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Surprising and Successful
Raising the Roof
Foristell (Missouri) Christian Church originally planned to convert the two-car garage of its former parsonage into a food pantry and clothing closet. “Then local businesses and the county Salvation Army delivered three truckloads of food just a few days before we opened,” laughs the project coordinator, Barbara Paton. “We don’t have room for clothes right now!”
In fact, the entire project has been an adventure of surprises for this little church.
“We have about 40 members, with an average age of 50,” Paton says. “So this was a big step of faith, and many of our members worked long, hot days to gut the garage, build walls, and upgrade the electricity. One of the biggest jobs was tearing off the old roof and installing a new one.”
One Saturday evening as the team worked, a man in a truck pulled up to the site and asked what they were doing. When they explained, the man shared his background as a professional roofer and volunteered to finish the work for free—even though he had been without a job for two months.
“The next morning when we arrived for church the roof was completed,” Paton says. “He worked most of the night.”
The food pantry served several families its first week, and word of mouth has led to increased traffic. Local police officers also have access to the building in case they encounter people with immediate needs; the church organized individual food bags for the officers to grab and give away.
As for the roofer, he and his family now attend Foristell Christian Church.
Rethinking Conferences
It seems every church, parachurch organization, and Christian leader has organized a conference. From church planting to children’s ministry, hundreds of events vie for ministers’ time and money. So what makes ReChurch different?
Plenty. Indian Creek Christian Church (Indianapolis, Indiana) created ReChurch, held on her campus November 5 and 6, to help churches from 100 to 1,000 transition to the next level. But unlike many church growth seminars, ReChurch emphasized the practical “how-to” as well as the “what to do.”
“Ministers told us they were inspired by large, motivating conferences,” says senior minister Gary Johnson. “But they often struggled to implement what they learned after they returned home.”
The ReChurch conference included three scheduled times for teams to discuss the information presented by Indian Creek’s leaders, plus opportunities for one-on-one conversations with the church’s elders and staff in “living room” areas around the campus.
The emphasis on application continued with sessions on transitioning to elder governance, developing strategic plans, and staff restructuring.
ReChurch also offered all attendees a flash drive packed with material from main sessions and workshops. “It is a paperless conference—we didn’t print flyers or promote it via snail mail,” Johnson says. “The flash drive makes it easy to access these resources.”
The conference does have one thing in common with many others—a focus on new friendships and networking. Indian Creek hopes to create “collaborative relationships” among those who attend.
“After the conference we’ll create a distribution list of participants so we can all be helpful to one another in our attempts to advance the kingdom of Jesus,” Johnson says. “We want to establish a continual network of further learning.”
www.thecreek.org
Jennifer Taylor, one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD's contributing editors, lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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