Series: Featured

SPOTLIGHT: Westside Christian Church (Bradenton, FL)

Thanks to COVID-19, Church Culture Changes For years, lead pastor Tim Boyd and the leaders at Westside Christian Church in Bradenton, Florida, felt called to increasingly engage with the surrounding community. The people of Westside periodically participated in small service projects and the church had a relationship with a local nonprofit called Downtown Ministries, but community involvement had never been a defining characteristic of the congregation. Until 2020. In the early days and weeks of the pandemic, Boyd remembered being surprised at how quickly things shut down. Westside suspended its in-person worship, prerecorded its Sunday services for streaming online, and

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Catalyst Christian Church (Nicholasville, KY)

A Church Changing Its Metabolism Catalyst Christian Church of Nicholasville, Kentucky, is a small congregation with a big vision to plant churches. “We want to be a church that has children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren,” said senior pastor David Kibler. Inspired by the church-planting legacy of congregations like East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Kibler started Catalyst in 2008 with a goal of being a church that plants churches. Catalyst was a “ground zero plant” with no formal support or backing from an evangelistic association or other organization. Kibler worked multiple jobs to support himself and his family during Catalyst’s

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Catalyst Church (Greensboro, NC)

Reaching Anyone ‘with Garbage’ Catalyst Church is reaching people of all races, educational backgrounds, and socioeconomic levels in Greensboro, North Carolina. And though the congregation is diverse, most attendees share one thing in common: a lack of a formal church background. Lead pastor Scott Haulter estimates that 90 percent of people in the church have been introduced or reintroduced to Jesus through Catalyst. Haulter grew up in a non-Christian family, one of three sons raised by a single mother in a low-income part of Columbus, Ohio. When he was a teenager, one of his brothers began attending an area church

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Discovery Church (Bristol, TN)

Making an Impact Through Service Service is a way of life at Discovery Church in Bristol, Tennessee. The church was founded on a culture of service that has endured throughout the congregation’s 10-year history. Discovery’s current lead pastor, Matt Korell, served as a missionary in Taiwan before accepting the call to lead the church, and his experience overseas impressed upon him the importance of service. “This church has a spirit of serving,” Korell said, and that spirit is part of what attracted him to Discovery. One tradition at the church is “Sent to Serve” Sunday; these take place typically four

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Boones Creek Christian Church (Johnson City, TN)

God’s Word Brings Growth At the beginning of 2019, Boones Creek Christian Church in Johnson City, Tennessee, started a three-year sermon series on the Trinity. Senior minister David Clark planned to spend a year preaching and teaching on God the Father, a year on the person of Christ, and a year on the Holy Spirit. In 2020, the focus was on Jesus. David Eversole, the church’s administrative minister, recalled that the first two months of 2020 were an encouraging time for the congregation because of the churchwide emphasis on learning about Jesus. Not only were the Sunday sermons all about

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Central Christian Church (Toledo, OH)

After 150 Years, Starting Fresh At Central Christian Church in Toledo, Ohio, it’s not uncommon for children to get out of their seats and walk around during sermons. At times, a curious child might even approach the pulpit and strike up a conversation with Dennis Nagy as he preaches. Central Christian is not disorganized, undisciplined, or chaotic. Nor is the church pioneering an interactive approach to teaching the Scriptures. Rather, the congregation is home to a higher-than-average number of families with children who have autism. Nagy is in his second tenure with Central. He first served there around 20 years

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Hikes Point Christian Church (Louisville, Kentucky)

An All-Nations Kind of Church Hikes Point Christian Church is a 22-year-old congregation on the southeastern edge of Louisville. The church meets in a building that originally was home to Southeast Christian Church. Located just outside of downtown Louisville, the Hikes Point neighborhood has changed significantly since Southeast Christian built its first home there decades ago. Today, a growing number of residents in the immediate vicinity are Latino or Hispanic. Many of them speak only Spanish. Ten years ago, Hikes Point began offering a free back-to-school clinic that provided basic medical care, haircuts, certain other services, and academic supplies. Every

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: New Life Christian Church (Chantilly, Virginia)

Bold People Exercising Bold Faith At a church as large and well-established as New Life Christian in Chantilly, Virginia, it might be tempting to get complacent. Prior to the arrival of coronavirus early in 2020, New Life helped create the Exponential Network, planted more than 300 churches, and regularly attracted thousands of people to worship services every Sunday. Still, senior pastor Brett Andrews was convinced the church needed something else: boldness. Andrews and the leaders at New Life wanted to get better at reproducing disciples, not just reproducing churches. For the last three years, the church has striven to increase

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: ONE&ALL Church (San Dimas, CA, and International)

More Than Just a Name Change Until recently, ONE&ALL Church was known as Christ’s Church of the Valley. The church changed its name when it began expanding its multisite model outside of Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley. Today, ONE&ALL Church has campuses as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, and Pakistan. Its worship services are also broadcast daily on Christian radio into many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Indonesia. Through partnerships with various Christian radio networks, ONE&ALL Church is transmitting the gospel to remote parts of the globe—what senior pastor Jeff Vines calls “unreachable places.” Vines explained

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: Alvadore Christian Church (Junction City, OR)

Exactly What This Very Small Church Needed Advancing their technology has never been a top priority at Alvadore Christian Church, a congregation of about 65 people in the small, rural town of Junction City, Oregon. It’s not that senior pastor Marcus Omdahl is old-fashioned. Omdahl is a sharp young leader with a wife and school-age daughter. But until recently, he understood that livestreaming was not something the congregation or the community was likely to embrace. Of course, that all changed with the spread of COVID-19 early in 2020. Immediately, Alvadore Christian, like so many other churches, suspended in-person worship services

May 1, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: 2|42 Community Church (Michigan)

No Needs Meets Many Needs The first few months of 2020 brought a series of major changes to 2|42 Community Church. First, the church added three new campuses, increasing its total number of locations from four to seven. Next, founding pastor David Dummitt departed after accepting the call to serve as senior pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. Then, of course, the pandemic shut down live worship services at all seven of the congregation’s campuses. Despite all of that, executive pastor Eric Rauch said the most significant event of 2020 was “The No Needs Project,” a

April 1, 2021

Ben Siemon

A Life-Changing Truth from Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus

Who we are becoming is more important than what we are doing. This statement has been part of my spiritual formation for the last five years, and yet it is antithetical to the values of the culture and country in which I live. An aspect of the American dream is to pull yourself up from nothing to make something of yourself. Unfortunately, that noble rags-to-riches quest has become a stamp of identity. For many of us, our identity is found in what we can do, provide, give, and improve. Who are we if not a successful businessperson, parent, grandparent, or

April 1, 2021

Terrence Turman

How Simon of Cyrene’s Unexpected Journey Can Change Us

I relish my memories of playing college football. I often think back to the locker-room antics and bus rides. I think about the big wins and bad losses. I remember all the sayings from the coaches and laugh; some would be fight-worthy insults except for the personal relationships we had. In saying all of that, I should clarify that I wasn’t just an ordinary football player, I was an offensive lineman. I specify that because most offensive linemen would tell you what we most enjoyed about football was moving a man against his will wherever we wanted to push him.

April 1, 2021

Mark A. Taylor

The Guards at Jesus’ Tomb:
‘Did That Just Happen?’

By Trevor DeVage with Mark A. Taylor My buddy Aaron and I were at our friend Matt’s house. We were 17, Matt’s folks were out of town, and we were bored. Matt’s stepdad’s prize vehicle, a beautiful, brand-new, gold Buick LeSabre, sat in his driveway. “Don’t drive the car unless it’s an emergency” the stepdad had told Matt before he left. “And if it is an emergency, call me, and I’ll tell you where I’ve hidden the keys.” It took us about 10 minutes to find the keys and 5 minutes more to jump into two cars (Aaron was driving

April 1, 2021

Kendra Dunahugh

The Roman Centurion:
Caught Between Kingdoms

The Words of the Roman Centurion When He Came Face-to-Face with the True Son of God Still Resonate His retirement drew near. He’d been serving Rome faithfully for 23 years. Now 43, he was ready to hang up his helmet. His decision to enlist with the Roman military had been a practical one. As a poor man’s son, he knew he needed a stable source of food and shelter. He often wondered what life might have been like had he chosen a different profession.* Had he been a farmer or fisherman, perhaps his closest friends would still be alive. Perhaps

April 1, 2021

Austin Gohn

Caiaphas and the Central Park Five

In the summer of 2019, between seasons of The Great British Baking Show, my wife and I binge-watched the dramatized miniseries When They See Us. It was a true binge because we started the show at 8:00 on a weeknight right after we put our son down to bed and finished it around 2:00 a.m. Directed by Ava DuVernay, When They See Us is a four-episode series depicting the events that unfolded surrounding the Central Park jogger case in New York City in 1989 when five Black and Hispanic teenagers were falsely charged with assault and rape of a White

April 1, 2021

Dan Hamel

Pilate’s Guide on How to Miss the Truth

Most of us think we are unbiased in our quest for truth. We like to think of ourselves as impartial evaluators of data who seek to arrive at the best decision. But the truth is, most of the time, we desire a specific conclusion, and we search the data in such a way that helps us end up there. We overlook red flags and yellow lights. We come up with excuses and unreasonable explanations. And we usually don’t even realize we are doing it. We think we are looking for the best answer, when in reality we are looking for

April 1, 2021

Chris Hankins

The Repentant Thief’s Story:
A Beautiful Reminder of God’s Amazing Grace

The repentant thief on the cross who put his faith in Jesus is one of my favorite people in the Easter narrative. Possibly more than any other Bible character, this man shows that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace and it is truly never too late to trust in Jesus. The repentant thief shows us today can be the day of salvation! While this crucified criminal is mentioned in all four Gospels (Matthew 27:38; Mark 15:27, 32; Luke 23:32-33, 39-43; John 19:18, 31-33), it may seem we know little about him. But Matthew and Mark used the

April 1, 2021

Caleb Kaltenbach