Montgomery Day One

Today begins our week at Frazier Memorial Church. Frazier is one of the Flagship churches of the United Methodist Church. It has the largest Sunday School of all the UMC churches in America. It is led by John Ed Mathison. He and this church are known for lay ministry. In other words, every member is encouraged to have a ministry. In fact, I was told that 90% of attenders at Frazier are engaged in ministry of some kind.

This view is from the inside of the church leading to their kids area. It has a ship, a playground, and a theme of Aqua Zone. It is very creative and welcoming.


We had lunch with John Ed today. I was so impressed. He is 68 and going strong. What struck me most was he seemed like a pastor who actually cared about people. I don't think he saw himself as a CEO type pastor, yet certainly he is a top leader. He is very approachable and a servant. He even cleaned up our trash.


We talked about the future of his church as he transitions it to another leader. This is sensitive in Methodist circles and needs to be handled with care. In 2 years or so, he will retire from full-time active ministry.

A huge encouragement today came from what they are rolling out this Sunday. Their discipleship pastor has encouraged the church to engage in Life Transformation Groups. These groups (LTG's) are what I am doing my dissertation on and plan on impelmenting in my next setting. They are actually debuting and explaning them this Sunday! WOW! I was so encouraged to see such a pace setting church do something that I am looking to do and assures me I am on the right track. I talked with Shane, their discipleship pastor, and hope to gain more ideas for my dissertation and applying it to my next setting.

There are about 250 people at the conference, led and hosted by Dale and Margie Galloway. It meets in the place they do contemporary worship.

This is the traditional sanctuary. Perhaps you have seen the service on TV sometime.

Of course, I had to get my picture at the pulpit.

Tomorrow we have teaching by Jim Garlow from Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego CA and Mike Foss.

Christ Church Hickory Visit

Last Thursday, we loaded up the van to travel to Hickory North Carolina to visit Christ Church. The Beeson program provides students to visit a church they want to in order to see transferable principles they can use in their next setting. I chose this church for several reasons: first, it had grown from 150 to 2200 in worship over the past eight years; second, this had been done in a rural area and since east Tennessee is rural I thought it would have many crossover principles. Thirdly, the pastor Charles Kyker is a former Beeson pastor and gave me accessibility to meet with his staff. Fourth, Kate did youth ministry with their youth minister 15 years ago and we have connected some in recent years. John and his wife Anita are in the picture below. Fifth, they were hosting a church growth conference that weekend so I would get to hear more from their staff.



I chose a hotel in the area with a pool and hot tub. The kids loved the pool and I think swam every day. Max turned eight this weekend and we had a special meal with him at Olive Garden and opened presents.Maggie and I got up the last day earlier to have breakfast at the hotel. The conference we attended was called LEAP (see picture below). They went all out for this conference. About 100 people participated in it. They even had LEAP M&M's.


This is their main worship facility where they held the conference and where they have four services on the weekend, three on sunday and one saturday night.


History - About 20 people formed this church 15 years ago in the chapel of a Lutheran Church. They eventually met in a storefront church (see below) for a number of years. when Pastor Charles came in 1998, they began to grow by about 30% a year and have averaged that pace over the past 8 years. Charles' gift is in casting a vision of being a church that reaches the unchurched thousands to make them fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

In 2002, they moved to this facility about 5 miles away.

They are a seeker driven church, meaning they exist and try to reach people who don't go to church. They believe worship starts as soon as people drive in the parking lot and do everything they can to make them feel welcome. (see Below). Last year they had 68 people become members of the church by profession of faith. 105 transfered their membership to Christ church in addition in 2006.

This is their current space for kids programming but was set up on Friday nights for Celebrate Recovery, a Christian 12 step program focusing on helping people find freedom from their addictions. They actually bus people in from this program. About 100 attend from week to week and 60% of their population do not go to this church.

This is their Celebrate Recovery Resource center.They exploded when they entered their new facility and soon plans were underway to create a larger worship space. When that space was built (see below), the children took over all the other space for their programs (pictures above).

One of the neat things about the service is that they have a prayer garden in the back of the worship space where people can pray with lay-pastors at the end of the service. This space is where people can pray silently and they have packets available for those who decide to follow Christ.

Another neat thing they do is they have a time in the service when people can submit prayer requests on a sheet of paper. Each Tuesday the staff divides up each request and prays for each request made. Each request is followed up with a card to the person making the request knowing that it was prayed for and signed by the staff members. John told me recently that one wife prayed for her husband almost every week for 9 years and two weeks ago he accepted Christ and joined the church last week. These are exciting stories.

They are beginning a capital campaign during lent are are praying for 3 million dollars to be pledged over three years to pay for their buildings and future growth. They are praying for 1 million to be collected on April 1st to jump start their giving. It is exciting to see that they are giving 10% to churches around the world and are sponsoring building a church in Bulgaria that has limited funds. The rest is being used to pay down debt, spruce up the children's facility and provide seed money for the St. Stephens site to buy land for a church.

Sunday morning I got up and went to two worship services. Pictures here are from their St. Stephens campus which meets in a high school. They launched in October and last week had 336 people attend. It is going strong. This is their welcome area that has donut, drinks and coffee.

This is the front of the school. It rained heavily that day and the picture wasn't the best. I didn't dare take a picture of the service. The neat thing about this church as well is they have it translated into spanish so the latino community might be able to worship as well.

If you are interested in learning more, go to www.christnc.com

Sweet Home Alabama

I just came back from Christ Church in Hickory NC last night and left early this morning for our week at Frazier Memorial UMC in Montgomery Alabama. On our way down, we stopped by the North Alabama Conference Office to meet with their conference staff and bishop Will Willimon.
We had a great visit. Bishop Willimon stated how he prefers Asbury graduates than others because their churches grow and are healthier. He said this is hard to take considering he taught 25 years at Duke.

N. Alabama has started 49 faith communities in the past 13 years. Only two have not worked out. He attributes it to the Holy Spirit and how they work at trying to find the right situations for their clergy who start them. He said most of his churches struggle because they are so concerned with their own things that they never interact with where God is working around them. The Bishop said to grow spiritually he has to intentionally get together and meet with unchurched people. This is difficult since his job is all around church people.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. We have lunch with the Sr. Pastor John Ed Mathison from Frazier Memorial before our conference begins.

Goodbye Jack

My Fellow BP did a video Tribute to our Beeson Assistant Dean who is leaving this week for another position at Houghton College. My fellow BP (aaron) has a great wit and the video cracked me up and I wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

Too Much to Blog about

As I look at this day, the next two weeks, and the next six weeks, I get overwhelmed. I had a great day yesterday hearing from Father Cantalamessa, preacher to the Pope, who was on campus yesterday. Yes, the pope has a preacher and when I get time I will share some of what I heard.

Tomorrow at 6am We leave (yes we) to got to Hickory NC to see Christ Church. Christ Church is a church led by a former Beeson pastor which grew from 150 to 2000 in 8 yrs. Kate did youth ministry with their youth minister and so we are going down together to check out what they are doing. To find out about this church, go to www.christnc.com. We are going to their LEAP Conference. We will be gone till Monday afternoon. After I arrive back I am going to Frazier Memorial Church with our Beesonites for 5 days and will arrive back on March 4th. I anticipate it being a great trip to see how every member in ministry actually works. See about them at http://www.frazerumc.org/templates/cusfrazer/default.asp?id=28965.

I will blog as possible and give you updates of what is going on with us. Please keep us in your prayers.

Too Much to Blog about

As I look at this day, the next two weeks, and the next six weeks, I get overwhelmed. I had a great day yesterday hearing from Father Cantalamessa, preacher to the Pope, who was on campus yesterday. Yes, the pope has a preacher and when I get time I will share some of what I heard.

Tomorrow at 6am We leave (yes we) to got to Hickory NC to see Christ Church. Christ Church is a church led by a former Beeson pastor which grew from 150 to 2000 in 8 yrs. Kate did youth ministry with their youth minister and so we are going down together to check out what they are doing. To find out about this church, go to www.christnc.com. We are going to their LEAP Conference. We will be gone till Monday afternoon. After I arrive back I am going to Frazier Memorial Church with our Beesonites for 5 days and will arrive back on March 4th. I anticipate it being a great trip to see how every member in ministry actually works. See about them at http://www.frazerumc.org/templates/cusfrazer/default.asp?id=28965.

I will blog as possible and give you updates of what is going on with us. Please keep us in your prayers.

The Past Week at Beeson

I wanted to show you some photos of what was going on last week. We had a Valentine's Party in the Beeson center. The kids exchanged valentines, watched a movie, we ate together; it was fun.

Terry and Baby Pierson!Gordon is a man who is secure in his masculinity, wearing a pink shirt on Valentine's day!

Max is having is birthday come up (next Saturday) and he will be eight. Our neighbor Max B. had his eighth birthday on Feb 16th so we threw a Max and Max party.

Here is Max celebrating his birthday gift! Max B. smiles for the camara. Cora apparently likes her cupcake (very photogenic). Maggie and Megan with perfect smiles.

Travis is good with little kids. Pierson is enjoying all the attention.
Gordon and Claire's daughter Ansley had a little too much cake and candy and lost it on Bryan's rug.
Randy showed up to save the day with his carpet cleaner. Not only is he Dean of the Beeson Center for Advanced Church Leadership but he also does rugs!
Bryan is a wanna be disciple of Randy's.
Anna took this picture, I promise!