Friday, March 9, 2012
By Angelique McNaughton
For the leaders of the newly-renamed Christ Church, formerly known as Grace Abundant Church, it’s about relationships.
“I think that the simplest way to think about the name change is that it identifies us in terms of relationship with the sister church (Christ Church of Joplin),” member Max Self said.
Borrowing from a slogan used during the recent Mercy Hospital brand conversion, Self said “our symbol may have changed, but our mission is the same.”
Christ Church always had a “loose affiliation” with Christ Church of Joplin, Mo. A small group of Joplin residents and members of Christ Church moved to the Fort Scott area in 2002. From there, Grace Abundant Church was born under a family of churches called NewFrontiers.
Since its founding, leaders say the church has continued to grow and stabilize itself within the community with about 50 to 60 members regularly attending the Sunday services.
Campus Pastor Brian Studer said following the departure of founding member and church elder Steve Miles last year, members felt like it was an appropriate time to re-establish themselves.
“We decided we would no longer be one church in Fort Scott,” Studer said. “Instead of having one church with 10,000 people, we are going to be one church distributed across several different communities.”
Studer said church leaders are following a new model in the renaming.
Like Christ Church, churches across the nation are adopting multi-site churches which essentially means services in multiple locations.
Lead pastor for Christ Church of Joplin Tim Chambers said the new relationship between the two churches, that are 60 miles apart, is mutually beneficial.
“I think we can do more together than we can apart,” Chambers said. “I think it’s strengthened us both, and we can encourage one another more actively or more effectively to serve our individual communities.”
The sharing of resources, leaders of both churches say, will strengthen administration and outreach.
“Just the fact of working together — centralizing administrative functions — frees up resources to invest in people,” Chambers said. “I’m looking for the church to be stronger and stimulated to do more good for more people. That’s what I would expect to happen because of this.”
Eventually, Christ Church leaders would like to expand services in other surrounding areas, including Pittsburg. A group of members recently traveled to Tulsa, Okla., to look into starting a Christ Church there.
Christ Church leaders made the name change announcement about two weeks ago but officially recognized the change at this past Sunday’s services, which were also held at Christ Church’s new location at 801 E. Third St.
For about four years, church members regularly met at the St. Andrews building on Main Street. Prior to that, Studer said services were “fairly nomadic,” occurring at various places across town like the Fort Scott Health Clinic.
Studer said he is excited about the new location on the east side of Fort Scott and he hopes to reach out to community members in that area especially. He said it’s about “accelerating our influence in different communities.”
“What we want to accomplish … can be accelerated as we look beyond our communities and begin to think regionally,” Studer said. “It’s par of our vision. How far can we reach out into the surrounding areas and how much impact can we have?”
Angelique McNaughton 