There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:38)
After a few days of personal renewal and reflection, it was time to relocate to Wisconsin. The weekend of June 30-July 3 I spent visiting two churches in Chicago area: Living Springs in Glenwood, IL, and Faith Reformed in Dyer, IN.
I attended Sunday morning worship at Living Springs. This church is pastored by Dave Izenbart (married to Kristen; boys Joshua and Caleb). Dave is a grad of NWC (89) and Fuller (93), and has served LSCC since 1993.
Living Springs’ story: They relocated several years ago from a small building in a tight neighborhood to 28 acres of land just a few blocks away. The goal of the move was to stay in their geography while enhancing their ability to reach their current transitioning neighborhood – one of the few south suburban areas where blacks and whites were more integrated.
They worship in two identical morning worship services at 9 and 10:30 a.m., with Sunday school during the first service. Worship is basically contemporary, but with some hymns. Lots of instruments fill the air. They worship around 600 people, so they are about the same size as Trinity, perhaps a little larger.
I also spent several hours on July 2 with their staff, but not until David and I did a careful inspection of a Pete Dye designed golf course (Coyote Run). [Golf update: 101, with only one lost ball.]
Here is some of what I loved and learned from LSCC:
Facility:
- Balanced needs and wants with cost realities: they did the most they could with what they had, and it serves them very well. Essentially a metal building with brick and block façade, it has nice curb appeal. The setting feels like an oasis on the edge of the city. Worship is in the gym, and yes, it feels like a gym with a worship stage, but it gets the job done nicely.
- First floor has nice gathering space, with a cafe-style fellowship area and a small bookstore. A full-size baptismal fountain leads the way into the worship area. (Yes, they do adult immersion a fare amount.) There is also a prayer room and adult ed space, along with nursery and preschool. 
- Second floor contains offices, children, and youth areas. Youth area includes stage and small kitchen area.
- 28 acres is a lot of space! They have a master plan for future building, but have also built a gazebo and one ball field. Their summer outreach includes a number of sports-related outdoor activities. A lovely forest borders the far edge leading to a creek and they plan to put a prayer walk area in that space.
Worship:
My first impression was “Wow, these people really love each other.” I was there plenty early and watched people enter the facility. They sought out one another with great delight. People who didn’t know me welcomed me with joy. It may seem like a small thing, since Trinity does this pretty well, but one thing I noticed in almost all the churches I visited this sabbatical is how little people actually embraced or talked to one another. In many churches, worshipers entered, observed worship, and left. Here, it seemed people looked for others to meet, embraced the people around them, and lingered long after worship.
My second impression was “Wow, people sing.” In a lot of churches I visited, it was hard to hear people singing. Maybe it was the acoustics of a gym, but it was also more. There was an aliveness in the place that was unmistakable.
My third impression was “I could be on that praise team.” Not because they couldn’t sing (like me), but because they were welcoming by their eyes and actions that I was one of them.
My biggest impression by far was the incredible diversity within the church. Yes, it was mostly white, but there were many African Americans, Asians, and some Hispanics. They have made a commitment to be inclusive of all races and are accomplishing it better than most Midwest RCA churches. An African American woman staff member led the prayers, and the next hire will be an Associate Pastor from an ethnic group of the church’s region, and David’s 11th Commandment is “Thou Shalt Have the Races of the Church on the Platform Each week.”
Charismatic atmosphere and grounded biblical teaching: David is preaching “The Old Testament Challenge” material and had a tremendous message on Elijah. LSCC does not have another midweek teaching time, so Sunday morning is both seeker sensitive and biblically deep – proof that a growing church does not have to be on the shallow side of things to grow.
Prayer:
It is obvious that this church has an atmosphere of prayer. It’s present in all aspects of the church’s life. It is part of this church’s history as well. Even the youth group places a high value on prayer ministry. Rich Albrecth (former Trinity intern with Cory Grimm) leads the youth ministry. He said, “I know I’ve messed up these kids when they’d rather go to prayer weekend than to a mosh pit at a Christian concert.” The congregation occasionally sends people to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (which folks at Third Peall do, too).
Connecting Life and Ministry together:
Two things stand out from how LVSS is growing people in faith.
One is the connection across the board in what they are doing. They connect people’s walk with God on four levels: worship, Sunday School, small groups, and personal devotions. On each of those levels, they are doing the same thing. For example, David preached on Elijah, a Sunday school class focuses in-depth on Elijah, the small groups had guides for Elijah, and the bulletin includes daily readings for Elijah this week.
A second arena is the emphasis on “Living Fire,” their name for our Leaders for the Harvest ministry. They have done it for a few years more than Trinity and are seeing people go through all three years. With Faith, Dyer, they are leading over 70 people a year through this ministry in their region.
Leadership Structure and Style:
Again, I won’t bore the blog with too many details here. They have a structure similar to ours and are trying to find their way through some transitions. One significant recent change is the hiring of a full-time executive director of ministry and operations (a man coming out of management in a computer business). This is just three months old and it will be good to see this develop over the next year.
The one thing I think we could transfer from their system to ours right now is how care elders are assigned. Because they place a high value on small groups, elders are assigned based on small groups. Those not in small groups are still assigned to individual elders.
Next blog update: Faith Reformed, Dyer, Indiana.
After a few days of personal renewal and reflection, it was time to relocate to Wisconsin. The weekend of June 30-July 3 I spent visiting two churches in Chicago area: Living Springs in Glenwood, IL, and Faith Reformed in Dyer, IN.
I attended Sunday morning worship at Living Springs. This church is pastored by Dave Izenbart (married to Kristen; boys Joshua and Caleb). Dave is a grad of NWC (89) and Fuller (93), and has served LSCC since 1993.Living Springs’ story: They relocated several years ago from a small building in a tight neighborhood to 28 acres of land just a few blocks away. The goal of the move was to stay in their geography while enhancing their ability to reach their current transitioning neighborhood – one of the few south suburban areas where blacks and whites were more integrated.
They worship in two identical morning worship services at 9 and 10:30 a.m., with Sunday school during the first service. Worship is basically contemporary, but with some hymns. Lots of instruments fill the air. They worship around 600 people, so they are about the same size as Trinity, perhaps a little larger.
I also spent several hours on July 2 with their staff, but not until David and I did a careful inspection of a Pete Dye designed golf course (Coyote Run). [Golf update: 101, with only one lost ball.]
Here is some of what I loved and learned from LSCC:
Facility:
- Balanced needs and wants with cost realities: they did the most they could with what they had, and it serves them very well. Essentially a metal building with brick and block façade, it has nice curb appeal. The setting feels like an oasis on the edge of the city. Worship is in the gym, and yes, it feels like a gym with a worship stage, but it gets the job done nicely.
- First floor has nice gathering space, with a cafe-style fellowship area and a small bookstore. A full-size baptismal fountain leads the way into the worship area. (Yes, they do adult immersion a fare amount.) There is also a prayer room and adult ed space, along with nursery and preschool. 
- Second floor contains offices, children, and youth areas. Youth area includes stage and small kitchen area.- 28 acres is a lot of space! They have a master plan for future building, but have also built a gazebo and one ball field. Their summer outreach includes a number of sports-related outdoor activities. A lovely forest borders the far edge leading to a creek and they plan to put a prayer walk area in that space.
Worship:
My first impression was “Wow, these people really love each other.” I was there plenty early and watched people enter the facility. They sought out one another with great delight. People who didn’t know me welcomed me with joy. It may seem like a small thing, since Trinity does this pretty well, but one thing I noticed in almost all the churches I visited this sabbatical is how little people actually embraced or talked to one another. In many churches, worshipers entered, observed worship, and left. Here, it seemed people looked for others to meet, embraced the people around them, and lingered long after worship.
My second impression was “Wow, people sing.” In a lot of churches I visited, it was hard to hear people singing. Maybe it was the acoustics of a gym, but it was also more. There was an aliveness in the place that was unmistakable.
My third impression was “I could be on that praise team.” Not because they couldn’t sing (like me), but because they were welcoming by their eyes and actions that I was one of them.
My biggest impression by far was the incredible diversity within the church. Yes, it was mostly white, but there were many African Americans, Asians, and some Hispanics. They have made a commitment to be inclusive of all races and are accomplishing it better than most Midwest RCA churches. An African American woman staff member led the prayers, and the next hire will be an Associate Pastor from an ethnic group of the church’s region, and David’s 11th Commandment is “Thou Shalt Have the Races of the Church on the Platform Each week.”
Charismatic atmosphere and grounded biblical teaching: David is preaching “The Old Testament Challenge” material and had a tremendous message on Elijah. LSCC does not have another midweek teaching time, so Sunday morning is both seeker sensitive and biblically deep – proof that a growing church does not have to be on the shallow side of things to grow.
Prayer:
It is obvious that this church has an atmosphere of prayer. It’s present in all aspects of the church’s life. It is part of this church’s history as well. Even the youth group places a high value on prayer ministry. Rich Albrecth (former Trinity intern with Cory Grimm) leads the youth ministry. He said, “I know I’ve messed up these kids when they’d rather go to prayer weekend than to a mosh pit at a Christian concert.” The congregation occasionally sends people to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (which folks at Third Peall do, too).
Connecting Life and Ministry together:
Two things stand out from how LVSS is growing people in faith.
One is the connection across the board in what they are doing. They connect people’s walk with God on four levels: worship, Sunday School, small groups, and personal devotions. On each of those levels, they are doing the same thing. For example, David preached on Elijah, a Sunday school class focuses in-depth on Elijah, the small groups had guides for Elijah, and the bulletin includes daily readings for Elijah this week.
A second arena is the emphasis on “Living Fire,” their name for our Leaders for the Harvest ministry. They have done it for a few years more than Trinity and are seeing people go through all three years. With Faith, Dyer, they are leading over 70 people a year through this ministry in their region.Leadership Structure and Style:
Again, I won’t bore the blog with too many details here. They have a structure similar to ours and are trying to find their way through some transitions. One significant recent change is the hiring of a full-time executive director of ministry and operations (a man coming out of management in a computer business). This is just three months old and it will be good to see this develop over the next year.
The one thing I think we could transfer from their system to ours right now is how care elders are assigned. Because they place a high value on small groups, elders are assigned based on small groups. Those not in small groups are still assigned to individual elders.
Next blog update: Faith Reformed, Dyer, Indiana.
