By Melissa Wuske
An identity crisis is occurring among many denominational churches today. As they wrestle to define themselves amid the competing voices of denominations and modern culture, the Restoration Movement offers leaders and their churches the freedom, in Christ, to craft an identity that fits who they are as a local body while placing Christ firmly at the center.
Shifting Identity Is Nothing New
Churches leaving their denominations to become independent Christian churches is not a new phenomenon. “Most of the churches that became [part of] the Stone-Campbell Movement were something else first,” said Tim Cole, executive director of Waypoint Church Partners, which plants churches and equips leaders in the mid-Atlantic region. In 1792, he said, a number of Methodist churches became Christian churches, even before the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801.
During his decades in the mid-Atlantic region, Cole has seen a number of churches choose to become part of the Restoration Movement.
“It’s not trite to say it really gets back to the core of our movement—and that’s not for lack of a better term, that’s what we’ve always been,” Cole said. “[We’re] not another denomination, but a movement of churches that are trying to focus on a few things . . . local autonomy, biblical authority, and a focus on the Great Commission.” The churches he’s seen make the shift all have shared at least one of those three values.
“There are local churches out there who would love to be reaching people,” Cole said, “but their denominational church culture just chokes that.”
Cole said he’s often seen “conservative people who aren’t thrilled with where their denomination has gone.” The dissonance causes a crisis of identity, he said, because the church is “who they are . . . it’s their church family, it’s where their parents went. So what are they gonna do? Occasionally some of those churches actually take some steps to do something about it.”
For some churches, like First Christian Church in Winchester, Virginia, “the denomination is pushing value points that are not consistent with the local congregation,” Cole said. In this particular case, the Disciples of Christ instructed the church to address—and how to address—gun control. Cole said this church and others he has worked with were forced to deal with the political controversy itself as well as with the fact that someone from outside the area was exerting control. These kinds of issues, he said, highlight the “disconnect between the denomination and the local church” and also the disconnect between denominational stances and the heart of the gospel.
“The common denominator” for First Christian and other churches that Cole has seen make the switch “is they got an independent Christian church preacher.” After deciding to leave the Disciples church, First Christian hired a “Christian church guy” rather than “a Disciples guy.”
Cole has seen a number of churches historically outside the Restoration Movement who have turned to Mid-Atlantic Christian University [formerly called Roanoke Bible College] to fill their pulpits.
While these shifts have significance in the present and future, they also have deep roots in the past, Cole said. First Christian is a 100-year-old church, predating the split between the Disciples and the independent Christian churches. “I told them, ‘You’re just coming back to what you were in the first place,” Cole said.
Pastors Find a Sense of Family
Steve Poe and Randy Frazee are pastors from backgrounds outside the Restoration Movement who have come to find their “tribe” within the independent Christian churches.
Poe serves as senior pastor with Northview Church in Indiana.
Until 2004, “we were legally a part of the Assemblies of God,” he said, “but it never really identified our church. Most of our congregation didn’t even really know they were Assemblies of God.”
Poe found that most people in their white-collar community were leery of visiting a church with a Pentecostal background, and, he said, “most of our growth took place after we dropped out of the Assemblies of God because we were able to shake off a lot of their baggage.”
Frazee serves as lead teaching pastor with Westside Family Church in Kansas. Westside has moved away from its Southern Baptist roots, as have other churches.
A group primarily made up of pastors of large independent Christian churches invited both Poe and Frazee to join them. “They could relate to my problems and struggles,” Poe said.
Frazee added, “It instantaneously became my tribe.”
Both men value the group’s welcoming attitude, especially considering their divergent Christian backgrounds.
“They’ve grafted me in, adopted me,” Frazee said.
“I feel like a part of the family, and I’ve been treated that way,” Poe said.
Both pastors and their wives have found a level of fellowship within the group that they hadn’t found elsewhere.
“It’s breathed life back into both of us,” Poe said.
Frazee noted the “level of friendship and authenticity among the leaders of the Restoration Movement,” as well as “a genuine sense of humility,” even though everyone he’s connected with is “extremely talented.”
The Restoration Movement has both open arms and a clear, Christ-centered identity.
“[The pastors’ group was] intentionally reaching out to people that they felt would really fit the DNA,” Frazee said. “It’s not about exclusivity. It’s really trying to protect the beauty of what is there.”
Frazee particularly appreciates that the Restoration Movement is a growing, biblical movement focused on “what works. . . . [It] values the message as unchanging, but that methods are changing.”
“I want to be a part of a deeply rooted biblical movement, but I also want that biblical movement to grow,” Frazee said. He sees that growth continuing to influence churches both inside and outside the movement.
“It’s a very fluid, dynamic experience. It’s a new day,” Frazee said. “In the past, people never really listened to or played outside their denomination,” but he sees both openness and innovation within the leaders of the Restoration Movement—and he’s excited for his church to play a part.
Melissa Wuske is a freelance editor and writer. She and her husband, Shawn, and their son, Caleb, live and minister in Cincinnati.
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