Articles for tag: Peoria

November 12, 2016

By Brian Jennings Ed Taylor took the leap of faith to plant a church in Arlington Heights, an upscale suburb of Chicago, three years ago. My soul was blessed to hear how Quest Church opened her arms to the people God surprisingly sent their way. If I had a nickel for every friend who went from overseeing university standardized testing to planting a church, I guess I”d have one nickel. How did you get from there to here? I”d worked at the University of Iowa for about 10 years when I started leading worship at Iowa City Church of Christ.

July 13, 2013

Christian Standard

Church Leadership

40 Under 40: Daniel Overdorf

DANIEL OVERDORF Dean of the School of Congregational Ministry and professor of preaching, Johnson University, Knoxville, Tennessee I have known Daniel Overdorf since helping his family move to Knoxville decades ago when his father became minister of the Woodlawn Christian Church. Daniel was a preschooler then, and many remember him as a mischievous little boy. That might surprise many who know him now as gentle, kind, and always with a welcoming smile. As dean of the School of Congregational Ministry and professor of preaching, he exercises leadership through his commitment to the centrality of preaching in the life of the

April 12, 2012

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Planting

Orchard Group Teaming Up to Plant Church in Ireland

By Jennifer Taylor Limerick, Ireland, currently has just a handful of Evangelical churches, but this fall the Orchard Group will help an Irish church planter start one more. Dermot O”Mahony, a native of Limerick, moved to the United States after college to work with a growing church, gain ministry experience, and extend his education. He and his wife, Marie, settled in Arizona, where Dermot served as an intern, and then an outreach minister, with Christ”s Church of the Valley in Peoria, and took classes at Hope International University (Fullerton, CA). When CCV decided to help the O”Mahonys start a church

June 12, 2011

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Growth

Large, Healthy Churches Merge in Phoenix Area

By Jennifer Taylor What if thousands of people drove past one another on the highway to worship at churches that weren”t located too far apart? What if both churches coordinated hundreds of small groups in their communities””groups studying different material and never working together to reach the city? When Christ”s Church of the Valley (Peoria, AZ) and Parkway Christian Church (Surprise, AZ) saw this scenario playing out in their shared mission field, they made a surprising decision””to merge both churches and do more together than they could apart. The two churches, both located in suburbs of Phoenix, officially merged in

May 4, 2011

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Community Outreach

Shifting the Focus to Neighborhood Ministry

By Jennifer Taylor “Neighborhood Ministry has become our nerve center,” says Ashley Wooldridge, executive pastor at Christ”s Church of the Valley (Peoria, AZ). “It is the reason our church is growing.” CCV senior pastor Don Wilson created Neighborhood Ministry three years ago to more effectively accomplish the church”s mission of winning people to Christ, training them to become disciples, and sending disciples to impact the world. Each person at CCV is encouraged to join a neighborhood group””a weekly gathering of people who live in the same neighborhood or subdivision. The groups meet each week in a study based on the