Interview with Jay Akin

By Brad Dupray

In August 2007, Jay Akin was called to serve as senior pastor at Elberton Christian Church, a midsize church in a small town in rural Georgia, after having served in youth and associate ministries and as a campus minister. ECC, which averages 260 in attendance in a town of 4,700, makes a big impact in its local community. Jay and his wife, Cristal, love the people of the church. As Jay says, “My family has never been treated better by a church. These people have done so much to minister to my family. They treat us like royalty!” Jay is a graduate of Atlanta Christian College. He and Cristal have two children, Alec and Brittani.

How would you describe the church when you arrived?

It was a great church when I got here, with great people. To me it seemed everything at the church was kind of mechanical. I don”t want to say traditional because there”s nothing wrong with tradition, but it was like we were doing church because we had to do church. They cared about lost people, but I didn”t really see a church that was intentional. It was one thing to say you want to do it””it”s another to be intentional about it. They were wonderful people, but the unspoken vision seemed to be to “have church” every Sunday.

Did you have a game plan from the start?

When I came I told the elders, “This is who I am; I”m going to shoot straight. We”re going to do what the Book says.” We bought into some very basic concepts: the Bible is true from cover to cover; we believe Jesus is who he said he is, did what he said he did, and will do what he says he will do; everyone will spend eternity someplace; and Jesus loves us no matter what we do.

What adjustments did you make?

We haven”t changed our mission statement (“connecting people to Jesus and one another”) but I think we”re starting to live the mission statement. On Palm Sunday 2008 we made a change in our musical style. We went from a Clavinova and piano to a full praise band. We talked and prayed about it, and the praise band worked together for months before we made the switch. That has energized the church. This is the only horse we ride; we”re a one-service church now. Our church has some very mature believers who may not like everything, but they sure do like reaching people and having young people come to our church.

What have you done beyond Sunday mornings?

We”re going to small groups. We”ve been talking about small groups since February, and they will start this month. We”ve talked through procedures: How is accountability going to work? What are they going to study? How do we develop leaders? We have bathed this entire process in prayer. We had our first meeting with group leaders in July.

We”ll still do Sunday school and church on Sunday morning, but we have some building limitations. We have a good-sized facility for a church our size, but we”re limited on Sunday school room, so we”re going outside. We”re not trying to change our primary focus of discipleship, but we”ve hit a place where our ability to disciple is limited by our space, so we”re going to small groups.

How did people react to the small group concept?

Our folks are pretty excited about it. We”ve been talking about it for a while. We asked our church to pray about this and to pray for our leaders””pray that we become a church where disciples make disciples. So when we started our sermon series in August, they weren”t hearing about small groups for the first time.

You”ve made some good changes. How do you effectively deal with change?

We change slowly. We”ve chosen to change slowly and do it right, do it to last. We”re more proactive than reactive. Sometimes you can”t wait and you have to do what is necessary, but I”m not thinking I”m here four to five years, I”m thinking 10, 15 years down the road. It”s not just what is going on now. We change what is necessary. We change right.

Did the church change the way it approached leadership issues?

There were a lot of conversations about things that had already happened. It seemed like we were being held captive by what had happened in the past and could not be changed. So one of the things I established right off the bat””from the pulpit, to our elders, to our search team when they called me””was a pretty simple concept: If what happened yesterday is not relevant to our tomorrow, we will not talk about yesterday. This has really helped us. Maybe this is the biggest difference from then to where we are now.

How did you stop those discussions from continuing?

When someone says you need to know about so and so, I would say, “Is there anything to be gained about knowing this in going forward?” I”m not trying to be rude and ugly. I just didn”t want to have that conversation. What did Paul say? “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” The church has a great history, but that”s the one thing, in my opinion, that is the biggest change between August 2007 and now. We don”t talk about what happened. If so and so was offended by someone five years ago, we just have to get over it.

How do you cast a long-term vision to the church?

We”ve been very specific from the pulpit about our vision. We do a sermon series on vision every year, and it”s usually touched on during every teaching series. We try to drive it through there to make sure everything we do is to “connect people to Jesus and to connect people to one another.” With everything we do we ask, “Why do we do this and does this accomplish our purpose?” We”ve stopped doing some things, not because they”re bad things, but because we weren”t sure our purpose was being met.

How would you describe the church today?

Church members have become more conscious of people in their lives who are lost and are going to go to Hell, to put it bluntly. We have become intentional about inviting people to church. Historically in Elbert County, from Memorial Day to the day school starts, church attendance drops across the board. We measured attendance, offering, and involvement for those 10 weeks compared to 2007, and in the last three years all of them have risen during those 10 weeks of summer.

Does being in a small town make Elberton Christian feel like a bigger church?

It”s different here because of the size we are in relation to our community. We are a church of 260, but in a town of 4,700, not 100,000. One out of 78 people in Elbert County attends Elberton Christian Church, and one out of 18 who lives in Elberton attends, so it”s kind of strange. We”re not a big church, but we feel much bigger than we really are. People look at us as being a big church.

Do you ever feel like you”re under a microscope?

Relationships carry a lot of weight in a small town, and being in a small town is almost like being in a bubble. You have to remember, “People who live in glass houses shouldn”t throw stones.” Everyone knows our business, but by the same token, we have churches in town having tough times and everyone knows their business, too.

Does the local church have a larger influence in a smaller community?

A midsize church in a small town can do a lot of things for the kingdom. A church of 2,000 in a town of 2 million, there”s still a lot of ministry they can”t do. We”re like every other place; there are lost people, and the small church has a vital role just like the megachurch does. I never really understood that until I came here.

How do you connect with the community?

One of the cool things about being in a small town is a little bit of service goes a long way. For example, we have a school-mentoring program that connects people in our church to the schools. We have one high school, one middle school, and five elementary schools, so we are trying to put adults in the classroom with our teachers to read to kids every day. We have a ministry called The 12^th Man where we serve the football team here in town. Football is huge here. The whole town shuts down for football. Every Friday night we”re on the sideline, we travel with the team, we”re like glorified water boys. We don”t advertise “it”s Elberton Christian Church,” but people know we”re there. Our desire is to serve the community. We provide school supplies to kindergarten kids. We targeted the two elementary schools closest to our church and they were elated.

What opportunities has that opened for you?

Last year we had a teacher at the school where my wife works suddenly die during the night. Because of my presence in the school, the principal had me come over to pray with these kids. That would not have happened if we didn”t have a presence in the school. Last year I had lunch every Thursday with a table of fifth-grade boys. Most of these kids come from horrible home situations; for many of them I”m the only stable male figure they know.

That”s a huge ministry connection.

When I see the boys in town they always make it a point to holler or come and see me. I”ve been introduced to some of their parents. It all started because these boys were being rude to girls. My wife (who is a teaching assistant at the school) said, “You need to treat these girls with respect.” She said, “I”m going to have my husband come in,” and they didn”t believe I would show up! From there, we talked about ball games and their lives””as much as you can do during 25 minutes of lunch. Sometimes we were kind of loud and got called out by the principal! The boys thought that was funny.

At some point the church has to get into the community and not have an agenda other than we”re going to serve the community. Jesus said, serve. That is one thing we”re doing here: we”re making a concerted effort to be a more visible presence in the community simply by serving.

Brad Dupray is senior vice president, ministry development, with Church Development Fund, Irvine, California.