural location, while 67 percent are in a suburb.

they planned to stop doing or start doing in 2017.

They were also asked what questions they were asking and what issues they were working through. Here are three trends that caught my eye.

Moving from adult Sunday school to small group discipleship. These churches, and the large churches (average weekly attendance of 500-999), are placing a greater emphasis on discipleship. The major difference is that medium churches are shifting to small groups and away from Sunday school. Only 25 percent of medium churches were using a “small groups only” model for discipleship last year. But 10 churches noted they are planning to either revamp or expand their small groups ministry in 2017.

Balancing the tension between community outreach and congregational care. Medium churches are much like churches of other sizes in stressing a greater desire to connect with their local communities through service. But the unique tension noted for multiple medium-size churches is a simultaneous desire to provide a better level of congregational care to its members. Medium-size churches are the only ones to use words like shepherding and care to describe issues they are wrestling through as a church.

Starting to talk more about the possibility of multisites. The multisite movement has virtually skipped the medium churches so far. Most years, none of the medium churches involved in the study have used a multisite model. In this year’s survey, two medium-size churches reported having more than one geographic location—Momentum Christian Church (Garfield Heights, Ohio) and Reunion Christian Church (Boston, Massachusetts). But four medium churches say they have definite plans to launch a multisite location in 2017, and four more churches say multisites are under consideration for the future. 

Medium churches are the oldest of the churches in our survey. For example, medium-size churches, on average, are 17 years older than megachurches, with average start dates of 1936 versus 1953, respectively.

Kent E. Fillinger serves as president of 3:STRANDS Consulting and director of partnerships with CMF International, Indianapolis, Indiana.

DEVELOPING TRENDS Several trends worth noting emerged from two openended survey questions. Churches were asked what

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/3strandsconsulting

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www.3strandsconsulting.com

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don’t designate . . . release leaders!

BY CHUCK DENNIE

Leadership in worship is not about you.

It’s about the leaders around you. I spent many of my early years as a worship leader learning this lesson the hard way.

I was the front man for a Christian band called By the Tree for about 10 years. In 2005, I felt God calling me to the local church. It’s a calling I have loved! I started leading worship at a church in Oklahoma City called LifeChurch.tv (now Life.Church) about 12 years ago. At that time, about 8,000 people attended every Sunday. I went in as a 27-year-old kid not knowing what I didn’t know. I thought an ethic of hard work was admirable, so I put all I could on my own shoulders and ran as fast as possible. I believed it was noble and that God was pleased. What I didn’t realize is that by tackling so much, I was effectively blocking other people from using their gifts and talents.

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One of the greatest needs in churches today isn’t buildings, resources, or programs— it’s leaders.

- CREATIVE We learn more from our failures than our successes, and man did I learn from this one. It was one of my greatest leadership mistakes, and that is why I want to share it with you.

I learned many things while serving under Craig Groeschel’s leadership at LifeChurch.tv, and one of them was this: Delegation creates followers, but empowering releases leaders.

When I first heard this principle, I quickly realized that my leadership needed to change.

So, if you are a worship leader, let me ask you: How many people around you have you released as leaders? Or do you just delegate tasks each week? We should measure the leadership health in our churches by how many leaders we are developing and releasing.

The past couple of years I’ve been blessed to work with an amazing church in Illinois called The Crossing. I’ve learned lessons from the leadership there, and I’ve also seen successes in the leaders I’m developing. One of those success stories involves a young leader named Kyle. He is a natural leader, and he instinctively raises up teams around him. Kyle understands what other leaders don’t: Leadership is about working yourself out of a job. It’s about putting the next person up. It’s about being bench strong. It’s about developing leaders so they’re ready when the time comes. This is leadership!

I have seen Kyle do this on many occasions, and recently we put him into a higher leadership position because of it. The Crossing has 10 campuses in five states, and Kyle was doing a great job leading worship at one of our locations. A year ago, he tore his ACL, and that kept him off the stage for several weeks in a row.

Something like that usually has a big impact on a church. But Kyle had put together such a great team that no one even knew he was gone.

I know what you’re thinking—as a worship leader you want people to know you’re gone.

You want to feel like, when you’re not there, things will not run smoothly or be as good.

Let’s face it—each one of us wants a pat on the back to recognize we are missed when we are gone. But when we place more emphasis on leadership from the stage, we miss the beauty of leadership offstage.

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Kyle had worked himself out of a job, and I noticed. His campus pastor noticed. We all noticed. One of the greatest needs in churches today isn’t buildings, resources, or programs— it’s leaders. And if leaders are our greatest need, then our greatest contribution to the church and the kingdom of God is to develop and release leaders.

How many times do we see a leader move on to a different organization or get called to another area in the church and no one is ready to take their place? I know God has called us to develop the next generation and to release leaders, and I believe the greatest litmus test for us as leaders is to look around and see how many people’s lives have been influenced by our leadership.

Many of us are afraid to take a risk on a leader.

Maybe it’s because the potential leader doesn’t sing well enough, doesn’t play well enough, or lacks certain knowledge of the culture of our church. But the greatest way to learn is to be in the game. You can instruct players on the bench all you want, but it’s when you release them into the game that they learn the most. Will they make mistakes? Absolutely. Will they fail? Most certainly. That is why you’re there to help guide them through the process.

My challenge to you is to release leaders. Don’t delegate tasks—release leaders. My prayer for you is that in four or five years, if someone were to ask whom you have impacted, multiple people would stand and you would glorify God together.

Leadership is not what you do onstage, it’s what you do offstage. Leadership is about working yourself out of a job. Leadership is about empowering those around you so more ministry occurs and God is glorified. 

Chuck Dennie is an award-winning musician, producer, and director. He was a founding member of By the Tree and worship leader and campus pastor for Life.Church. He serves as creative director with The Crossing, Quincy, Illinois, and lives in Franklin, Tennessee. Chuck can be contacted at info@worship.live. @ChuckDennie - 17 -

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@ChuckDennie

/ChuckDennie

to be restored:

“NOT THE ONLY CHRISTIANS”

BY TREVOR DEVAGE Messy . . . that is part of what I love about the early church. It was full of messy and unlikely people who were chosen to usher in Christ’s message to the world. Open the book of Acts and you’ll notice that these church pioneers shared in all things, cared for one another, added to their number daily, broke bread regularly, and carried the message of hope continually. They were all ordinary and messy men and women just like you and me. And out of this mess, Christ reached the world with his message.

I love the Restoration Movement. I love that it was birthed out of a desire to be more like Christ and less like man. I love it was given life out of an understanding that we are messy men and women who are leading and serving the kingdom of God. And God loves using our restored mess to restore others from their messes and make masterpieces and mosaics of all our lives. I love that an oft-spoken mantra of our movement is, “We are not the only Christians, but Christians only.” And I honestly think this still needs to be restored.

We need to stop seeing ourselves as the only Christians.

I have been around folks who truly believe we who claim to be a part of this movement are right and everyone else is wrong. People of this mind-set have decided we are no longer messy but everyone else is, and that’s a problem. I have met dozens of folks who are not “Restoration pastors” whom I believe will share the same eternity as me. I have met other messy messengers who have a deep desire to help as many people see Jesus as possible.

We in the Restoration Movement will not be the only ones in Heaven. Jesus redeems and restores people from all walks and all denominations. I am not saying we should throw out the essentials of theology, but that if we really want to restore what God intended, we must regain a sense that we are not the only Christians, but Christians only. I thank God daily I get to be a part of leading his beautiful mess—the church.  Trevor DeVage serves as lead pastor with Christ’s Church Mason in Mason, Ohio.

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a new lease on life

FIRST CHRISTIAN CANTON COMES RUSHING BACK

BY RYAN RASMUSSEN

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I must admit, right off the bat, that as a minister, I’m still learning, and the church I lead, First Christian of Canton, Ohio, is a work in progress.

We don’t have the greatest turnaround story of all time, but God has done some incredible things over the past few years, despite our imperfections.

You see, as I write this, I am sitting at my dining room table on a beautiful 82-degree day. The sun is breaking through the blinds as if God himself is stretching the rays of light, pinching one end between his thumb and index finger, and pulling the beams directly into my eyes. You might think to yourself, Dude, close the blinds, but if you understood how rare days like this are in northeast Ohio, you too would gladly welcome an hour of squinting eyes.

Truth is, I’m slightly bitter about this beautiful day. It’s been raining for the past week without much reprieve. That is, until today, Sunday, when the clouds opted to go into hiding and the rain moved to the bench. As one might expect, church attendance was down as people chose to do yard work instead of worship Jesus. In addition, this morning was the running of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Marathon in Canton, so I’m currently trying to lift my spirits after preaching to a room that had the critical mass of a Puddle of Mudd reunion show.

That may seem like an odd place to start when writing an article about our church’s new lease on life, but bear with me.

See, I know how these types of articles often go.

Do these three things and . . . voilà.

Turn your church around with five simple concepts!

If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time, you know it’s not that easy. You know the grind of pastoral work and how it doesn’t take hostages.

On the other side, you also know the joy of sitting in the front row and watching life change before your eyes. You know the feeling of someone finally getting it. That’s when we’re reminded why we grind and stress and lie awake at night. That’s when we’re reminded that it’s all worth it.

The last three years, for me, have been all of that . . . and so much more.

But first, let’s go back. Way back.

A Rich and Roller-Coaster History

I have the honor of pastoring a church with a rich history dating back to the 1800s. At one point, under the leadership of P. H. Welshimer, First Christian was the largest church in the United States, a megachurch before megachurches were a thing.

Over the years the church experienced ups and downs, but in the late ’90s and early 2000s, FCC was thriving again. Pushed to capacity, the church decided to build a modern facility on the outskirts of Canton. FCC bought an 18-hole golf course, converted it to 9 holes, and planted a new building in the remaining space.

Long story short, the church bit off more than it could chew, from a financial standpoint. This burden began to wear on the congregation, and over time, people started to leave. FCC dipped to about 900 people per weekend, which is still a good-size church, but wasn’t enough to contend C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

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with the overwhelming mortgage payments. In 2012, First Christian deeded its $25 million complex back to the lender for $13.6 million, and then leased the building from the company with significantly reduced monthly payments.

This was a seriously trying time for the church. Staff went through multiple waves of layoffs, and morale was suffering. The church’s vision had once been clear and forward-moving, but now the focus was simply to “stay alive.”

Leaps of Faith

When my wife and I came for our interview weekend, the church’s struggles were hard to miss. But I also saw a great upside. Staff members were talented. The hearts of the remaining congregants were pure and good. The eldership consisted of godly men who wanted simply to grow God’s kingdom.

So, my wife and I took a leap of faith. We moved across the country, leaving a church and community in Colorado that we loved dearly, and charted new waters to what Forbes listed as the ninth most miserable city in America. We took a chance on First Christian Church, but I often remind people that First Christian took a chance on us as well. I started in February 2014. I was 31 years old with no lead pastor experience. I had been in Boulder, Colorado, the previous six years, a vastly different culture and spiritual landscape than northeast Ohio. We had no guarantees this new marriage would work, and honestly, First Christian could not afford another change in leadership.

The day I rolled into town, our church had $25,000 in its reserve. To put that into perspective, our weekly budgeted need was $29,000. We were literally a snowed-out Sunday from draining our reserves completely. In addition, most of our staff members were part-time because we couldn’t afford to pay benefits. We were a church on life support.

The first thing I did was conduct a one-on-one meeting with each team member. The fear and exhaustion in their eyes was apparent. “I’m scared I’m going to come in to church one Sunday and there will be chains on the doors,” one staff member shared with me.

Congregants couldn’t believe my wife and I bought a house so quickly.

“Wow,” more than one person said, “you must really have faith that things are going to turn around.”

Call me naïve or ignorant, but when I looked at FCC, I saw potential and opportunity. I was confident God was going to work . . . and he has.

Three years have passed, and I’m in awe of what Jesus has done. We’ve seen our weekly attendance grow from 900 to more than 1,600. Our reserve has gone from $25,000 to more than $800,000. Best of all, we’ve seen 383 people baptized into Jesus over that span.

It’s important to me that you understand I’m not sharing this with you to promote myself.

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I know God wired me for this role, and I have no doubt he called me to FCC. I also know how deeply flawed I am. Just last summer, as our church was inching closer to 1,800 in attendance, I had to step away for a few months to clean up some areas of my life and get healthy. To say the least, it was a momentum killer, but it was necessary. I can also say confidently that it rescued me in ministry.

I mention that because I don’t want to paint an idyllic picture. Yes, God has done an amazing work at FCC, but it hasn’t been an easy work. We’ve experienced ups and downs, and more hills and valleys are yet to come. Yet, I maintain our best days are ahead.

Four Corner-Turning Commitments

Looking back, a few specific convictions helped us turn the corner.

We Decided (Almost) Everything Must Go. Most leaders, when entering an organization, will take a year to assess the culture and challenges ahead before making significant changes. We simply didn’t have that luxury. We weren’t sure we’d be around in 12 months.

We used the phrase “visible change” a lot during that first year. We wanted people to know this wasn’t just another transition in leadership, but a rebirth for our church. We didn’t want to just talk about change, we wanted people to see it.

Some changes were subtle, like switching the order of service, redesigning the weekly programs, and rejuvenating the website. Others were bigger, like overhauling the church’s mission, vision, and values, changing our style of worship, and updating our target demographic.

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It’s fair to say very few things were left untouched. If something didn’t work or have a purpose, we changed it or let it go.

We Created Raving Fans. We worked hard to create raving fans. We wanted our people to be excited about what was happening at First Christian Church. We wanted them to be proud of their church—so proud that they couldn’t help but tell their friends about it.

We worked hard to create experiences that everyone could rally around, even if they didn’t love all the changes. We had baptism celebrations.

Everyone could rally around that. We did a huge community outreach event in the middle of the summer. People got excited about that too. No matter what people thought of the changes we were making, they couldn’t help but cheer for the positive things the church was doing.

We also worked to create a clear, tweetable vision statement: “Jesus for all people.” This statement has become our mantra. Almost every week, in one way or another, I’ll talk about our desire to be a place that’s not just for church people or saved people, but for all people. Addicted or sober. Black or white. Rich or poor. Gay or straight. We want to be a place with arms wide open, allowing individuals, from all walks of life, the opportunity to meet Jesus.

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On any given day, I’ll see #JesusForAllPeople in my news feed on Facebook, on a bumper sticker in the mall parking lot, or on a T-shirt at the grocery store. Our people are proud to say their church is for all people.

We Committed to Excellence. We worked hard to make things good. I try to preach great sermons every Sunday. Our creative arts team works hard to knock it out of the park each week. The same goes for our children’s ministry, guest services, facilities workers, and on and on.

We’re not perfect. We still have work to do in many areas, but this is always a priority for us.

We Stopped Being Afraid. On a wall in my office hangs a quote from John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership : “Major barriers to successful planning are fear of change, ignorance, uncertainty about the future, and lack of imagination.”

That quote reminds me to dream big. Many churches are paralyzed by fear of change and uncertainty about the future. A significant part of my ministry here is working to make sure those barriers have no place at First Christian Church. Fear will not prevent us from pursuing God’s heart.

What We’ve Learned

If you were to sit down with one of our elders, it’s likely he would tell you our dark days were necessary, and while it was gut-wrenchingly painful, God used that season to humble our church.

There was a time we thought a new building would evangelize for us, but God brought us out of that thinking. There was a season when, if we saw a ministry gap, the solution was simply to hire more staff; but these days, God is teaching us to empower our people to serve. In the past, we thought effective ministry required a large budget, but now we know a budget isn’t a requirement at all.

I’m proud to say it was out of that season of hardship that we built one of the strongest disability ministries in the country. It was out of our struggle that we became a church for the broken, abandoned, and marginalized. I am convinced if we hadn’t been through the dark times, we wouldn’t have realized our calling to help people out of theirs.

Looking Ahead

Most recently, we have changed our extension-fund arrangement. We are continuing to lease, but with lower, locked-in monthly payments and significant grant money for repairs to our building. It provides us with greater flexibility and a long runway to solidify our growing ministry, while providing the extension fund with more equity with which to loan money to growing churches.

We have not reached the final chapter of First Christian Church’s story, but I’m proud to be a small part of God’s work here, and I can’t wait to see what he does next!  Ryan Rasmussen serves as lead pastor with First Christian Church, Canton, Ohio, and blogs at www.JesusForAllPeople.com.

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flying

THE EASTP O C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

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Portland, Maine, needed a thriving church. In a state of 1.3 million people, not a single Restoration Movement church met there . . . until God called Scott and Beth Taube to plant a church.

higher:

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t’s sunny but chilly this Sunday morning in Portland, Maine. That’s typical for May. It’s Eastpoint Christian Church’s final week in this facility, their fourth location in 13 years, but such is the case for many church plants, especially in the Northeast.

Each location has had its challenges, but this one has been especially interesting.

It’s a former DHL Express warehouse on the grounds of Portland International Jetport; worship and sermons are regularly interrupted by the roar of jets taking off and landing.

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Churchgoers have overlooked the noise and been thankful for the building, cramming nearly 1,500 people into 15,000 square feet of space that took two years to find. It’s a special, almost surreal day because of the anticipation and excitement of moving into a new permanent home in just a few days.

A God of Unlikely Places The Eastpoint story is great for many reasons, but to really get a feel for it, you must go back more than 13 years and get to know Eastpoint pastor and planter Scott Taube and his wife, Beth. Scott had been serving the Lord in ministry for many years when Dan Clymer invited him to take a trip with Restoration House Ministries to look at opportunities in the Northeast, particularly Portland.

Nothing about Portland drew them there: no history, family, or close friends. On the contrary, starting a church in Portland would require leaving family and friends.

The Taubes were foster parenting and rearing their own children through critical times. They were doing fine in their ministry at Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio.

Portland needed a thriving church. In a city of more than 250,000 people and a state of 1.3 million people, not a single Restoration Movement church met there. But the trip didn’t stir any

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passion in Scott at the time, and so he and his wife went home satisfied they had done their part to pray and investigate the need.

An Unmistakable Sense of Calling After returning to Ohio, Scott was mowing his lawn when he felt God urging him to stop what he was doing to meet with him. Scott shut off the mower and went inside his house to pray. During that prayer, with Portland still fresh in his mind, came the thought, Scott, what are you going to do with the second half of your life? He also thought of all the obstacles to such a move: leaving family and friends, a comfortable and fulfilling ministry, and the foster kids; the inherent difficulties with planting; and convincing a wife whom he was pretty sure wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea.

Feeling almost overwhelmed, Scott recalled God reassuring him, “Just watch!” With that, God removed the pressure to convince Beth. If it was going to happen, God would do it.

So many things pointed to the move. Scott kept encountering Ezekiel 47, which speaks of water flowing from the throne to the sea, making salty water sweet, growing deeper as it flowed, and people gathering to be ministered to by its presence. (Beth wondered how long it took Scott to dig up that one.) During a family trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, while shopping in an outlet mall, they noticed all the sweatshirts and hoodies were printed with “Portland,” “Kennebunkport,” or “Maine.” Close college friends said they were willing to take, and eventually adopt, the foster kids the Taubes were caring for. In a family meeting, Lindsay, then a seventh-grader, said, “God expects more from our family.”

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While praying in her car during a moment of personal crisis, Beth asked God for the improbable: “God, if you really want us to go, play ‘Word of God Speak’ when I turn the radio on.” You can guess what happened. God’s expectations became very clear. We all might wish we had that type of calling, but how many of us would be willing to make the sacrifices that come with it? In any case, it was time to follow where God was leading.

Gearing Up Planting a church always involves fundraising, and Traders Point Christian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, caught the vision of the first independent Christian church in Maine and provided the funding the Taubes needed to move and live there. Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and Fairfield Christian joined in.

To prepare for the plant, the Taubes spent time with Brett Andrews of New Life Christian Church, Chantilly, Virginia, and began working through a 300-point checklist for planting a church. Three couples moved to Maine nine months before the anticipated launch to get a better understanding of the area. They visited churches and realized they would be helping to bring something entirely new to the area. God confirmed his call by providing for housing needs, connecting them with people (their Realtor knew Scott’s family), and by clearing a path for people to trust them early on.

A local person had an empty cinema that he was willing to rent to the church for $500 a month.

“It felt like God was going to push every obstacle

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down!” Taube said as he viewed the task before them. The little church was off to a great start!

Not Without Setbacks One month into their new rental agreement, the fledgling church received an unexpected $7,000 utility bill that nearly wiped out their operating funds. On top of that, after huge investments in cleaning and upgrades to the theater, a severe mold problem was discovered that forced them to move out.

Their next stop was at a Marriott hotel, where they set up and tore down each week, and the little church family continued to grow. After outgrowing the Marriott space in just two years, there was another search, and the church moved into a former carpet barn. “As our church grew, it was growing increasingly obvious just how

“A more traditional church might find the church’s approach unorthodox or even reckless, but it is calculated to create community partnership through stewarding the building all through the week.”

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difficult it was going to be to rent or buy space in an area that would keep the church attractive.” It took another two years to find the DHL Express property at the airport, but that warehouse space—though it had no air conditioning—cost more than $200,000 annually. The church’s efforts to find a permanent home met with rejection after rejection because of zoning restrictions.

A God-Sized Opportunity After so many disappointments involving property, buildings, or space, an incredible opportunity materialized. Eastpoint’s dream location was to be near the Portland Mall, since all traffic converged in that area of town and it would provide maximum exposure.

The opportunity came when Bob’s Discount Furniture, a 92,000-square-foot, big-box store right next to Home Depot, came up for sale.

The $7 million price tag was formidable, and it seemed impossible for a church to make that level of investment. That’s when Doug Crozier and The Solomon Foundation stepped up by backing Eastpoint’s offer.

Taube and his team had been investigating churches across the country to gain a better idea of how to best use this building to reach the heart of the community. They settled on a model they saw at 2|42 Community Church in Brighton, Michigan. After spending time with the 2|42 staff and learning about their approach, 2|42 lead

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- FEATUREARTICLE pastor Dave Dummitt went to Portland to investigate how this new space could fulfill a similar mission.

A more traditional church might find 2|42’s approach unorthodox or even reckless, but it is calculated to create community partnership through stewarding the building all through the week. It’s a desire to give the building back to the community and minister through the connections created there.

Eastpoint decided on such amenities as an indoor soccer field and other sports facilities, a 100-seat cafe, and areas that focus on kids with special needs and under-resourced families. In making these choices, Eastpoint decided to value connections and conversations more than fear or conventional thinking.

A Community Center with a Church?

When Dummitt was asked, “Are you a church with a community center or a community center that houses a church?” he answered, “We are a community center that houses a church.” Scott’s answer to the same question was similar but more nuanced. “It took a long time before I believed what I was saying because the statement is totally counterintuitive for a church planter.” He finally grasped the concept when he considered the community Eastpoint serves.

Taube describes his community as a place where most people live behind trees on two-acre lots and desperately need connections. A community center stirs up a realization of that need and creates church people who desire to serve the community. Local churches were less than excited about Eastpoint’s approach, but the unchurched community embraced it.

Portlanders had trouble believing a church would give a gift like this to the community.

“One of the most liberal-minded cities in America has returned the church’s embrace without any compromise of the gospel.”

Eastpoint’s attendance nearly doubled. One of the most liberal-minded cities in America has returned the church’s embrace without any compromise of the gospel. A huge chair hanging on the wall reminds everyone who walks through the door about the necessity of spending time with God. Street pastors go out every weekend to help drunken people leaving bars to get home safely. Each Christmas and Easter, the entire offering is directed to community agencies. A halfway house gives new hope to those released from prison. The new building is alive and active every day with many community and ministry functions filling its space. And Eastpoint, 13 years after its birth, is the largest church of any kind in the state of Maine and is using its resources to fulfill the greatest commandment! 

Effect It’s been 13 years since three couples moved to Portland, Maine, to plant a Restoration Movement church in a state where none existed. On the first weekend in its newest location,

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now Ever more than

EMBRACING THE DNA THAT CREATED A MOVEMENT

BY RUBEL SHEL LY

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Did you ever agree to something—only to regret it later? As I begin writing this piece, that feeling hovers over me.

We must engage it critically. That is, without either reverent captivity or arrogant iconoclasm, we must be willing to admit that history—even spiritual history—is filled with failures that should be confessed. Have we not all had the experience of affirming an inspired Scripture but confessing a failed understanding or application of that word to life?

I will not characterize the StoneCampbell Movement as others would.

(Some have already been offended that I call it the Stone-Campbell Movement rather than the Restoration Movement; it is a movement of ideas and ideals, not particular historical characters, they say.

Others were offended that I dared call it a “movement” at all; it is theological rediscovery and return, not a human program.)

The larger Protestant world is looking back over 500 years of post-Luther history now. We should both listen to and participate in that experience, for the Reformation is part of our heritage.

So is the Enlightenment’s rationalism and individualism. And so is . . . ah, but to undertake something so broad as to go back and find all those contributing segments within our DNA is far, far beyond my ability or, thankfully, my assignment. I mention these factors only to say that the issue at stake here is incredibly more complex than I can grasp or convey. The best I can hope to do is to stimulate others to grapple with a few central ideas.

See? I told you I didn’t feel good about this. I’m in trouble simply for trying.

But I did agree to write it and gave my word to make a good-faith attempt to describe the spiritual DNA of our fellowship. Beyond that, I will try not only to describe it but to characterize it as I embrace it—as one who loves it and is thankful for it.

History is a strange thing. While not wishing to be enslaved by it or limited within its boundaries, we dare not be unaware of it. We are both informed and formed by history—national, regional, familial, spiritual, and personal. At one level, we simply cannot “rise above” it.

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For the sake of manageability, I will suggest four components that seem central to the initiation and survival of this movement within history.

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1

High View of Scripture

Alexander Campbell, for example, expressly embraced the empiricism of John Locke and followed the “common sense” path of Thomas Reid. At their roots, the philosophies of Locke, Reid, and their kind were reactionary against the rationalism of René Descartes—and thus, for Campbell, the Calvinism of the American frontier. But there was a still larger package. Modernity not only rejected the nonmediated nature of truth (i.e., Cartesian innate knowledge or Calvin’s direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon the elect), but also affirmed human reason as the measure of all things, scientific inquiry as the objective arbiter of truth, the transparency of language, and personal autonomy.

First, there is a healthy regard for the written Word of God that is central to our identity. The leading lights in the early days of the Stone-Campbell Movement emphasized the uniqueness of Holy Scripture as divine revelation.

With Peter, they affirmed that the prophets of old were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” as they chronicled the activities of God in history (2 Peter 1:21). Citing Paul, they believed that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)—both in the Old Testament to which Paul was referring directly and in the New Testament to whose composition the Spirit was employing him. This is a vitally healthy component within our DNA—that was, however, subject to “genetic editing” because of the historical setting of such persons as Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone.

That was quite an assemblage; it played out in Christian thought with mixedbag outcomes. Modernity put us on an early path that took a “scientific view” of Scripture; people viewed the Bible as a book of religious facts to examine for the sake of its transparent, objective truths that all enlightened persons could see alike. This generated a high value on doctrinal correctness and a low tolerance for disagreement. This meant both a high value on teaching (i.e., faith comes by hearing the Word of God [Romans 10:17]) and a willingness to atomize both personal understandings and church life; this tended to foster disagreements that led to division based on “autonomy.”

This led, in turn, to assigning a lower value to discipleship in some quarters than to correctness based on right understandings that are guaranteed through reason and argument.

Setting aside the later influence of higher criticism to biblical studies generally, those earliest and most formative years of the Restoration Movement embraced an approach to Scripture that has proved problematic.

Our spiritual forerunners read the Holy Bible through their culture-specific spectacles. That is, they set about to interpret and apply Scripture from a set of assumptions they had received— sometimes consciously and, likely more often, reflexively within their culture.

And that “culture” was what we now call Modernity or the Enlightenment.

“

Even in trying to be un denominational, our founders found it necessary to mark and defend boundaries.

So, the language affirmed unity, but the path to unity was made difficult by historical context, our human tendency toward power, and a particular way of reading the Bible.

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2

Unity in Christ

Stone segment in the DNA that called for a more relational unity based on the manifest fruit of the Spirit rather than doctrinal uniformity. But the tensions were apparent in various ways around one issue after another after another.

Second, the goal of unity in Christ has been articulated from the time of conception for our body of Christ followers. As is evident from what has just been traced relative to the use of Scripture in our spiritual history, however, the unity goal has been under constant challenge from a method of reading Scripture that tends to value correctness and to allow very little divergence.

From a 21st-century perspective (itself influenced by time and place!), perhaps tribalism (i.e., denominationalism) is inevitable and not evil, per se.

People have honest differences of interpretation, diverse tastes in music or stylistic elements of worship, and assorted ideas about how best to reach the unsaved with the message of the cross. But tribalism may (and did) become sectarianism very quickly.

Indeed, it is Scripture that calls the followers of Christ to unity. Jesus prayed that his disciples would be united (John 17:21). The Father and Son are differentiated in being but united nonetheless. Just as they love each other and function lovingly with one another, Christians are to love each other and function harmoniously with each other.

Some have understood this better than others in our history.

Historian Sidney Mead opines that denominations have an inherent sectarian tendency because of the competition each feels to justify its “peculiar interpretations and practices” as closer to those of the first century than those of their neighbor-rival groups. Mead uses the very language of “a blueprint revealed in the Word of God” to describe each denomination’s claim of purity over others’ beliefs and practices.

In the early Stone-Campbell years, it was apparent the unity path was littered with stumbling stones and potholes. On the one hand, those who were among the most diligent of Bible students believed that conformity to a “pattern” discernable in Scripture would generate unity. Thus, Alexander Campbell wrote The Christian System to delineate these things. Systematizing is the penchant of scientific methodology; the assured results of careful study are made public.

But those whose equally “objective” study of Scripture reached different conclusions were inclined to separate (or be disallowed for their error!) rather than yield. True enough, there was a

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Denominations must construct and maintain their separate identities by marking off clear boundaries—almost always negative and thus of a nature to invite alienation, if not animosity. Even in trying to be un denominational, it was necessary to mark and defend those boundaries. So, the language affirmed unity, but the path to unity was made difficult by historical context, our human tendency toward power, and a particular way of reading the Bible.

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3

High View of the Church

4

Personal Responsibility in Faith

Third, our DNA includes a high regard for the church as the locus of God’s outreach to the world. In the incarnation, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

Upon his return to the Father’s right hand, the church—his spiritual body—is commissioned to take up that task. “You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27) is both affirmation and challenge to those who have chosen to follow Jesus as his disciples.

Fourth, we also have a pronounced commitment to affirm that faith is personal and requires engagement through holiness. We “carry each other’s burdens,” but we accept the fact that “each one should carry their own load” (Galatians 6:1-5). Again, as between the first two items above, this may be lived out in some instances so as to be at odds with the point just made. Let me try to explain.

Even if one’s view of the church is somehow misunderstood and confused with a “saved-by-membership” proposition, most persons in this tradition seem to get the point that following Christ must entail evidence of transformation. On the model of Modernity, discipleship may be understood principally as diligent Bible study, defense of our doctrinal correctness, and the like. Thus, to be a “faithful Christian” may translate to “he’s here every time the door is open.” That he is racist, abusive to his family, and disliked in the community may not be deemed relevant to altering that opinion and designation. The more legalistic a particular subset within our movement, the more pronounced this phenomenon.

Whatever fragmentation we lament in the church, we have no desire to take the position of many in our culture—simply to have done with it and to pursue a personal and often idiosyncratic faith.

We generally believe that faith is best lived in community, and the Godordained community of faith is the local church.

At the same time, one is forced to ask if there has not been some tendency toward the Roman Catholic view of “no salvation outside the (true) church.” It is one thing to affirm that all those saved

by Christ are added to the church—a body whose membership list is kept in heaven (Hebrews 12:23) by Christ himself (Acts 2:47). But it is something else again to hold that salvation comes by virtue of one’s correct choice of the correct church that is entered by the correct steps taken.

In the latter case, the church becomes an agency of human power rather than divine grace.

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In a world where Modernity has seen its heyday pass—and despite all the many shortfalls that attach to its postmodern (or, perhaps better, anti modern) replacement—the shallow move to equate church membership with Christian discipleship no longer has much currency. If one is a follower of Christ, the humility, compassion, and self-emptying of the Master are expected to manifest themselves in the lives of his confessors. Salvation is transformative.

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Hope for Our Future

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Informed by our history, we stand in a fortunate position to face the future. The person and principles to which we have given imperfect allegiance are able to lift and empower us for the future.

So, let us not grow weary in our faith—or of one another.

In our own historical setting, these four segments to our DNA give hope and confidence for the future. A reading of Scripture that is narrative rather than atomistic is encouraging. That is, we read to “get into the story” of God’s redemptive work in the world. There we are called to repent of self-centered sin for the sake of believing the good news that God’s love has opened the way to new life in Christ. Accepting that, we become less inclined to define ourselves by excluding others through doctrinal hairsplitting.

We focus less on boundary edges than on Christ as the unifying center for his people. Accepting other Christ confessors and Christ followers to be part of his one church , we encourage one another, forgive one another, and strengthen one another. As joint heirs with Christ to the glory that will be revealed at his return, we purify ourselves and exhibit Christlike character as evidence of the Spirit’s transforming presence.

Informed by our history, we stand in a fortunate position to face the future. The person and principles to which we have given imperfect allegiance are able to lift and empower us for the future. So, let us not grow weary in our faith—or of one another. This is a time to believe and to encourage one another. This is a time to experience and model unity to a fragmented world. Indeed, this is a time to witness the faithfulness of God in bringing still greater fruitfulness through this movement that will give far greater glory to him.

These four positive qualities to our DNA—perhaps understood more clearly at this point and lived with greater consistency by all segments of the StoneCampbell Movement—are needed now more than ever .  Rubel Shelly is a distinguished professor of philosophy and religion at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.

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HITTING THE TARGET: MEASURING SUCCESS THROUGH OUTPUTS A comprehensive strategy for realigning your church’s ministries, activities, and programs for fall

BY TOM HARPER

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For many, August marks the beginning of a new school year and, with it, a new church year as well. Most of us now face a plethora of programs, classes, small groups, events, and holidays that stand looming like a line of horses ready to burst out of the starting gate. No matter that the pastor and his staff were supposed to enjoy a summer of rest.

Dutifully, you’ll jump back in the saddle, like you always do. But before you put your feet in the stirrups, now may be the perfect time to assess the year ahead.

What programs need to change, merge, or stop? What activities have run their course?

Rather than relying on people’s predictable opinions, why not consider a more objective approach?

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, had no idea one-third of his readers were nonbusiness people. So, in 2005, he followed up that best-selling business book with a shorter piece called Good to Great and the Social Sectors, a must-read for pastors.

Let’s explore some of the key concepts in his work, combined with biblical principles that I believe round out a comprehensive strategy for realigning your church’s ministries, activities, and programs for the fall.

BEGIN WITH DISCIPLINE First, Collins asserts, “A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.” While we don’t desire for the church to be great in a worldly sense, the Great Commission sets our standard.

Would you say your church has a culture of discipline? If that raised an eyebrow, consider that the Bible exhorts us to discipline our children, develop spiritual disciplines, and even make disciplined people (disciples). When the Lord disciplines us, we are to consider his correction a blessing (Psalm 94:12).

Corrective discipline is an expression of love (Proverbs 3:12). It is how our Father trains us and produces peace and righteousness in us (Hebrews 12:11).

Additionally, correction is a constant in the church because the flocks are full of sinners (as are the pulpits and choir lofts!).

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Discipline, then, is a way of thinking, of leading, and of life. It is God’s way. If we’re going to make disciples who make more disciples, we have an obligation to seek out and diligently pursue what the Lord wants our churches to be and do.

SORT THE INPUTS FROM THE OUTPUTS Collins writes that nonprofits must shift from focusing on resource inputs to outputs, such as delivering on the mission and making a lasting impact.

To illustrate this concept, he tells the story of former New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, who inverted the department’s focus from arrests made, reports taken, cases closed, and budgets met to simply reducing crime. The central question was this: Does the city care about the inputs and activities, or does it really want less crime?

Doesn’t God look at his churches the same way? He wants us to focus more on the result of making disciples than the activities of the church itself. The business as opposed to the busyness.

Compare home groups during the week alongside weekend groups in the church building. Which is better? Do you know how many people are in both, how long or how often they meet, what’s being taught, how well the leaders are trained?

Those questions are good, but they’re focused on inputs. You may want to improve some of those things (who wouldn’t?), but the bigger question is this: What’s the purpose of the groups? Their main outputs, or outcomes, should be spiritual in nature.

Whenever focus shifts to the activities of the groups—their size, frequency, teaching style, or demographics—a single strategic question should immediately emerge: How does that make a difference in growing disciples of Jesus?

Think like the former police commissioner, who concentrated on reducing crime rather than worrying about all of the “performance” indicators. Our churches need to discipline themselves to focus on the singular goal of making disciples.

With this mission in view, how do we practically approach the measurement question so we can make sense of our “churchified” chaos?

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BOLDLY ASSEMBLE EVIDENCE Collins offers helpful guidance: “It doesn’t really matter whether you can quantify your results,” he writes. “What matters is that you rigorously assemble evidence—quantitative or qualitative—to track your progress. If the evidence is primarily qualitative, think like a trial lawyer assembling the combined body of evidence. If the evidence is primarily quantitative, then think of yourself as a laboratory scientist assembling and assessing the data.”

Churches typically gauge success by counting people and dollars. But rarely do we seek honest answers to more subjective questions about initiatives and ministries. We can penetrate the surface and get at the heart with a more direct line of inquiry: • How do people really feel about the new program?

• Is our VBS teaching kids what they need to learn in order to grow, or is it just fun?

• How is this event impacting the congregation’s walk with Christ?

• Is this activity tied to a church tradition more than to a relevant spiritual purpose?

All church programs and activities should be subject to tough questions like these. But too often we’re afraid to ask them because we don’t want to offend or cause conflict.

If we don’t ask, how will we know our weak points? Gut instinct and opinion will get us part of the way, but we must go further to assemble evidence and “face the brutal facts,” as Collins puts it.

The ideal leader, he says, makes sure “the right decisions happen—no matter how difficult or painful—for the long-term greatness of the institution and the achievement of its mission, independent of consensus or popularity.”

PRIORITIZE METRICS So, what exactly do we measure if we’re trying to track spiritual growth? Collins advises, “What matters is not finding the perfect indicator, but settling upon a consistent and intelligent method of assessing your output results, and then

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tracking your trajectory with rigor.”

One way to intelligently assemble evidence and begin your church’s realignment strategy is to consult with a few key leaders about the goals of various programs. Asking a basic question like, “Why does this program exist?” might shine enough light to begin the realignment process.

Once you’ve agreed on worthy goals—whether it’s more people in Bible studies, more meaningful community outreach, or better-trained preschool teachers— you can prioritize them based on their potential to affect the congregation’s overall spiritual growth.

For example, you might determine community outreach is the bedrock of the church and what your church is known for. You have plenty of volunteers, and requests for assistance from the community are increasing. But you wonder, How can we improve this program so it helps us more effectively accomplish the Great Commission?

The answer lies in the outputs. What specific outcomes would indicate congregational spiritual development in the context of community service?

Rather than limiting yourself to counting volunteers and water bottles and the like, you could measure the number of: • evangelistic tracts handed out • invitations made to attend church • spiritual conversations • social media posts your volunteers hashtag.

I realize social media posts may seem a tad unspiritual, but why not measure the “engagement” level of the younger volunteers? If they get into serving, their friends will hear about it.

The point is to decide on metrics that tie your church’s activities to its spiritual goals. Then, as you measure them over time, you can establish trends that prove progress or indicate areas of needed improvement.

And in the case of a program or activity with few spiritual outputs, your best option may be to “disengage.”

MEASURE THE WORK OF THE HEART Kurt Sauder (coauthor with Eric Schansberg of Thoroughly Equipped: DiscipleMaking Curriculum) is a student of the art of disciple-making. He said, “What we measure becomes increasingly important; what’s not being measured becomes less important. We typically measure bodies, bucks, and buildings, but those aren’t important outputs. We need to measure the work of the heart.”

Sauder said as we teach and preach the Word and let the Holy Spirit work in believers’ lives, the results should be increased love, biblical knowledge, and ministry zeal.

When hearts are fully given to the Lord, he said, we’ll see more missionaries, pastors, church planters, and Christian entrepreneurs. “We should look at how many people are getting launched into kingdom work, even if it’s shining their faith in the marketplace.”

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It’s not hard to measure that kind of output, is it? The hardest part may be letting them go do this work outside your church!

IN THE END, BE DILIGENT In the closing pages of Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Collins returns to his theme of diligent, rigorous discipline. Anything great, he contends, requires consistent effort, as if we’re turning a giant flywheel with an endless succession of nudges until it achieves unrelenting momentum.

Such steady exertion asks much of the pastor, but ultimately visible spiritual growth is a powerful motivator.

“Consistency distinguishes the truly great—consistent intensity of effort . . . consistency with core values, consistency over time,” Collins writes. “Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

We know the true source of greatness. But for some reason, the Lord chose us feeble humans to execute his Great Commission. “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom” (Psalm 145:3).

As you shake off the vestiges of summer’s slower pace, I pray you will take advantage of your fresh perspective and zealously shepherd the church God has put under your care. May he embolden you to ask tough questions and critically analyze results.

I’ll leave you with Paul’s words to Timothy, who struggled as a young pastor: “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15).  FOR AN EXAMPLE OF THE KINDS OF QUESTIONS A CHURCH MIGHT ASK TO HELP ASSESS OUTPUTS, GO TO CHRISTIANSTANDARD.COM. Tom Harper is CEO of Networld Media Group, publisher of ChurchCentral.com, author of Leading from the Lions’ Den: Leadership Principles from Every Book of the Bible , and a deacon at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. @tomrharper

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core values LEADING THROUGH YOUR

BY L. E. MACKENZI E

Y

ou did it! As the lead pastor of your church, you established an amazing mission statement to keep everyone focused and on track. It looks so good on paper that you framed it and hung it on the wall behind your desk. You show the statement to others, you preach on it, and your people know it by heart. But something is not right . . .

You have strong, practical ideas to grow and mature your church, but you feel resistance at different levels. In e-mails and quiet conversations people ask, “Why are we doing this?” A ministry leader seems to understand the directive but fails to properly execute it. You feel as though you are spinning your wheels. Where is the disconnect?

A Real-Life Church Example A small-town, Midwestern, multisite church had a compelling mission statement, relevant preaching, and Christ-honoring pastors and elders. Everyone in the church could recite the mission statement. The culture was welcoming and established and the people committed.

But there were rumblings . . .

“What is this secular music and why is it so loud for Easter services?” “Why is the pastor wearing jeans and a T-shirt?” “When did we get C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

a teen floor hockey league in the gym? They are stinking up the place down there!” These questions and others were signs of unease and discontent—something was keeping people from fully embracing leadership initiatives. In the eyes of the people, leadership was all over the map.

“

On a spiritual compass, your mission statement is ‘true north’ and the core values are the boundary maps defining how to get you there.

The people understood the church’s mission was to help people find an “intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” The mission was so clear, in fact, that people were abbreviating it as “IPRWJC” in their journals and on Facebook and Instagram posts. The mission statement was fine, it turns out, but the people didn’t understand the steps leadership was willing to take to execute the plan or whom they were intending to reach.

The people didn’t understand the boundary lines for executing the mission.

It was a situation that required refocusing on the church’s core values . . .

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Ask yourself: What does your church value?

What resonates with you as a Christian leader?

What do your actions say about what you esteem most highly?

Why do you “do church” the way you do?

While environment and culture may change around you, your core values (CVs) reflect biblical qualities that give your church its distinctive flavor and character. To put it another way, on a spiritual compass, your mission statement is “true north” and the CVs are the boundary maps defining how to get you there.

Establishing CVs helps your organization on all levels, from your student ministry pastors and worship leaders to the volunteer who faithfully makes and delivers cookies to new people week after week. CVs provide direction as to the “how?” and the “why?” of the mission.

Why do you do the things you do? What are your hot buttons? CVs are the reason you get out of bed each day, the reason behind every program decision, every sermon idea, and every capital campaign.

Craig Groeschel, senior pastor at Life.Church, centered in Edmond, Oklahoma, says your values should be memorable, portable, and emotional. He believes values should be tweetable, actionable, and inspirational.

Ideas vetted through your CVs straighten the road. Decision-making becomes easier as you align yourself and your church with what is closest to God’s heart. As you focus your decision-making and proactively lead your church, the reasons behind your actions become clear. Without this focus, your church will have unrealistic expectations of what they should absorb from your preaching and teaching.

Remember that small-town, Midwestern, multisite church? The one with the loud secular Easter music, a preaching pastor who wears jeans, and the stinky floor hockey league? That’s my home church.

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Earlier this year our leadership decided to develop our core values and share them with the church. When we told our people we are focusing outward to reach those far from Jesus by any means possible, they understood why we would play loud secular music at Easter— it’s for the “Chreasters” (Christmas and Easter attenders) who may not be comfortable in church. When told that to be relevant , we would do fresh things in fresh ways to reach those no one else is reaching, the people were OK that the preacher didn’t dress formally.

And once everyone started to focus downward to reach the next generation—the future hope of the church—they understood that kids and sports and Jesus go hand in hand, and outreach to students is important in our church culture.

“

Your core values should permeate your sermon series as well as your print, visual, and social media, and they should pepper your church’s everyday speech.

Conversations in the hallways of our various locations have begun to change. The people are describing their ministries in terms of the CVs. Ideas are being filtered through the sieve of seven tenants our leaders adopted. I believe our people—from elders and pastors to volunteers and attendees—are beginning to align with these CVs. This has been a gamechanger.

Does this all seem like an unattainable dream?

It isn’t.

After your church defines its “true north”—its mission statement—invest the time to establish the boundaries—the core values—needed to get there. Our leadership completed this in a few weeks, and the elders approved it after a single presentation.

As a leader, you have the potential to change your environment, give new life to your ministry, and direct your church by using the resources God has given you in your leadership teams, your church network, and online. Do an online search to find the core - 45 -

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values of various churches and companies; this will provide ideas for writing CVs for your church. Once these are determined, it is time to drive those core values deep into the culture of your church.

Moving forward, these CVs should permeate your sermon series as well as your print, visual, and social media, and they should pepper your church’s everyday speech. The day you hear your people using these values to explain their

actions and how the church functions, you will know you are making the necessary strides in unifying and aligning your people.

Give it a try. You can lead a new chapter in the life and unity of your church.

For a step-by-step guide to creating core values, listen to Craig Groeschel’s leadership podcasts, “Creating a Value-Driven Culture,” at www.life.church/leadershippodcast. 

Leigh Ellen Mackenzie assists the executive team at The Crossing in Quincy, Illinois, as lead researcher, handler, and creative stylist. She has taught and led in various ministry areas for 11 years. In addition to God’s Word, her heart’s delight is pastoral support and care.

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evaluate

wisely!

6 church human-resource leaders share their best practices for successfully lifting the lids that limit the capacity of staff members Leaders and employees have one thing in common when it comes to performance reviews.

Both cringe at the thought of them!

How do you view staff evaluations? Are they an annual chore filled with official forms and uncomfortable face-to-face meetings? Have you ever said, “Write your own review, and I’ll sign it”? Would you prefer the “no news is good news” approach?

As a new ministry season begins and as the end of the year approaches, effective churches understand the value of evaluating staff, setting goals, and making the process relevant.

We asked executive ministers to discuss their best practices for evaluating staff: what they’ve found works best, what doesn’t work, and what “secrets” they can share with you.

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Throughout my career, in both the corporate environment and within the church, I have used numerous strategies related to performance evaluations. My experience has taught me that as the needs and preferences of the staff shifts and changes, the way we think about and conduct feedback must adjust accordingly.

Currently, a large portion of our staff are millennials, who generally prefer real-time feedback versus a more traditional performance evaluation. To accommodate the needs of our staff, we have developed a method for engaging in two-way feedback via bimonthly one-on-ones.

During the first one-on-one meeting of the month, our department leaders “check the pulse” of their team members as it relates to their well-being—physical, spiritual, and emotional.

We have found that our staff is most engaged when each one knows he or she is cared for as a person first. This meeting also gives our department leaders a chance to better understand what makes their specific team members thrive. If we can identify this, we can lead them more intentionally, develop them more fully, and help them reach their potential.

We understand the needs of our staff are likely to change over time, and as such we need to be sensitive and responsive as we continue to adapt.

Rhonda Lamb-Laguna Executive Pastor Northeast Christian Church Louisville, Kentucky www.necchurch.org

The second one-on-one meeting is more specific to their current work. Team members can update their leader in a more formal capacity during this time. As these discussions are designed to be more work-centric, we have identified key questions— such as where they are on their goals and budget and what obstacles the manager can assist with—that we ask each month to help gauge performance in a consistent manner.

This bimonthly system has allowed our team members to feel valued as individuals while also providing real-time evaluation of their strengths and challenging them on their areas of growth. In addition, those of us in leadership have a clear understanding of our staff culture.

This approach has allowed us to move beyond traditional performance evaluations. We understand the needs of our staff are likely to change over time, and as such we need to be sensitive and responsive as we continue to adapt.

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Daniel Ross

executive Minister of Operations Redemption Christian Church Jasper, Indiana www.redemptionin.com Twitter: @jdanielross

Staff evaluations don’t have to be fraught with anxiety because, if you’re leading your staff well, nothing you say will be a surprise to them. Evaluations should be an ongoing, day-by-day process by leading through example and coaching, not just telling staff where they are failing.

I’ve learned relationships are the most important piece of the evaluation puzzle. If I’m distant, closed off in my office all the time, and don’t interact with the staff I evaluate, they are less likely to listen to anything I say, regardless of its merit.

We often employ the “compliment sandwich” at Redemption. We encourage staff in areas of strength, then offer areas that need growth (again, these areas should rarely, if ever, be a surprise to the staff member), and then we wrap it up by encouraging some more. Over-criticism that hasn’t been addressed along the way is a quick way to strip hope from staff.

Finally, we lead with compassion and by example. We as executive staff may be “above” other staff in terms of the org chart, but all of us are people in need of God’s great grace.

Our human resources are the single best resources we have in ministry. As such, we should treat them as fellow image-bearers of God, not just cogs in the machine getting tasks done.

Mitch Harrison

Executive Pastor Canyon Ridge Christian Church Las Vegas, Nevada www.canyonridge.org mharrison@canyonridge.org

The difficulty of evaluating staff is trying to quantify something subjective. We try to make our evaluations a conversation. Staff members meet at least once a month with their supervisors to talk through projects and progress. From those conversations, we mine how well each staff member is doing. No staff member should be in the dark about how he or she is performing. If any ambiguity exists, the one-on-ones are the place where that is cleared up. We use forms we created in shared OneNote folders to prompt questions and record comments from staff and supervisors.

The one-on-ones are meant to drive evaluations into the context of relationship. We care more for people than just how they are performing, and usually poor performance means more than a staff member slacking off. If they are struggling, we want to know why and help them through it. Our goal isn’t to give them a pass/fail on job performance, but to help them thrive in their life with Christ and their life at work. At the same time, we do give numerical scores three times a year (with definitions of what those scores mean) so everyone knows where he or she stands.

No system is perfect, and neither is ours. We refine it just about every year. We don’t want our employees serving the evaluation system, we want the system to serve us toward our most important outcome: people who are thriving.

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I look forward to our staff-evaluation time. I know not everyone feels the same way, but a big part of this revolves around the reason and motivation for doing evaluations. We have moved away from a ’90s-style rating system and toward a process of continual improvement that invests in the staff and clears the way for God to use them in ministry (the secret sauce of this process).

I have found that evaluations are as much about empowering staff by being an objective adviser as it is about removing roadblocks where possible. These staff-evaluation strategies have worked well for us: • establishing annual and quarterly goals that are reviewed at those intervals • building a better review form that focuses on specific areas to continue to improve • having leadership themes that are represented in the goals for each staff member (for instance our theme this year centers around communication and collaboration) • conducting 360-degree reviews alongside key annual reviews to increase team feedback and reduce silos • allowing key volunteers (e.g., from the church’s personnel team) to help • using Google Sheets for the “evaluation form,” allowing a high level of collaboration across the organization, ability to keep summary goal sheets for all staff that are automatically updated, and the organic building of each staff member’s body of work at the church.

What hasn’t worked well? Doing it all myself! Changing evaluation culture, HR procedures, or even evaluation forms takes a village. When I started in my role as executive pastor, I tried conducting 360-degree reviews for just the senior staff and lost a month and a half of my life. Now, I elicit the help of key personnel team members and I look forward to the process.

When done right, annual and quarterly reviews can encourage and strengthen quality staff members. This process can build relationships and strengthen trust. These activities can also help you quickly identify and act on staff members who do not fit with your church.

Chris Boue

Executive Pastor Whitewater Crossing Christian church Cincinnati, Ohio www.whitewatercrossing.org cboue@whitewatercrossing.org LinkedIn: @chrisboue

David R. Strange

Executive Minister Greenwood (Indiana) Christian Church www.greenwoodchristian.com

We try to incorporate three questions into all of our evaluations: What should you continue to do? What should you stop doing? What should you start doing? Obviously, having concrete goals that can be measured and evaluated is very helpful.

Other staff reviewing tactics have not worked so well, however. Years ago, we asked our program staff to fill out a notebook of very detailed information about their daily work schedule, their goals, a self-evaluation of their area of ministry, and several other things. It took a couple of weeks for program staff to get it filled out around their other ministry activities. The system was too cumbersome and didn’t bear much fruit.

We have recently streamlined our evaluation process so that we meet with staff members about once a quarter. We will still have annual written evaluations, but those are usually short and to the point since we have met quarterly throughout the year.

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The concept of “performance evaluations” is a constant work in progress within our culture. Without empirical data, it’s still safe to say that the very words performance evaluation strike fear or anxiety in the hearts of most mortals. Therefore, we use coaching sessions three quarters each year and save the last session of the year for the formal evaluation. In addition, that last session is called a “year-end review” rather than a performance evaluation. It’s more of a look back at the year and accomplishments made coupled with a look forward into the coming year and the goals we want to achieve.

Our reason for coaching sessions is that we are here to develop and coach individuals to success; therefore, those sessions should be welcomed rather than dreaded. The idea of the coaching session is to ensure Tim Hester we schedule time to be face-to-face with each direct Executive Pastor report and hear from them. Our mission statement is, Southeast Christian Church “Connecting People to Jesus and One Another,” so these Louisville, Kentucky www.southeastchristian.org coaching sessions provide us with a setting to connect Twitter: @seccdad personally with individuals and as part of the session to find out how they are connecting to Jesus. Fundamentally, those two things will give us a basis to drive results that are needed to fulfill our mission statement.

The most important part of any evaluation is to make sure we have clear standards against which to measure performance. We work hard to make sure expectations are clear. So, our discussions are usually centered around the goals and expectations that were given either when the person was hired or when their goals were set. Our HR team provides a list of suggested areas to discuss in each session, and each session is written into the staff member’s file for future reference. From an overall strategy, the review tools we use complement and coincide with our onboarding strategy, integrating and setting pace for the future by setting clear expectations and dialogue with 30-60-90-day benchmarks for each new employee. These weave nicely into our quarterly coaching sessions and year-end review.

Clear expectations of results and strong relationships make the process work. If our leaders are doing what they should be doing by connecting with their teams intentionally on an ongoing basis, the results of a performance review should be a formality only and never a surprise. 

coaching sessions provide us with a setting to connect personally with individuals and as part of the session to find out how they are connecting to Jesus.

Does your church have “best practices” that would benefit other churches?

We would like to see them and consider them for Christian Standard!

Send them to christianstandard@christianstandardmedia.com.

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re•jü•v •nāte YOUR MINISTRY e

BY KELLY CARR

Kelly Carr attended a Catalyst conference and discovered two major benefits for attending leadership events C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

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I was in the throes of my job editing The Lookout. The weekly nonstop pace provided a rhythm to my work, yet by the spring of 2016, two and a half years in, my freshness was waning—I just hadn’t realized it yet. Around that time, I was invited to attend the Catalyst leadership conference and interview some of the featured speakers for The Lookout. Although I intended solely to mine material for the magazine, I unexpectedly unearthed something from the sessions—rejuvenation in my own leadership.

Growth Opportunities After my positive experience last year, I recently attended Catalyst again when it returned to my backyard. I had doubted the leadership benefits of the conference that first year, but this year I attended with anticipation. I saw many Restoration Movement ministers there as well. Based on discussions with those ministers and my own experiences, I see two major benefits for leaders to step outside their regular schedules, individually or as a team, and participate in an event designed to activate leadership growth.

1. Connections Several Christian church ministers said a benefit of attending Catalyst was making connections with other leaders there. One youth minister told me he missed several conference sessions that day because he was engaged in valuable conversations. He said these conversations are now turning into new outreach opportunities to minister to the families in his community—and these opportunities directly stemmed from the connections he formed that day at the conference.

But the connections aren’t always directed outward. I encountered entire church teams who attended Catalyst together. As you probably know, gathering a team outside of the workplace can have enormous unifying benefits. While this can happen in a variety of settings, a conference can simultaneously bond leaders and stimulate leadership development.

Several years ago, a local church invited the women of our church to gather for a simulcast of the IF:Gathering women’s conference. I never imagined how deeply we elders’ wives and small-group leaders would interact in just one evening in a new setting—the challenging messages and discussion times created a candid openness with one another, bringing about stronger camaraderie.

2. Professional development Our culture tends to keep pushing forward without break, encouraging leaders to remain on the go to be the best. But if there’s no downtime in ministry, no chance out of the usual routine to reevaluate where one is going, a leader can stop innovating or burn out. You may not even realize your leadership has hit a lull in some aspect. Or perhaps you need to hear God’s urging in a different setting to encourage you to move forward. Placing yourself among other leaders can reenergize your vision.

Don’t forget that your team needs a creative spark as well. Whether you oversee fulltime staff or a team of volunteers, they work hard to develop and execute ministry plans; let’s not overlook their need to be sharpened. We ask a lot out of our church leaders, and everyone benefits from new wind in their sails. Strategically incorporating times of professional development for everyone who ministers in church, either

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individually or together as a team, will benefit both them and the congregation in the long run.

Attending a conference may be old hat to you, but to your support crew it might mean more than you know. One local Christian church friend I saw at Catalyst excitedly told me that at the last minute he got to attend the conference with his church staff. He is a volunteer with the church, and he was asked to attend when a paid staff member could not. He was thrilled with the opportunity.

Different Viewpoints At one point during Catalyst, I looked around and wondered: What would the early church think about all the bells and whistles at this gathering of Christian leaders? Yet I recognize that large gatherings of different perspectives produced transformation in biblical history. Whether it was Nehemiah’s call to repentance as folks from all walks of life stood and listened to God’s Word being read or Peter addressing the diverse crowd on Pentecost—God moves when a variety of people are together, spurring one another on toward love and good deeds.

I know some of the same ministers I saw at Catalyst will also attend the NACC this summer. So why bother attending a conference that’s outside our brotherhood?

1. We need to be exposed to different viewpoints.

Hearing thoughts that are different from our own challenges us to firm up our approach to leadership. We might connect with some denominational leaders, while others might rub us the wrong way. Either way, we are being forced to consider how we are thinking and growing as a spiritual leader. As our world changes around us, our leadership cannot remain stagnant. If we hear only what our itching ears want to hear, how will we continue to navigate the ever-morphing thought culture and reach more people with the gospel?

We may be surprised at what God teaches us through different mouthpieces. Knowing that the same Spirit who lives in us also lives in them, we must trust that we can gain wisdom from his children from different church backgrounds.

I may stubbornly ignore a message God has been trying to communicate to me through the familiar voices of family and friends, but suddenly a leader onstage, someone outside my normal realm, captures my attention by saying the same thing. Sure, I didn’t agree with everything Dave Ramsey or Donald Miller said, but I gained by hearing each of them speak because they are in a world I don’t experience. I never knew Margaret Feinberg, Eugene Cho, Jenny Yang, or Trip Lee before I attended Catalyst, yet C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

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by hearing about their ministries, I have found new avenues to take the people I lead.

I’ve seen this exposure to different ideas occur with our tribe as well. Our church attracts members who did not grow up in the Restoration Movement. The last two times the NACC has been in Cincinnati, I watched these members attend and hear leaders from our brotherhood they never knew before. We had stimulating conversations afterward as they took in messages by Dudley Rutherford and Jodi Hickerson and thought through nuances of the faith previously unexplored.

2. We need to work together.

No matter how powerfully God moves through our particular congregation, we cannot reach every person in our community. I don’t think we’re supposed to. God has equipped and called all Christians to serve his kingdom by sharing the good news.

Many of those Christians attend churches up the street that don’t look like us.

And that’s OK. When we attend a conference outside of the Christian churches and churches of Christ, we are given a window into other types of ministry. For years, a lead minister I know has encouraged his executive minister to attend a conference with him. The executive minister didn’t see the value and put his foot down. Finally, someone donated money so these two ministers and their wives could travel to Atlanta and attend the Drive Conference. There they learned from North Point Community Church, a church outside the Restoration Movement. When he got home, the executive minister e-mailed the lead pastor: “I’m so glad you pushed me to go. I have new ideas and new energy for our congregation. I wish I would have listened to you years ago.”

New points of view inform our understanding of what is happening in our own neighborhoods, hopefully inspiring us to bring about more facilitation between churches who are serving the same God in the same neck of the woods. One of the Catalyst speakers this year is on staff at a church up the street from our own congregation. I spoke with her to learn what her church is doing to meet the needs of our changing neighborhood. I was uplifted by their work and now hope to make plans to connect for a church event in the future.

I can be skeptical of trends and gatherings, but I’m thankful that unanticipated invitations placed me in a position where God rejuvenated the passion and direction of my leadership. I hope the same will happen for you.  Kelly Carr is the former editor of The Lookout and a founding member of Echo Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. @kbirdcarr C H RIS TIAN STA N DAR D

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headlines

BY CHRIS MOON

's BAPTISMS 227! Tthahtalf os SURGE AT alm of their e!

KENTUCKY attendanc

CHURCH THANKS TO JAIL MINISTRY

A Kentucky church is using a jail ministry to add hundreds of lives to God’s kingdom each year.

Jessamine Christian Church baptized 227 people during 2016—a number that is notable because the church averages 525 in weekly worship attendance. That’s an average of 43 baptisms per 100 people in attendance.

Only a handful of churches in Christian

Standard’s annual church statistics issue— which was compiled by Kent Fillinger and published in May—reached a baptism ratio of 10 per 100 in attendance.

Wally Rendel, senior minister of the church in Nicholasville, a city of 29,000 people south of Lexington, said the baptism surge was the result of a jail ministry the church launched nearly three years ago.

As an outreach project, a group of women from the church took baked goods to inmates at the Jessamine County Detention Center. The women decided they wanted to do more, so they went back and conducted a Bible study, and a handful of prisoners made professions of faith.The ministry snowballed from there.

Today, the church does Bible studies in the jail every Saturday, and it is not uncommon for someone to make a decision for Christ among those who

check out THE new TICKER//TAPE! SCROLL ALONG THE bottom of the PAGE FOR more NEWS! FOLLOW THE TICKER//TAPE—ACROSs Mobilize Illinois is praying and working alongside ICOM 2017 to raise $500,000 to start four churches in the state and Planting, and Heartland Evangelizing Association. Visit www.mobilizeillinois.com for more information. ICOM 2017 will University, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on June 30. // More than 2,000 church-planting leaders will come together // Jay Mayernik, 31, a senior basketball player at Northwest Christian University, Eugene, Oregon, was featured in the three kids and a chance encounter,” said the magazine. Mayernik skill in a pickup game and offered him a spot on the team,” Sports and was named an All-American.” // This spring, a total of Go to www.orchardgroup.org. // Johnson University, with

ticker//tape

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participate. Those who profess their faith are transported by the county to the church, where they are baptized. Sometimes as many as a dozen people are immersed on one day.

Rendel has a set of prison shackles hanging from the church pulpit as a symbol of the church’s ongoing mission to inmates and as a visual reminder of the gospel.

“The jailer and a couple of his attendants van them in shackles to the church, and they are baptized,” Rendel said. The jailer lets them wear T-shirts [back to the jail] with our logo on the front of the shirt and the word ‘forgiven’ on the back.”

“It’s a testimony,” Rendel said. “My chains are gone.”

Church members continue to communicate with the new believers through letters and visits.

Rendel said jails are particularly fertile places for the gospel. Many of the inmates in Jessamine County are in jail because of drug-related crimes. They often are in their 20s or 30s, just starting out in life.

“Their sense of brokenness and need and desperation—it’s a very sobering experience to be behind bars.”

Nebraska Christian College Restarts Athletics Program Athletics are coming back to Nebraska Christian College.

The Papillion, Nebraska-based school is relaunching its athletics program this fall following

THE GAP—TO SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT COMMUNITY! YOU MAY read ABOUT SOMEONE YOU KNOW! five churches in global regions. Also partnering in the effort are Lincoln Christian University, Stadia, Ignite Church take place November 16-19 in Peoria, Illinois. // Dr. D. Clay Perkins concluded his presidency at Mid-Atlantic Christian October 2-5 for Exponential West in Los Angeles, California. “Dream Big” is the theme. Learn more at www.exponential.org.

May 15 issue of Sports Illustrated. “Mayernik’s journey back to college basketball spanned 11 years, a graveyard shift, played for Southern Oregon in 2003-04, but left for academic reasons. Northwest coach Luke Jackson “noticed Mayernik’s Illustrated reported. “At 29, Mayernik returned to school. As a senior, the 6’7” center averaged 15.7 points and 12.4 rebounds, 23,552 people attended Easter services at churches that have started in the past 20 years with the help of Orchard Group. campuses in Tennessee and Florida, has announced that president Dr. Gary Weedman will retire next summer, on June 30,

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its 2016 merger with California-based Hope International University. NCC will field men’s and women’s soccer and basketball teams during the 2017–18 school year.

The school had dropped its athletics department about three years ago to focus on its academic programs, said NCC Athletics Director Willie Williams. The renewed emphasis on athletics was the result of the merger with HIU and considerations about how to boost student enrollment, he said.

The school’s sports teams will be known as the Sentinels.

GEORGIA CHURCH GIVES HOMETOWN A HAND DURING ANNUAL SERVICE DAY Galilee Christian Church held its annual Serve the City event on May 6, sending 350 volunteers

into its Georgia community to complete 32 service projects.

Members of the church, which is based in Jefferson, Georgia, spent the day building wheelchair ramps, painting houses, constructing sheds, planting gardens, cleaning schools, and spreading mulch—putting a hand to just about any need they could find.

“By far, it’s the largest one-day service event in our community . . . period,” said Nick Vipperman, pastor of Galilee, which has an average Sunday attendance of about 600.

The church conceived the idea for the service day while considering how to live out its mission of “advance, make, serve,” Vipperman said. The leaders wanted to come up with a plan to put the church’s members in a position where they could make a meaningful impact on the community and continue the work of discipleship.

“We want people to recognize that our church is more than what we do in our four walls, and if we’re going to do that, we need to be

2018. At that time he will have completed his 11th year as president and his 50th year in Christian higher education. // Johnson will play a key role in equipping GNPI’s global teams with vision, insights, strategies, and professional expertise.

Christian churches have produced sermon series that use Stranger Things as the hook. Stranger Things is a science-fiction/ on October 31.) Among those churches: Canyon Ridge Christian Church, Las Vegas, Nevada (“Joining Jesus: From Stranger Community Church, Brighton, Michigan (“Stranger Things: Strange Things about Jesus” and “Strange Things in This World,” with Greenville (Illinois) First Christian Church at the end of June. Darryl and his wife, Sally, began serving with the church senior minister in 1977. He looks back fondly on his time with the church and the support he has received, saying, “This church annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference held April 7–8 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jonathan Totty (sponsored by Dr. Steve Cone) won the undergraduate competition for his essay, “What, Then, Shall We Say? The Interpretation of Romans 4:1.” visit them online would you like to submit a news item? contact us via facebook and instagram @christianstandardmagazine, or

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intentional,” Vipperman said. “We really want to have something intentional every year to make sure we are really doing what we are talking about.”

The church found service projects in Jefferson through word of mouth and by networking with community leaders. Jefferson, a city of about 10,000 people, is located northeast of Atlanta.

One of the church’s members, the superintendent of schools, was instrumental in finding some of the projects the church completed. The church also placed a half-page advertisement in the local newspaper asking people to submit ideas for projects.

“We’re a small community,” said Jefferson Mayor Roy Plott, a GCC member who volunteered during the Serve the City event. “It’s an immense help to get this additional manpower to go out and do the things that we [the city] can’t keep up with on a regular basis. It just helps the morale of the city employees to see everybody out there pitching in, helping to keep their city clean and to keep it beautiful.”

Doug Priest Retires from Missions Career Doug Priest retired July 31 as executive director of Indianapolis-based Christian Missionary Fellowship International. He served the organization in a variety of roles for more than four decades, beginning as a missionary recruit in 1974. Over the years, the child of missionaries to Ethiopia has served with CMF in Kenya, Tanzania, and Singapore. He has been director since 1995.

“I feel gratified and happy and just honored to have been in ministry now for lots of years,” said Priest, who served as president of the 2008 National Missionary Convention (now the International Conference on Missions).

Kevin “Kip” Lines will become the new executive director. 

Mark Johnson is the new international director of GNPI (Good News Productions International), based in Joplin, Missouri.

Johnson has spent the last nine years managing a television network affiliate in Virginia. Go to gnpi.org. // At least three horror web television series set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the 1980s. (Season two launches on Netflix to Friend,” April 22—May 28); Parkview Christian Church, Orland Park, Illinois (“Stranger Things,” April 16—May 7); 2|42 October 30 and November 6, 2016). // After nearly 44 years of service, Darryl Bolen was set to retire from his ministry upon graduating from Lincoln (Illinois) Christian College. He first served as youth minister and associate minister, then became wouldn’t let me fail.” // Two Lincoln (Illinois) Christian College students took first place for student papers in this year’s won the graduate competition for his essay, “Irenaeus on the Economy of God.” Kory Eastvold (sponsored by Dr. Frank Dicken) at www.lincolnchristian.edu.  twiter @CHRstandard, online at christianstandard.com, or at christianstandard@christianstandardmedia.com.

interact KEEP IT GOING

FAMILY BELONGING AND HOPE

Thank you for the update and vision for Christian Standard magazine [Publisher on Deck column, “What to Expect from Christian Standard ,” p. 64, June 2017]. “We” sometimes think that melting into the great evangelical cloud would be beneficial, but the Restoration message is still valid. “We” don’t seem to fit well into that broad evangelical cloud, and it is very good, even necessary, to keep a voice like Christian Standard magazine going. Please don’t forget us up in Canada who share the heritage.

This is a beautiful commentary on the love of God and the significance of the family of God [“Preaching to the Post-Nuclear Family,” by Ian DiOrio, p. 22, May 2017]. It is a family of love which incorporates all those who wish to be a part. Just as all things earthly are imperfect, so are earthly families. But when the perfect has come, all of us who are imperfect shall be made perfect, just as God, and live in perfect harmony with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the good news that Jesus came to give us.

Dr. William Robinson via website

Lloyd Strickland Clearwater, BC via website

I believe [this article] offers a sense of belonging and hope for those struggling with the ever-changing dynamic of the family today. I know it sure hits home with us.

Tony Harmon via website

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GOD-INTENDED MARRIAGE

SINGLE DADS

God bless you and your family, Tyler [“How I Know My Wife Married the Wrong Person,” by Tyler McKenzie, p. 33, May 2017]. I appreciate God touching your heart and mind to write about this subject. It helped me see my marriage in a whole different way. The way God intended it to be.

Sabrina via website

Thank you for this timely and much-needed article [“Dads Are Single Too,” by Matt Johnson, p. 35, May 2017]. I can relate to many of the experiences you wrote about. As your life illustrates, Matt, God is not through with people who’ve been divorced.

By the grace of God, I’ve been happily married for the last 11 years, and we’ve been missionaries for almost four of those years.

John Allcott via Facebook

JESSIE ON MESSY MINISTRY Right on, Jessie! [“When Modern Ministry Gets Messy,” by Jessie Clemence, p. 39, May 2017]. With great efficiency we can look over, through, past our own mess and view with disdain the mess of others. God give us wisdom and help us to be patient.

Paul Stinnett via website Thank you so much for this [“When Modern Ministry Gets Messy”], Jessie!

I’ve been in multiple conversations lately about these very issues and you provided a beautiful response. Thank you for reminding us that God is patient, gracious, loving, and kind to us and that we’re called to behave in the same way if we want to be his faithful followers and representatives.

Debbie via website

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feedback! /ChristianStandardMagazine @ChrStandard @christianstandardmagazine ChristianStandard@ChristianStandardMedia.com

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She stood at a fourth-floor window overlooking the city of Phnom Pehn. She had spent a week in Battambang, Cambodia, at Rapha House, working with those who minister to the girls rescued from sex slavery, and in Phnom Pehn, visiting hundreds of poor children who attend the Kids Club, a prevention ministry. Her fellow workers had gone to the street market, letting her beg off.

In the room, utterly quiet now, her gaze fell on the area of the city where at that very moment she knew girls, some children, were being sexually used and abused. Her whispered prayer was not eloquent or admirable, though it was honest: “Dear God, I don’t want to know this.”

Surely there are so many things we do not want to know. Many years ago, a quote from a missionary provided the cover for Time magazine: “There are no devils left in Hell. They are all in Rwanda.”

That could also have been written about Cambodia, where 2 million were killed, about the Soviet Union, where 20 million were killed, about the People’s Republic of China, where 65 million were killed, about Afghanistan, where 1.5 million were killed. And now, if you can bear to watch the news, there is Syria. There is ISIS. And if governments or rebels are not the ones killing their own people, the world faces the utter misery of famine and starvation.

The United Nations says nearly 16 million people in Somalia, Nigeria, and South Sudan are at risk of dying soon.

This is not the only misery. Everywhere in the world, hatred and violence is being directed toward marginalized groups; individuals and families are broken because of weakness or sin. Sometimes diseases and natural disasters bring death, decimating the living.

Of course, we can find much joy in this life, but we cannot deny that we also face much sorrow.

Isaiah called the coming Messiah a “man of suffering” who was “despised and rejected by mankind . . . and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3). Today Jesus is our “merciful and faithful high priest” who suffered and made “atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17, 18).

The cross story does not make sense to many unbelievers, but seeing so much misery around us, the “cup” he drank to save us, as horrible as it was, somehow helps believers. Jesus intimately knows the violence, shame, and misery of this world. We do not suffer alone.

And, glorious morning, he rose again and showed us the victory. 

BY JACKINA STARK

Jackina Stark is a retired Ozark Christian College English professor who lives in Branson, Missouri.

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