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Shaun White INSANE Lifestyle: Gorgeous Babe, Massive Mansion, Life’s EASY!
Welcome back to Athlete Frenzy. Today on the channel, we are going to showcase Shaun White rich lifestyle and how he spends his millions. Shaun White is a professional snowboarder. He was born on September 03, 1986 in San Diego, California, United States.
As of 2021, Shaun White is estimated to have a networth of $60 million. He is a three time Olympic gold medalist as well as a record holder for the most golds in Winter X- games. In today’s video, we take a quick glimpse at Shaun White rich lifestyle and how he spends his millions.
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Shaun White Lifestyle, Age, Girlfriend, Biodata, House, Hair, Medals, Net worth, etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXOButi8h4
Shaun White: The Guy who Raised the Bar in Snowboarding | Legends Live On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqdAhD0CJqw
Shaun White Unfiltered | Forbes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvYQbc6RGa0
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Shaun Nepstad Net Worth | How To Pray – ĐIỆN THOẠI CỔ
d여기에서 HOW TO PRAY | Shaun Nepstad – shaun nepstad net worth 주제에 대한 세부정보를 참조하세요. We tend to overcomplicate prayer—learn …
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Date Published: 8/20/2022
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Shaun Nepstad, 44 – Brentwood, CA – MyLife.com
View FREE Public Profile & Reputation for Shaun Nepstad in Brentwood, … Phone Number | 2 Personal Reviews | $100 – $149999 Income & Net Worth.
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Date Published: 5/19/2022
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Antioch church blossoming in new home after years of …
The Fellowship Church pastor Shaun Nepstad holds his hand up high during morning church services at the grand opening of their new church in …
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Date Published: 1/27/2021
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Shaun Nepstad – Worthy Publishing
Shaun Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California, in 2002. Over the past nine years, the church has grown from 350 to …
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Date Published: 4/17/2021
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Fellowship Church | Antioch, CA Christian Church
Shaun & Dianna founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California in 2002. There are two words that can describe the Church: Hope & Healing.
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Date Published: 10/7/2021
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5 of the Fastest-Growing Churches You’ve Never Heard of
Pastor Shaun Nepstad was essentially a one-man band, doing everything from worship to visitation, announcements and preaching. After much prayer …
Source: ministrytodaymag.com
Date Published: 9/5/2021
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Shaun Nepstad | If You’re Not Dead, God’s Not Done
SHAUN NEPSTAD has a passion to help people who feel stuck. Through speaking, writing, and building teams …
Source: shaunnepstad.com
Date Published: 1/9/2022
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주제와 관련된 더 많은 사진을 참조하십시오 Shaun White INSANE Lifestyle: Gorgeous Babe, Massive Mansion, Life’s EASY!. 댓글에서 더 많은 관련 이미지를 보거나 필요한 경우 더 많은 관련 기사를 볼 수 있습니다.
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- Author: Athlete Frenzy
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- Date Published: 2021. 8. 24.
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Shaun Nepstad Net Worth | How To Pray | Shaun Nepstad 상위 228개 답변
당신은 주제를 찾고 있습니까 “shaun nepstad net worth – HOW TO PRAY | Shaun Nepstad“? 다음 카테고리의 웹사이트 https://ppa.covadoc.vn 에서 귀하의 모든 질문에 답변해 드립니다: https://ppa.covadoc.vn/blog/. 바로 아래에서 답을 찾을 수 있습니다. 작성자 Fellowship Church 이(가) 작성한 기사에는 조회수 2,541회 및 좋아요 73개 개의 좋아요가 있습니다.
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d여기에서 HOW TO PRAY | Shaun Nepstad – shaun nepstad net worth 주제에 대한 세부정보를 참조하세요
We tend to overcomplicate prayer—learn how to keep it simple and effective.
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Shaun B Nepstad, 44 – Reputation & Contact Details
Shaun’s reported annual income is about $100 – 149,999; with a net worth that tops $100,000 – $249,999.
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Source: www.mylife.com
Date Published: 8/29/2022
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Antioch church blossoming in new home after years of …
The Fellowship Church pastor Shaun Nepstad holds his hand up high during morning church services at the grand opening of their new church in …
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Date Published: 9/8/2022
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Fellowship Church | Antioch, CA Christian Church
Shaun & Dianna founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California in 2002. There are two words that can describe the Church: Hope & Healing.
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Source: www.tfcpeople.com
Date Published: 7/9/2022
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Shaun Nepstad – Worthy Publishing
Shaun Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California, in 2002. Over the past nine years, the church has grown from 350 to …
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Shaun Nepstad | If You’re Not Dead, God’s Not Done
SHAUN NEPSTAD has a passion to help people who feel stuck. Through speaking, writing, and building teams …
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Shaun Nepstad on Plateaued to 10x Church Growth
Shaun is a fifth generation pastor on both ses of his family. He always wanted to become a pastor but wasn’t sure at first if he was doing it …
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Date Published: 6/1/2022
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5 of the Fastest-Growing Churches You’ve Never Heard of
In 2004, Koinonia pastor Dr. Ronnie Goines, his wife Nikki and three other people … Pastor Shaun Nepstad was essentially a one-man band, …
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HOW TO PRAY | Shaun Nepstad
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Author: Fellowship Church
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Date Published: 2022. 1. 2.
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Antioch church blossoming in new home after years of nomadic existence
ANTIOCH — Boarded up and surrounded by a chain-link fence, the nearly 43,000-square-foot former hardware store in the Antioch shopping center was a forlorn sight. But after sitting vacant for more than two years, the building reopened amid fanfare this spring when Fellowship Church of Antioch finally settled into its own place after nearly 13½ years in temporary quarters. “It just feels funny to leave church and all we have to do is turn the lights off,” Lead Pastor Shaun Nepstad said. “For so many years, we were setting up and tearing down (every Sunday).” The parking lot of what was once Orchard Supply Hardware is now jammed on Sundays, the interior remodeled into a sanctuary that can accommodate 992 people — more than twice the capacity of the Prewett Family Park room that the church had been renting from the city. A golf cart shuttles visitors to the front of the church where youths hold signs bearing messages like “So Glad You’re Here!” as throngs stream through the doors to one of the three services. The bustling scene reflects the remarkable growth that Fellowship Church has experienced since 105 worshipers first gathered in Jack London Elementary School’s cafeteria on Oct. 20, 2002. That small group has evolved into one of East Contra Costa County’s largest congregations and is the fulfillment of a vision that had started taking shape earlier in 2002 when Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, began meeting in living rooms with 20 others to discuss the launch. “We had a dream to build a life-giving, multiethnic church in the East Bay,” he said, recalling the leap of faith that he and his wife took upon sinking their entire savings into the venture at a time when they had four girls under the age of 3. “This wasn’t something where we said, ‘Let’s go try’ — it was ‘let’s go do,’ ” he said. That commitment and Nepstad’s compelling onstage presence are factors in the fledgling church’s expansion. Wearing his signature skinny black jeans and oversize shirts with his hair styled in a quiff, the 38-year-old exudes hip. He’s an able storyteller, illustrating sermon points with personal anecdotes that resonate with listeners, like the time one of his toddlers went missing in an amusement park, prompting a desperate search that Nepstad likens to God yearning for His own lost children. It’s a transparency that longtime church member Art Garibay respects. “What you see is what you get,” said the Antioch resident, who has known Nepstad since the early 1990s. “That man is the same everywhere, whether he’s on the stage, in the lobby with people or playing a pickup game of basketball.” Humor and transparency are staples in his messages, and Nepstad’s flair for the offbeat also makes an impression: During a talk about faith, he gingerly walked across a 14-foot, two-by-four plank balanced atop two tall ladders as the wood bowed and cracked. And this spring the congregation munched on popcorn as it watched clips from mainstream films interspersed with video of Nepstad explaining how the secular themes relate to Biblical principles. And although he preaches the importance of setting aside 10 percent of one’s income to support the church’s work, Nepstad defies convention by also offering a money-back guarantee after 90 days to anyone who doesn’t experience God’s blessings. Those who have been active in Fellowship Church since the beginning also attribute its success to an unwavering focus on serving others. What is now a core value developed during a period when Nepstad had become frustrated that he wasn’t reaching the thousands he believed God wanted him to. “Numbers are important because every number represents a soul,” he said. Attendance had plateaued at about 300, and Nepstad’s spirits sank so low that he was considering handing over the church’s leadership. Then he and his wife started holding Saturday night prayer meetings, and it became clear that the church could extend its reach by helping people discover their interests and skills and then use them to benefit others. “When people are serving in their purpose, they come alive,” Nepstad said. Average Sunday attendance rose from about 500 in 2011 to 800 the following year, and then to 1,100 as members stepped up to make coffee and teach Sunday school. Others oversaw the midweek youth group or used their technical talents to manage sound, lighting and video during worship. As Fellowship Church expanded, it became a microcosm of society. “There’s old people, young people and every race you can imagine. I like to tell people, ‘Take a look around — this is what Heaven looks like,’ ” Garibay said. By 2014, the services were attracting about 1,600 people, and Fellowship Church began 2016 with a head count of 2,300. “When you’re just showing up and leaving, you don’t have anything vested in what’s happening,” said Kelli Murdock, who leads the worship music team. “When you find (your) place … it’s exhilarating. The congregation also began providing more opportunities for members to love those beyond its walls. Church members introduced “Servolution,” a week dedicated to random acts of kindness. Emergency room nurses and cops working the night shift receive energy bars, BART commuters are surprised with morning coffee and doughnuts, and residents of a local battered women’s shelter treated to manicures. “(People) don’t respond to harsh correction,” Nepstad said. “The reason that people have opened their hearts to us is because we’ve loved them first.” Reach Rowena Coetsee at 925-779-7141. Follow her at Twitter.com/RowenaCoetsee
Antioch, CA Christian Church
Growth Track Get to know us! In three simple classes, you can discover your purpose so you can make a difference.
Shaun Nepstad
Shaun Nepstad Shaun Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California, in 2002. Over the past nine years, the church has grown from 350 to over 5,000 in weekly attendance and expanded to two campuses, and it was recognized by Outreach magazine as #25 on its 2018 list of 100 Fastest Growing Churches. He and his wife, along with their four daughters, live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
If You’re Not Dead, God’s Not Done
“Don’t Quit in the Dip by my friend Shaun Nepstad is a powerful and much-needed resource for all of us. One thing this book reminds us of is that we have the option to not quit, no matter how impossible our circumstances seem. But Shaun points out something even more crucial for us to understand: you and I were never designed to give up! While the desire to quit might be woven into the fabric of our human condition, so also is the resilience and the fortitude to stay in the fight until we experience victory.” — John Maxwell, Author / Speaker
Shaun Nepstad on Plateaued to 10x Church Growth
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re so happy to have you with us today as we talk with Shaun Nepstad from Fellowship Church in Antioch, California. Shaun is a fifth generation pastor on both sides of his family. He always wanted to become a pastor but wasn’t sure at first if he was doing it because it was the “family business,” or if it was what God wanted for him. God quickly confirmed with Shaun that it was his life’s calling, and when Shaun was 24 he felt led to plant a church. So in 2003 Fellowship Church started with just 22 people. At times Fellowship Church grew quickly and at other times plateaued, but Shaun felt like God was telling him He had more in store. Today Shaun shares with us some of the roadblocks and learnings Fellowship Church experienced over the last 13 years. Breaking through with prayer. // In the early days, Shaun was doing everything on his own. He describes it as being like a one man band. It looks impressive at first—one guy playing several different instruments at once—but the more you watch, the more pitiful and overwhelming it becomes. “No one taught me how to build teams,” Shaun says. All the work quickly became too overwhelming for one person to cover on his own. At the same time growth at Fellowship Church had plateaued. Shaun didn’t know what else to do to move the church forward, so he and the church began to pray. They prayed for the services, the leadership, the community. And Shaun prayed for God to send him someone that could push the church forward if he wasn’t the person to do it. From there, God started to lead them to different ideas for strategy, community and resources to help build the church. // In the early days, Shaun was doing everything on his own. He describes it as being like a one man band. It looks impressive at first—one guy playing several different instruments at once—but the more you watch, the more pitiful and overwhelming it becomes. “No one taught me how to build teams,” Shaun says. All the work quickly became too overwhelming for one person to cover on his own. At the same time growth at Fellowship Church had plateaued. Shaun didn’t know what else to do to move the church forward, so he and the church began to pray. They prayed for the services, the leadership, the community. And Shaun prayed for God to send him someone that could push the church forward if he wasn’t the person to do it. From there, God started to lead them to different ideas for strategy, community and resources to help build the church. People need to be invested. // Shaun tells us the story of how he bought Krispy Kreme stock when he was younger. While he had the stock, he would check every day to see if it had grown. He was really invested in how well the stock was doing. Shaun eventually sold the stock and made a little money, but when he no longer owned the stock he wasn’t checking on how well it was doing. Why? Because he was no longer invested. Shaun says visits Krispy Kreme and enjoys their donuts, but he doesn’t care how well the company does. “I feel like a lot of people attend church that way,” Shaun says. “They enjoy it while they’re there, their kids get a coloring page, but if they’re not invested in the church by serving somewhere, they don’t care if your church grows or not.” This realization led Fellowship Church to go on a mission to discover people’s passions and help them take their next steps. // Shaun tells us the story of how he bought Krispy Kreme stock when he was younger. While he had the stock, he would check every day to see if it had grown. He was really invested in how well the stock was doing. Shaun eventually sold the stock and made a little money, but when he no longer owned the stock he wasn’t checking on how well it was doing. Why? Because he was no longer invested. Shaun says visits Krispy Kreme and enjoys their donuts, but he doesn’t care how well the company does. “I feel like a lot of people attend church that way,” Shaun says. “They enjoy it while they’re there, their kids get a coloring page, but if they’re not invested in the church by serving somewhere, they don’t care if your church grows or not.” This realization led Fellowship Church to go on a mission to discover people’s passions and help them take their next steps. Find people’s passions. // Fellowship Church realized they needed a process by which people could come and get involved so they started a Growth Track. Every month they run Growth Track no matter how many people are in attendance. These classes help people identify their passions and get them connected with groups and teams so they can both find a place to belong and invest in something bigger than themselves. It was at this point Shaun notes that Fellowship Church began to see real growth because people were invested: “From that moment of us discovering people’s passions and setting them loose in their gifts: 2010 our church was 300 people…and now, last Sunday we have 3600 people at church.” You can learn more about Fellowship Church at their website thefellowshipchurch.com and you can email them at [email protected]. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Share this Podcast Images .. Episode Highlights 00:32 // Rich introduces Shaun Nepstad and welcomes him to the show. 00:44 // Shaun tells us his background and the background of The Fellowship Church. 03:54 // Shaun talks about how God led him to grow the church. 09:36 // Shaun talks about the importance of investing in people to help with growth. 15:39 // Shaun highlights the need for pastors to release ministry to support growth. 17:51 // Shaun introduces us to the Growth Track. 20:40 // Shaun offers his contact information. Episode Transcript Rich – Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast, my name’s Rich Birch. So happy that you’re with us today, I’m honored that you would take some time out in your busy week, we know you’ve got a lot going on as a church leader, we’re so happy that you would take some time. Today we’ve got Shaun Nepstad with us from Fellowship Church in Antioch, California. Shaun, welcome to the show. Shaun – Thanks so much for having me. Rich – Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I’m excited to hear more of the Fellowship Church story. The Church started in 2003, so what does that make you, 12, 13 years old? With 22 people and it’s grown to over 21 hundred, which is incredible. So I’d love to hear, kind of give us that story. What got you into planting this church? Shaun – Sure, I’m fifth generation pastor on both sides of my family. Rich – Right. Shaun – I’ve always wanted to do this since I was a kid. About 16 or 17 years old I really was asking God, “Am I doing this?” because this was the family business. Rich – Right. Shaun – And God clarified some things that said, “No, you have a legacy, but there’s also a unique calling on your life.” So we served at some churches as worship pastor and a worship guy and youth and all of that, and finally my wife and I felt like we were supposed to come and start a church in this region. I was 24 years old, we had been married for just a few years and we had four girls under the age of two. Rich – Wow. Shaun – It’s because we’re such good planters, that’s what that’s all about. Rich – That’s incredible. Shaun – A two-year-old, a one-year-old and the twins were zero and we started in an elementary cafetorium. Rich – Nice. Shaun – Which it’s not even really a word, it’s a cafeteria with a stage, and rolled into that thing, smelling like Tater Tots and that box of used, lost and found clothes that every cafetorium has. We started there with 22 people, actually in 2002, October 20th 2002 and grew very quickly to about 300 people or so. Rich – Wow. Shaun – And about three months in we actually were in the hospital with ulcerated colitis, it was a big scare, losing blood. Rich – Wow. Shaun – Yeah, it was not pretty man. It was a big scare because I’d been having pains since I was 13 years old, cramps in the stomach, it’s nerves, it’s a stress level. I managed all of that. Long story short, God healed me, I haven’t had a pain in 13 years, thank God for that. But we moved, our city had this law where you had to move every year. Rich – Really? Shaun – Musical churches man. Rich – Oh my goodness. Shaun – We moved 9 times in 8 years. Rich – Wow. Basically they wouldn’t let you use the property for longer than a year because they’re trying to rotate people through right? They want lots of different groups and they don’t want anybody to dominate it. Shaun – We got it, I understand, but it was like, man we thought about changing our name to Church On The Move. Rich – Yeah, wow. Shaun – So we rotated around schools and we grew very quickly to about 300 and then just plateaued, which for some people that’s a lot of people, for other people that’s hardly any. It was just where we were. But the problem was, inside of me I felt like God had so much more for us to do and so many more people for us to reach. But what do you do when the dream that’s inside of you does not match the reality that’s in front of you? Rich – Absolutely yeah. What did you do at that moment? Were you one service, multiple service? What did that look like? What were the weekends like at that point in your church? Shaun – Well at that point it was a one-man band. We had two services, I was leading worship, I was taking the offering, I was doing the announcements, I was preaching and then we did it all over again. Rich – Yeah. Shaun – It was dumb. Like if you’ve ever seen a one-man band in your local, downtown or whatever, and he’s playing the guitar, he’s got the harmonica and the drums going. Rich – Yes. Shaun – It’s impressive at first glance, but the closer you look the more pitiful it is. Rich – Yes, right. Shaun – You’d never have that guy lead worship on a Sunday. Rich – Right. Shaun – That’s what I was doing. Rich – Okay. Shaun – Nobody in my family and I’m fifth generation pastor like I said, but nobody taught me how to build teams. Rich – Oh interesting. Shaun – So I was just trying to do it all myself and as a church planter you kind of do for a little, but here’s what I found. You can’t grow a church without releasing ministry. Rich – Right. Shaun – So we went on a mission man. We started a prayer meeting, we said, “How did the church change?” We started a weekly prayer gathering. Rich – Very cool. Shaun – I wish I could say it was super organized and anointed, man there was 8 of us, I was on the keyboard and we were fumbling through with the presence of God. But I just was banking on the fact that Jeremiah 33:3 says, God says, “If you call to me, I’ll answer you and I will show you great and marvelous things.” So we just got together and started praying for the services and praying for the community and leaders and pretty soon God began to break our heart and then he gave us strategy, we came across the ARC, Association of Related Churches and then we came across some relationships that we started to build and the church began to grow. And here’s what I’ve found, I’ve found, in my personal opinion, pastors are in one of three categories. Number one, they are in survival mode. Survival mode is like psalm 69, psalm 73, tough stuff. Rich – Yes, waters up to my neck, yes. Shaun – Lord, I’m about to drown. Rich – Yes. Shaun – That’s where we were. Nobody can focus on vision when you’re in survival mode. Rich – Right. Shaun – You’re just trying to survive. Rich – Right, just get through next weekend. Shaun – Yeah, and then there a sustaining mode, which is not much better, it’s just like you’re just trying to keep all of the plates spinning and make sure that everybody’s happy. But again, you don’t have much time to focus on vision. And then number three is the surge mode or the growth mode, where you begin to see traction. What a lot of people don’t realize is that we’ve been going for 13 years. In 2006, three years in, we just plateaued at 300 people, we could not break that. Rich – Right. Shaun – We were bouncing and it was so frustrating. I began to pray this prayer that a lot of pastors pray. “Lord, who should I bring in to take this church to where it needs to go?” Rich – Wow, that’s humbling as a church planter. That’s very humbling, three years in, to be at that point. Shaun – Yeah, because a lot of church planters are chomping at the bit at the beginning right? We’re all like, “Let me at them, let me at them.” Rich – Right. Shaun – Then you start and we’re like, “Oh God, what do I do?” Rich – Yeah. Shaun – So we began to go on a mission to… I was set, I was so tired of being a one-man band but, “Lord, who do I need to bring in take the church to where it needs to go?” because apparently I’d hit my lid and I actually began to accept that and be okay with that. Like, maybe I’ll just go ahead and plant church around? Rich – Go and do another one somewhere else, 300, yeah. Shaun – Roll them to 300 and pass them over. But it was that prayer meeting that saved our life man. Then beginning to see how to build people and there’s a phrase that we say a lot around here, it’s this: It’s not about getting a job done, it’s about getting the people done. Rich – Very good. Shaun – It’s not about getting the job done, it’s about getting the people done. Rich – So true. Shaun – We went on a mission to say, my goal is not to just get the chairs set up straight, I want to pastor the people that are here and find their gifts and set them loose from them. Here’s what I found. The most connected people in any church are those who are serving and on any small groups. Rich – Absolutely. Shaun – We’d all argue that’s the truth, but the question in there lies, how do I get more people serving in small groups? So we went on a mission with our Growth Track, adopted from Church of the Highlands, which a lot of pastors are doing now, which I think is great. We started doing that and just figuring out, “Okay, we need a process by which people can come and get involved.” Because I remember, very early on, like a couple of years into the church, there was a couple of families that would say, “Shaun, I love the church. I love the preaching, I love the worship, but to me the church is a little cliquish.” I was like, “Ah, your mamma… don’t talk about the church like that.” Rich – Yes. Shaun – The Lord told me, I felt the Lord say, “Shaun, do you remember that time?” I said, “Yes,” he said, “It’s not so much that the church was cliquish, but if I come to any church and there’s not a clear pathway by which I know as a first time guest how to get involved, I can leave saying, “I love the preaching, I love the worship, but to me they were cliquish,” even though you’re not, we just haven’t done a good job of letting them know what the next step is.” Rich – Absolutely. I mean, you want to make it obvious and simple, right? “What is this next step?” It needs to be super obvious. People have got a lot going on in their heads, it needs to be clear. What did you do, how did you kind of make that simple and obvious, make those next steps clear for people, so they weren’t wondering, “What is my next step after I’m here on a Sunday?” Shaun – Sure. I don’t know if you know this or not, but when I was 21 years old I bought Krispy Kreme stock. Rich – Nice. Shaun – Nobody told me to buy Krispy Kreme stock, I just bought it. I was like, “If they ever go public, I’m buying stock.” Rich – Yes. Shaun – They’re amazing, I want to put my mouth under the glaze. Rich – Yes. Shaun – So I bought stock, threw a few thousand dollars at it. It went up, split one time, split a second time, split a third time, I mean I made some money, sold it. But while I had the stock, I was on my laptop every morning, “Is it growing? Is it growing? Is it growing?” I’m praying for Krispy Kreme stock. I’m telling friends about Krispy Kreme stock. I wanted to everybody to know about Krispy Kreme. Rich – Yeah. Shaun – I’d be in staff meetings, pretending I’m paying attention to the staff meetings, but really I’m checking the stock of Krispy Kreme. Rich – Yes. Shaun – I’d have a large portfolio, I had one stock in my portfolio and I’ll tell you this, once I sold it, I never checked the stock, because I don’t care if it grows or not. Rich – Right. Shaun – To be honest, my wife and I and daughter, who are now teenagers, we’ll go to Krispy Kreme occasionally, we’ll enjoy it while we there. We’ll get a dozen donuts, we’ll hang out. But at the end of the day I couldn’t care less whether it grows or not. Rich – Right. Shaun – I feel like there’s a lot of people that attend churches that way. They’ll come and they’ll enjoy the worship, their kids will get a coloring page, and it’s not that they hate it while they’re there, they like it while they’re there, but they’re just not invested. Rich – Right. Shaun – If they’re not invested in the church, by serving somewhere, they don’t care if your church grows or not. They’ll come once a month, but they’re not plugged in, they’re not serving. So what we did was we went on a mission to find people’s passions, because Ephesians 2:10 is very clear, “Where God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do.” That means that there was never a time where God was like, “What are we going to do with him? Hey David come quick, we’ve got to find something for her to do.” Rich – Yes. Shaun – You weren’t expected [Inaudible 00:11:36]. Rich – Yes. Shaun – So if you want to find out what you’re supposed to be doing, just look at you, like your gifts, your talents will reveal your calling and destiny. So this Growth Track, which by the way, we do every month. The first Sunday of the month is step one. Second Sunday of the month, step two. It doesn’t matter if it’s Easter, Father’s Day, any of that stuff. And I don’t care how many people are in it. We started it at first and it was like 20 people, then 15, then 25 and then 5 and 2. A couple of times one person showed up and nobody showed and our staff was like, “Oh man, what a waste of time,” and I said, “No, don’t you ever say that.” Rich – Oh right, exactly. Shaun – I put it on the calendar and when’s the next time I can spend an hour with this person? If I can spend an hour with one person, I could sell our church. I can get [Inaudible 00:12:30]. So we started doing that and every week man, we started to build our Dream Team, what we call our Dream Team. We don’t use volunteers, we call them Dream Teamers. We’ll fine you two months tithe if you use the word volunteer, because it’s drudgery man, people serving just because there is a need. I’ll tell you what, from that moment of us discovering people’s passions and setting them loose in their gifts, 2010 our church was 300 people, 2011 we were 500 people. 2012 it grew to 800. 2013, 1100. The next year 1600 and last year 2100 and now, last Sunday we have 3600 people at church. Rich – That’s amazing. Shaun – In our brand new building, 4300 square feet, a thousand seats. So we grew to 2000 people with only three fulltime staff. Rich – Wow, that’s amazing. Shaun – And it’s because we have one and two people serving at our church. One guy was talking at a round table and one guy raises his hands like, “Man, I can’t grow our church because we only have 200 people and I can’t afford to hire staff.” And they’re like, “I’m going to let Shaun answer this question.” Rich – “We’ll let him take that one.” Shaun – My thought really is this, maybe it’s not the best way to do it, but don’t let that be an excuse not to grow. Find people’s passions, sit down with them, discover their gifts and then not just because they tell you they have the gifts. It’s not like the American Idol thing or who can’t sing for anything and then gets mad at Simon Cowell for telling them the truth. It’s like, “Well my friends say I can sing.” All of us at home are like, “Your friends don’t love you.” Rich – Yeah exactly, they’re not being clear, yeah. Shaun – But your gifts make room for you and your gifts will be recognized. That’s where pastoring comes and I love the name of your movement, unSeminary, it’s everything that you wish they would have taught you, because nobody teaches you how to build teams. Rich – No absolutely, it’s very true. Shaun – And that’s our primary role; Ephesians 4, it’s not ministry. Rich – Right. Shaun – I’m not even a minister really, I’m just a facilitator—pastor, preacher, prophet, evangelist—our role is to prepare God’s people for the works of ministry. Rich – So good. Shaun – If that’s true we need a very clear system by which we can let people know their very next step. Rich – Yeah, I don’t want people to miss that. I know there’s church planters and there’s folks that are leading out in their church and they sense, somewhere to where you were in 2009, 2010, “You know, I think the Lord’s calling us to do something more.” Get inside the head there of a leader, because I think there are a lot of leaders, they’re somewhere between don’t want to relinquish ministry and then have a fear about doing that. There’s this internal like, “I just want to hold onto it all.” Speak to that leader who’s thinking that way today. Shaun – That’s a great, great statement, because you are where you are because you’re a great leader and the reason we don’t want to release the reigns is because we know we can probably do it better than most people in the church. The only problem is, that’s not what you’re called to do. We have another saying around here and it’s this: Assume the best in people and let them prove you wrong. Rich – That’s good. Shaun – We walk around with like the gift of suspicion and then nobody’s good enough, nobody’s qualified enough. Rich – Right. Shaun – Listen, there was a time when you weren’t good enough. Rich – Yeah, very true. Shaun – Many of us are still not good enough or qualified enough, but somebody took a risk on us and I would say, there are going to be some people that burn you, but it’s worth the risk. Rich – Right. Shaun – I mean, we have over a thousand people on our Dream Team, we just shot up by another thousand with this new building, but before that, two weeks ago, we were one person and two were serving at the church. Do you know what that does to the person? They come alive. Rich – Absolutely. Shaun – I’m not trying to build a church of attenders, I’m trying to build a church of people that are serving their passions, they’re in small groups, they’re in relationship. That to me represents success, not because we have a crowd on a Sunday. So you’ve got to be willing to release ministry, you cannot grow a church without releasing it because they don’t take ownership and the guy that’s holding the front door, he’s going to invite all of his friends to church because he wants this place to grow. Rich – Yes very true. Well that’s a good word Shaun, I really appreciate that. There are a lot of leaders who are, they may stumble with this. The other piece I want to pull out, that I don’t want people to miss is, your commitment to staying on top of the Growth Track. I think there are people that try similar things, they try but they say like, “We’re going to do it once every six months,” or they’re like, “We do that every fall.” How much do you think, kind of staying on top of it and keeping on top of that treadmill has helped you integrate people, see people take steps in their relationship with Jesus? Shaun – That’s a great question. Again, because we hate preaching to empty seat, we start feeling like if a Growth Track has 10 people it’s a failure. When’s the next time you’re going to be able to sit down with these 10 people and plug them in? Rich – Yes. Shaun – Like Jesus had 12 people, was that a failure? None of us would say that’s a failure. Rich – Right. Shaun – I think personally, it needs to be on the schedule and happen every month, because some of the churches we talk to was like, “Hey, when your membership class?” “How about every six months.” “So that means, if I come to your church and I miss that, it’s a year before I could join the church?” Rich – That’s so true. Shaun – Or some people would say, “Well we just kind of look around and whenever we think we have enough people we’re like, yeah we should do a class.” Rich – Yeah not good. Shaun – Good luck with me trying to stay for that. Rich – Right. Shaun – Here’s my thought. Think about the last commercial building you walked into. Imagine if there was no front door, so you just walked up, there was windows everywhere. You’re looking through like, “How do we get in here?” There was a back door but they didn’t tell you about it. Good luck with trying to have people stay there. Rich – Yes. Shaun – Most people would leave, a few might wonder around and find the back door but very, very few. Rich – Yes. Shaun – We all walk through the front door because it’s clearly marked, there’s a sign, there’s people greeting you when you walk in. I feel like that’s how a lot of the churches are. Rich – Right. Shaun – A lot of churches don’t have a front door, it’s like, “We’ve got a back door somewhere around here, and if you stick around for six months to a year, we might let you in, but the chances of that happening are so slim. Rich – Yeah absolutely. Shaun – We want the fish to be clean before we catch them and it’s just not how it happens. Rich – Right absolutely. Shaun – Ministry is messy man, so you’ve got to have a way that the door is clearly marked. So what we say at the end of every sermon, every service, every week is, “Hey let’s clap our hands for those who have made a decision to follow Christ today. Take your connection card out, check the box that corresponds with the decision you made; give my life to Christ and renew my life to Christ. Here’s four steps you need to take, number one, join a church. Your next opportunity is the first Sunday of next month. Go through the Growth Track, discover your gifts and what makes you unique and then we’re going to put you on a team so that you can come alive because you can’t fulfil purpose along. Get on our Dream Team and then get on a small group, because nobody should do life alone. Get water baptized.” We tell them this every week, so they’re not guessing. No matter where they are, everybody knows the next step. Rich – Absolutely, very cool. Well Shaun this has been a great interview today, I’ve really enjoyed jumping in, chatting with you a little bit. Is there anything else you want to say, and then if people want to get in touch with your or Fellowship Church, how can they do that? Shaun – Yeah, you can just email. Our website is thefellowshipchurch.com and you can email us at [email protected] and just make a notation from this interview. But anything we can do to help man, my heart just really is for churches that feel stuck, because we were there and with all the temptation to want to quit, I just want to let you know that your best days are still ahead of you. It may not look like it, but this is where faith comes in. So man, if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know. Rich – Very cool. Shaun thanks so much for being on the show today. Shaun – Thanks.
5 of the Fastest-Growing Churches You’ve Never Heard of — Charisma Leader
Here are five of the fastest-growing churches you might not have heard of. ( Lightstock ) Other Christian magazines annually report on the “fastest-growing churches in America.” Churches like New Spring in Anderson, South Carolina; Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama; Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California; Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas; and Citylife Church in Tampa, Florida, have all received their just due for packing ’em in every Sunday and winning souls for the kingdom. But what about those church plants—ones that you might not quite be familiar with—that Jesus has blessed with phenomenal growth in a short period of time? One of those churches “fearlessly” meets in a nightclub in downtown Los Angeles—complete with, dare we say it, stripper poles. Another started out in a laundromat, with members putting quarters in machines and paying for other people’s laundry, and wound up in an Irish pub. In a society when many churches are either on the decline or have shut down, these churches certainly have hit on a godly formula to attract the unchurched. Get Spirit-filled content delivered right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe to our newsletter. Unique Growth One church met in a nightclub with stripper poles—a venue popular with Hollywood celebrities. Another focused on the “profound mystery” of marriage, encouraging husbands to be the “pastors of their homes.” A third uses a Crossfit gym as its second campus and offers a workout after the service. A fourth is breaking all the rules with love, miracles, long sermons and worship services that allow the gifts of the Spirit to flow. The last started doing free laundry for the less fortunate, met in an Irish pub and has the blessing of Pastor Jack Hayford, former president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. While their methods and gathering places may be unconventional, they all share a passion for spreading the hope and love of Jesus in highly innovative ways. They are among the fastest-growing churches in America that most have never heard of. Here are their stories: Fearless Church From an early age, Jeremy Johnson felt God was calling him to plant a church in one of America’s most unchurched areas. But he never imagined his church would hold services in a nightclub with stripper poles or that it would be featured in a positive light in a liberal, alternative newsmagazine such as Los Angeles Weekly. The idea for this daring and innovative church gelled one day during a prayer meeting in Modesto, California, several years ago when the words of A. W. Tozer came to his wife’s mind: “A scared world needs a fearless church.” “My wife (Christy) said, ‘What if we call it Fearless?’ Something just jumped out to me when she said that because fear had almost dominated my life to the point where I couldn’t speak or share the gospel,” says Johnson, pastor of Fearless Church, a Los Angeles-based church that has grown from 20 people last year to about 400 now. “I said, ‘God, I’ll go out on a limb and tell the whole world. God broke my fear of approval of man, fear of failure and just worry and anxiety. 1 John 4:18 says, ‘perfect love casts out fear.’ There are actually 365 ‘fear nots’ in the Bible. There is one for every day.” The birth of Fearless Church has its roots in a message Johnson gave at the funeral of two high school friends who died in a car accident in 1997. Plagued by fear of public speaking, Johnson only gave a “nice little prayer.” Afterwards, several other friends got drunk and got into an accident. When the driver awoke, he mistakenly thought he had killed everyone in the car, walked to nearby railroad tracks and took his life. Troubled that he hadn’t shared the gospel at the funeral, Johnson decided at age 18 to dedicate his life to spreading the gospel and become a pastor. After graduating from Vanguard University, he spent a decade working as the youth pastor at The House: Modesto church. Then, one day, Johnson had an encounter with God while traveling with the band that grew out of his youth group—Worth Dying For. On the bus ride, Johnson says it felt like “all the sound in the bus (it was very loud) shut off for a second and I felt God speak to me and say that in five years I would plant a church with this band.” In 2011, Johnson and his family moved to Southern California. Joined by the band and others from the youth group, they held their first service around a bonfire on a Corona del Mar beach. Unbeknownst to Johnson, it’s the same place where Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, baptized hundreds of hippies during the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. “We grew to about 50 people, but the police shut us down,” Johnson says. “The people getting drunk and high all around us called the cops for having church on the beach.” So Johnson moved his congregation to a coffee shop in Irvine where “God would just show up in such a powerful way that the whole team would be on the floor—just weeping and crying out for souls.” Next, his congregation moved a rented warehouse in Costa Mesa where he hired a “secular marketing guy.” He challenged them to “ask your God why He sent you here and who He sent you here for.’ ” Motivated by his remarks, the congregation felt inspired to reach those “who are chasing a dream and who have been crushed by a dream.” In May 2013, the congregation relocated to the Belasco Theater nightclub in downtown Los Angeles. Johnson told the manager that he wanted to hold church services there. “He looked at us like, ‘You’re crazy,’” Johnson recalls. “‘Why in the world would you want to have church here?’ He said, ‘Those are stripper poles over there.’ ” Nevertheless, Fearless Church held its first service at the theater on Pentecost Sunday and the line “went down the street.” The church continued to grow–holding services at locations that doubled as nightclubs frequented by Hollywood stars and music personalities–and moved several times before settling on the Exchange LA at 618 S. Spring St. Today, less than two years after the church held its first bonfire beach service, attendance averages about 400 each weekend. The church, which is “super-connected” to Planetshakers City Church in Australia, has a vision see the entire city “come to know the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ.” “I attribute it to following the will of God and listening to Him even when it doesn’t make sense,” Johnson says. Koinonia Christian Church Every growing church is a marriage-building church. That’s the secret behind the growth of Koinonia Christian Church in Arlington, Texas, a church that exploded from a five-person Bible study a decade ago to a congregation of more than 4,000 members today. “When you become a marriage-building church, you are pumping health and life into your church which creates the foundation for it,” says Jimmy Evans, the founder of Marriage Today, a Texas-based ministry dedicated to restoring the dream of marriage in America. “It creates an inductive atmosphere where people will want to come because they know something great will happen in their relationships.” In 2004, Koinonia pastor Dr. Ronnie Goines, his wife Nikki and three other people started a Bible study in the Goines’ family living room. Over the next two years, the Bible study gave birth to what eventually became Koinoinia, a church that had grown to about 70 members by 2006. But the growth of the church didn’t really take off until Nikki came home one day and told her husband about the Marriage Today ministry. They listened to a CD that teaches couples how to have a strong marriage. “I was blown away by it,” Goines says.”We said, ‘We have to open this up to our people.’ ” The church created what became known as the COMMITTED marriage ministry. COMMITTED is not only designed to “save” marriages, but to make good marriages better. “Many people mistakenly base the decision to marry on love, but don’t realize that love alone is not the basis for a healthy marriage,” Goines says. “Many couples are in divorce court every day and still in love. However, if your marriage is based on commitment, even during seasons where love is not felt, a couple is committed to working it out.” The church is modeled after Evans’ ministry. “From our perspective, churches are ignoring some of the biggest issues in society—one of those being the demise of marriage,” says Evans, author of Marriage on the Rock and co-host of the Marriage Today with Jimmy Evans television program. “People want to be married. It’s in their DNA. When you help people be married, you are not trying to push something on them they don’t want. They just don’t know how.” Goines says it’s unbalanced theology for a church to not teach about strong marriages. “According to Ephesians 5:32, marriage is a profound mystery that is akin to Christ and the church,” Goines says. “Therefore a solid understanding of marriage is somehow amalgamated with a solid understanding of Christ.” Initially, only a few couples signed up for the sessions. But as word spread, the meetings soon drew 20 to 30 couples. Over the next year, attendance shot from 100 to more than 400. “In the midst of that, I discovered there is a big void in the home when it comes to men embracing their roles as husbands and leaders,” Goines says. During the sessions, Goines says men would often tell him that they didn’t know how to live the lifestyle of a godly man, but if he asked them about the responsibilities of a pastor they could easily offer a good answer. “They had a pretty accurate idea of what they expected from me as their pastor,” Goines says. “With that discovery, I started to teach men that they are to be the pastors of their homes.” As word of saved marriages began to spread, more and more people started attending the church and going to the COMMITTED sessions. By 2008, the congregation had grown to 2,000 people. “People are coming to get the real deal on not just on how to be married, but how to enjoy their marriages,” Goines says. “We taught men and women how to embrace their roles as God designed. ” Today, the church has more than 4,000 members. Goines says the growth is largely the result of Marriage Today and its initial generosity in sending the church a year’s worth of curriculum, books and DVDs at no charge. “They sowed that seed into our ministry and now today, as God would have it, I’m scheduled to speak at a Marriage Today conference,” Goines says. “I met Jimmy Evans personally. That’s an awesome honor for me to be friends with a guy who is responsible not just for our church growth, but also for saving so many marriages in our church.” OneChurch Columbus Like most church-planting pastors, Greg Ford had many trepidations about the new venture he and his wife Shaylyn had taken on when they moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 2011. They had been trained for this through the Assemblies of God, but building relationships and trust among the community was an entirely different thing. The Fords’ vision was to establish a church that would not only attract Bible-believing Christians but also the unchurched and those who had little knowledge of Jesus. Attracting that type of crowd to church certainly wasn’t going to be easy. As a second means of income, Greg Ford took a job at the front desk of a local Crossfit gym. An athlete himself, Ford soon discovered that he could relate easily to the members of the Crossfit gym and that they were receptive to hearing the gospel. “I was the morning person, so I’d arrive at the gym every morning at 4:30 a.m. and the doors would open at 5,” said Ford, 33, a former youth pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Toledo, Ohio. “Literally there would hundreds of people each day that gave me the opportunity to build friendships let people get to know what we were trying to do. You had regular fitness buffs, but you also had professional athletes and former pro athletes that went to the club, and most of these people weren’t going to church.” OneChurch’s Crossfit campus—an 8,000 square-foot facility in New Albany—holds services on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. in that gym. Ford says he has about 100 people who call that church their home church, but normally has 50 people in attendance on Sunday. Not only can attendees hear an inspiring message, but they can stay for a free Crossfit workout afterward. “We define worship in broader terms than some.” advertisement OneChurch’s Cornerstone Campus in Westerville holds two services on Sunday mornings and has grown to around 600 members. Between the two campuses, OneChurch has attracted both the lost and believers who are new to the faith. Ford says his biggest thrill is seeing people get saved on a regular basis and then discipling them. “We’ve had a lot of turnover, and that’s been a challenge. But, it’s been exciting to watch our church grow so rapidly,” Ford said. “God is really doing some amazing things here.” Redemption Point Church Redemption Point Pastor Kevin Wallace has a vision to pastor the “most loving church in America”—not to mention one of the more miraculous. As pastor of a church in Ooltewah, Tennessee, that has grown from 34 attendees at its first meeting in 2000 to more than 1,200 today, Wallace seems to be well on his way to fulfilling that calling. However, the early years weren’t easy. In fact, the pastor of Redemption Point Church says it was “hell on earth.” “This is the part people don’t usually hear about,” Wallace says. “My 1-year-old son Jeremiah had seven kidney stones in his right kidney. My newborn son and my wife in the first six months both got spinal meningitis within the same week. I almost had a nervous breakdown. But what catapulted our church into the first wave of explosive, quick growth was that God healed my son of kidney stones, and he healed my wife and newborn son of spinal meningitis. “Our agnostic doctor confessed that although she didn’t believe in miracles, something had to have happened because the kidney stones disappeared. It was definitely after the church had prayed. And when those miracles happened, the church went from 34 people to about 200 people in nine months. We went into a major revival mode.” During this time, a number of miracles occurred among members of this Church of God congregation, including a mother with a walker who “threw off that walker and took off trotting around the church without a walker,” Wallace says. “The church was rather dead, to be honest, when Kevin got here,” says Ron Phillips, the senior pastor at Abba’s House in Hixson, Tennessee and host of the Ron Phillips From Abba’s House television program. “He began in his joyful and enthusiastic way to preach the Bible and grew the campus in Ooltewah. “I’ve never seen a church advance as rapidly as his church. It hasn’t happened because he embraced some modern or contemporary model. It’s advanced because there is a strong presence of God on this young man’s life. It’s obvious he’s gifted by the Holy Spirit, in addition to his own natural talents as a preacher. He’s a great people person and a great man in the pulpit. He seems to attract resources as well that have brought great favor to him.” Wallace, who received a word of prophecy from Phillips as a youth that he would become “a voice in your generation,” says church growth experts are often shocked by his church’s success “because so many times we do the opposite of what we are supposed to do to grow.” “We broke all the rules,” Wallace says. Instead of giving a 25-minute sermon, Wallace often preaches for 45-50 minutes, and worship services can last for hours. “It’s almost old-fashioned with a fresh, prophetic sort of focus,” Wallace says. “I don’t like weirdness, but at the same time I think that our churches have gotten so normal that anytime we get back to the Bible everyone thinks we’re abnormal. “When people come to our church, they may see people fall out on the floors, speak in tongues and there is an interpretation and healings occur. That is shocking to even some Spirit-filled people who come to church, but that is the paradigm that the New Testament church is called to operate in. While some people think that’s abnormal, we think it’s normal.” In the past, ministers have been told that if they allow the gifts of the Spirit to flourish that their congregations won’t grow, Wallace says. “But in the Book of Acts every explosive growth season in the church was tied to supernatural and miraculous sorts of activity where God broke in and just did things that only He can do. When He did that, and the people allowed Him to and entire cities and communities were transformed.” Wallace says the church needs to refocus on the things of God and let the Spirit of the Lord do what only the Holy Spirit can. “We have seen the limits of what man’s gifts and man’s abilities can produce in the church,” Wallace says. “Whatever we see now is as good as it can get without God restoring true apostolic power and authority. The only thing that I think will revive the church in America is an authentic demonstration of the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.” Freedom Church Freedom Church started with seven friends from his Bible study going to a Laundromat in Chatsworth, California, putting quarters in the machines and paying for everyone’s laundry. “We did it without any strings attached–just a way to love and serve the community in a really under-resourced area,” says Freedom Church Pastor Justice Coleman. “Over the course of months, we made a lot of friends. I prayed for people, I did a funeral and we did more than 1,000 loads of laundry. “When it came time to start the church, we had a group of people who were really excited about it. They were like, ‘When are you going to start your church?’ ” In deciding on a place for the church to meet, Coleman thought about a tattoo-covered friend he once invited to church who felt so awkward that he never returned. “It was then that I realized that the church experience he had was fine—like the pastor did a great sermon and people were welcoming—but it wasn’t good for Jake and he never came back,” Coleman says. “I realized that I wanted to start a church so people would have a place they felt like they could belong before they even believed.” One day, Coleman approached the owner of McGee’s Irish Pub in Chatsworth to see if he could hold his church services there. “He didn’t want me to start a church in there,” Coleman says. “He said, ‘I don’t want my bar turning into a church.’ With fasting and prayer and by the grace of God—and the right price—he agreed to rent it out to us.” The first service was held on Easter Sunday in 2011, and about 100 people showed up. “We wanted to start a church in a pub because I felt it would be the most comfortable place people who are not Christians to go,” Coleman says. “We were trying to start a church to reach as-yet-not Christians. We were trying to create a church where people can belong before they believe, and an Irish pub seemed like a good place for that.” Jack Hayford, former pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California, where Coleman grew up, says Coleman is an “outstanding young leader, and I’m grateful for his leadership and for what’s occurring over at Freedom Church.” After meeting at the pub for a while, the church relocated to a middle school and opened a campus in Highland Park near downtown Los Angeles. About 500 people now attend the two campuses each weekend. “I think people are really hungry for real and authentic faith and real and authentic community,” Coleman says. “The No. 1 thing I hear from people when they take a survey or are talking about the church is that it just felt real. We are talking about real stuff every week that is very practical.” 7 more churches in America experiencing rapid growth Here’s a look at some more rapidly growing churches in America: 1) The Fellowship Church, Antioch, California (ARC) – For the better part of seven years, The Fellowship Church, established in 2003, stayed stagnant at around 350 members. Pastor Shaun Nepstad was essentially a one-man band, doing everything from worship to visitation, announcements and preaching. After much prayer and a new vision, the congregation hit a growth spurt a little more than three years ago, and Sunday attendance now stands at around 1,500. Nepstad attributes that to the church’s faithfulness in serving the community and getting everyone involved as a volunteer. Gratitude baskets to police officers, free BBQ for the homeless and passing out coffee and donuts to commuters at the local train station are only some of the ways members of The Fellowship Church brings the gospel to the unchurched. “All of these outreaches are to get people in the church serving,” Nepstad says. “I’ve heard 11 percent of people in the church have the gift of evangelism. So what do the other 89 percent do? We’ve got to figure out a kind way to reach God’s lost kids.” 2) New Hope Leeward, Waipahu, Hawaii (Foursquare) – Under the direction of Pastor Mike Lwin, New Hope Leeward, a January 2003 church plant, outgrew the Leeward Community College Theater where it met when it opened. By the end of its first year, it became clear that God had huge plans for the church. It moved into a new home, the Leeward Ministry Center, and the church has grown to more than 1,200 members for that campus. However, the church has birthed three other campuses, and its attendance numbers have reached 5,000. Three more campuses on the Hawaiian Islands are planned. 3) Abundant Life Church of God, San Antonio, Texas (COG) – A multi-cultural church under the direction of Pastor Eliezer Bonilla, Abundant Life adopted a small-group ministry strategy and started a second all-English service in 2003, shifting its focus from the congregation to the community. The church planted a second campus in 2008, and, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the congregation has grown from 200 to 2,000 in less than six years. The fruit of these gradual changes has yielded four worship services (two in Spanish and two in English) and it has cemented a growing trend where Hispanic churches are planting English-speaking congregations. 4) Mill City Church, Fort Collins, Colorado (ARC) – Not unlike many others, Mill City Church’s small-group ministry is thriving. Instead of meeting at church members’ homes, however, MCC has it what it calls City Groups, which look to be the hands and feet of Jesus by paying attention to and meeting needs around their families, neighborhoods or workplaces. This outreach has helped MCC in its growth spurt since being launched in 2012. Mill City Church, under the direction of Pastor Aaron Stern, is a church plant of the Association of Related Churches and has grown to 1,000 members in less than two years. 5) New Hope Church of God, Trenton, New Jersey (COG) – Ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in America, Trenton is where God instructed Pastor Philip Bonaparte to set down roots for New Hope. With one location already in East Windsor, Bonaparte, a doctor by trade, founded a second congregation in Trenton in January 2013 and decided to go full-time as a pastor. In a little more than a year, the congregation of New Hope has swelled from less than 50 to 500. Among its many outreaches are a food bank and clothing ministry to help the poor and destitute of Trenton. As another testament to its growth, New Hope began a third congregation in Long Branch, New Jersey, in July 2013. 6) Hope Fellowship Church, Frisco, Texas (AG) – In a little more than a decade, Hope Fellowship, which initially met as a church plant at a daycare center, averages 5,500 on Sunday mornings. Pastor John McKinzie chose Frisco to set down roots because of its moniker as one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. “We just put up a sign and we initially had 51 people,” McKinzie said. “It was the only place in the whole city that was open to start a church.” 7) TurningPoint Church, Lexington, Kentucky (ARC) – Launched in February 2012, Turning Point Church’s congregation has swelled to 1,200 in a little more than two years under the direction of Pastor Josh Mauney with Sunday services at 9:00, 10:15 and 11:30 a.m. Yet another ARC church plant, TurningPoint’s mission is to “help every person we can find their place in God’s plan.” TurningPoint’s Connect Groups, including its Café Team, College Survival Guide, Friday Friends, Men Being Men and Making the Most of Your Marriage, help keep the congregation connected to each other and the community. Shawn A. Akers is the managing editor of Ministry Today magazine. Get Spirit-filled content delivered right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe to our newsletter. Dr. Mark Rutland’s National Institute of Christian Leadership (NICL) The NICL is one of the top leadership training programs in the U.S. taught by Dr. Mark Rutland. If you’re the type of leader that likes to have total control over every aspect of your ministry and your future success, the NICL is right for you! FREE NICL MINI-COURSE – Enroll for 3-hours of training from Dr. Rutland’s full leadership course. Experience the NICL and decide if this training is right for you and your team. The NICL Online is an option for any leader with time or schedule constraints. It’s also for leaders who want to expedite their training to receive advanced standing for Master Level credit hours. Work through Dr. Rutland’s full training from the comfort of your home or ministry at your pace. Learn more about NICL Online. Learn more about NICL Online. See an error in this article? Send us a correction
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Antioch church blossoming in new home after years of nomadic existence
ANTIOCH — Boarded up and surrounded by a chain-link fence, the nearly 43,000-square-foot former hardware store in the Antioch shopping center was a forlorn sight.
But after sitting vacant for more than two years, the building reopened amid fanfare this spring when Fellowship Church of Antioch finally settled into its own place after nearly 13½ years in temporary quarters.
“It just feels funny to leave church and all we have to do is turn the lights off,” Lead Pastor Shaun Nepstad said. “For so many years, we were setting up and tearing down (every Sunday).”
The parking lot of what was once Orchard Supply Hardware is now jammed on Sundays, the interior remodeled into a sanctuary that can accommodate 992 people — more than twice the capacity of the Prewett Family Park room that the church had been renting from the city.
A golf cart shuttles visitors to the front of the church where youths hold signs bearing messages like “So Glad You’re Here!” as throngs stream through the doors to one of the three services.
The bustling scene reflects the remarkable growth that Fellowship Church has experienced since 105 worshipers first gathered in Jack London Elementary School’s cafeteria on Oct. 20, 2002.
That small group has evolved into one of East Contra Costa County’s largest congregations and is the fulfillment of a vision that had started taking shape earlier in 2002 when Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, began meeting in living rooms with 20 others to discuss the launch.
“We had a dream to build a life-giving, multiethnic church in the East Bay,” he said, recalling the leap of faith that he and his wife took upon sinking their entire savings into the venture at a time when they had four girls under the age of 3.
“This wasn’t something where we said, ‘Let’s go try’ — it was ‘let’s go do,’ ” he said.
That commitment and Nepstad’s compelling onstage presence are factors in the fledgling church’s expansion. Wearing his signature skinny black jeans and oversize shirts with his hair styled in a quiff, the 38-year-old exudes hip.
He’s an able storyteller, illustrating sermon points with personal anecdotes that resonate with listeners, like the time one of his toddlers went missing in an amusement park, prompting a desperate search that Nepstad likens to God yearning for His own lost children.
It’s a transparency that longtime church member Art Garibay respects.
“What you see is what you get,” said the Antioch resident, who has known Nepstad since the early 1990s. “That man is the same everywhere, whether he’s on the stage, in the lobby with people or playing a pickup game of basketball.”
Humor and transparency are staples in his messages, and Nepstad’s flair for the offbeat also makes an impression: During a talk about faith, he gingerly walked across a 14-foot, two-by-four plank balanced atop two tall ladders as the wood bowed and cracked.
And this spring the congregation munched on popcorn as it watched clips from mainstream films interspersed with video of Nepstad explaining how the secular themes relate to Biblical principles.
And although he preaches the importance of setting aside 10 percent of one’s income to support the church’s work, Nepstad defies convention by also offering a money-back guarantee after 90 days to anyone who doesn’t experience God’s blessings.
Those who have been active in Fellowship Church since the beginning also attribute its success to an unwavering focus on serving others.
What is now a core value developed during a period when Nepstad had become frustrated that he wasn’t reaching the thousands he believed God wanted him to.
“Numbers are important because every number represents a soul,” he said.
Attendance had plateaued at about 300, and Nepstad’s spirits sank so low that he was considering handing over the church’s leadership. Then he and his wife started holding Saturday night prayer meetings, and it became clear that the church could extend its reach by helping people discover their interests and skills and then use them to benefit others.
“When people are serving in their purpose, they come alive,” Nepstad said.
Average Sunday attendance rose from about 500 in 2011 to 800 the following year, and then to 1,100 as members stepped up to make coffee and teach Sunday school. Others oversaw the midweek youth group or used their technical talents to manage sound, lighting and video during worship.
As Fellowship Church expanded, it became a microcosm of society.
“There’s old people, young people and every race you can imagine. I like to tell people, ‘Take a look around — this is what Heaven looks like,’ ” Garibay said.
By 2014, the services were attracting about 1,600 people, and Fellowship Church began 2016 with a head count of 2,300.
“When you’re just showing up and leaving, you don’t have anything vested in what’s happening,” said Kelli Murdock, who leads the worship music team. “When you find (your) place … it’s exhilarating.
The congregation also began providing more opportunities for members to love those beyond its walls.
Church members introduced “Servolution,” a week dedicated to random acts of kindness. Emergency room nurses and cops working the night shift receive energy bars, BART commuters are surprised with morning coffee and doughnuts, and residents of a local battered women’s shelter treated to manicures.
“(People) don’t respond to harsh correction,” Nepstad said. “The reason that people have opened their hearts to us is because we’ve loved them first.”
Reach Rowena Coetsee at 925-779-7141. Follow her at Twitter.com/RowenaCoetsee
Shaun Nepstad
Shaun Nepstad
Shaun Nepstad and his wife, Dianna, founded Fellowship Church in Antioch, California, in 2002. Over the past nine years, the church has grown from 350 to over 5,000 in weekly attendance and expanded to two campuses, and it was recognized by Outreach magazine as #25 on its 2018 list of 100 Fastest Growing Churches. He and his wife, along with their four daughters, live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
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5 of the Fastest-Growing Churches You’ve Never Heard of — Charisma Leader
Here are five of the fastest-growing churches you might not have heard of. ( Lightstock )
Other Christian magazines annually report on the “fastest-growing churches in America.” Churches like New Spring in Anderson, South Carolina; Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama; Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California; Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas; and Citylife Church in Tampa, Florida, have all received their just due for packing ’em in every Sunday and winning souls for the kingdom.
But what about those church plants—ones that you might not quite be familiar with—that Jesus has blessed with phenomenal growth in a short period of time?
One of those churches “fearlessly” meets in a nightclub in downtown Los Angeles—complete with, dare we say it, stripper poles. Another started out in a laundromat, with members putting quarters in machines and paying for other people’s laundry, and wound up in an Irish pub.
In a society when many churches are either on the decline or have shut down, these churches certainly have hit on a godly formula to attract the unchurched.
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Unique Growth
One church met in a nightclub with stripper poles—a venue popular with Hollywood celebrities. Another focused on the “profound mystery” of marriage, encouraging husbands to be the “pastors of their homes.” A third uses a Crossfit gym as its second campus and offers a workout after the service. A fourth is breaking all the rules with love, miracles, long sermons and worship services that allow the gifts of the Spirit to flow. The last started doing free laundry for the less fortunate, met in an Irish pub and has the blessing of Pastor Jack Hayford, former president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
While their methods and gathering places may be unconventional, they all share a passion for spreading the hope and love of Jesus in highly innovative ways. They are among the fastest-growing churches in America that most have never heard of. Here are their stories:
Fearless Church
From an early age, Jeremy Johnson felt God was calling him to plant a church in one of America’s most unchurched areas.
But he never imagined his church would hold services in a nightclub with stripper poles or that it would be featured in a positive light in a liberal, alternative newsmagazine such as Los Angeles Weekly.
The idea for this daring and innovative church gelled one day during a prayer meeting in Modesto, California, several years ago when the words of A. W. Tozer came to his wife’s mind: “A scared world needs a fearless church.”
“My wife (Christy) said, ‘What if we call it Fearless?’ Something just jumped out to me when she said that because fear had almost dominated my life to the point where I couldn’t speak or share the gospel,” says Johnson, pastor of Fearless Church, a Los Angeles-based church that has grown from 20 people last year to about 400 now.
“I said, ‘God, I’ll go out on a limb and tell the whole world. God broke my fear of approval of man, fear of failure and just worry and anxiety. 1 John 4:18 says, ‘perfect love casts out fear.’ There are actually 365 ‘fear nots’ in the Bible. There is one for every day.”
The birth of Fearless Church has its roots in a message Johnson gave at the funeral of two high school friends who died in a car accident in 1997. Plagued by fear of public speaking, Johnson only gave a “nice little prayer.” Afterwards, several other friends got drunk and got into an accident. When the driver awoke, he mistakenly thought he had killed everyone in the car, walked to nearby railroad tracks and took his life. Troubled that he hadn’t shared the gospel at the funeral, Johnson decided at age 18 to dedicate his life to spreading the gospel and become a pastor.
After graduating from Vanguard University, he spent a decade working as the youth pastor at The House: Modesto church. Then, one day, Johnson had an encounter with God while traveling with the band that grew out of his youth group—Worth Dying For. On the bus ride, Johnson says it felt like “all the sound in the bus (it was very loud) shut off for a second and I felt God speak to me and say that in five years I would plant a church with this band.”
In 2011, Johnson and his family moved to Southern California. Joined by the band and others from the youth group, they held their first service around a bonfire on a Corona del Mar beach.
Unbeknownst to Johnson, it’s the same place where Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, baptized hundreds of hippies during the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.
“We grew to about 50 people, but the police shut us down,” Johnson says. “The people getting drunk and high all around us called the cops for having church on the beach.”
So Johnson moved his congregation to a coffee shop in Irvine where “God would just show up in such a powerful way that the whole team would be on the floor—just weeping and crying out for souls.”
Next, his congregation moved a rented warehouse in Costa Mesa where he hired a “secular marketing guy.” He challenged them to “ask your God why He sent you here and who He sent you here for.’ ”
Motivated by his remarks, the congregation felt inspired to reach those “who are chasing a dream and who have been crushed by a dream.” In May 2013, the congregation relocated to the Belasco Theater nightclub in downtown Los Angeles. Johnson told the manager that he wanted to hold church services there.
“He looked at us like, ‘You’re crazy,'” Johnson recalls. “‘Why in the world would you want to have church here?’ He said, ‘Those are stripper poles over there.’ ”
Nevertheless, Fearless Church held its first service at the theater on Pentecost Sunday and the line “went down the street.” The church continued to grow–holding services at locations that doubled as nightclubs frequented by Hollywood stars and music personalities–and moved several times before settling on the Exchange LA at 618 S. Spring St.
Today, less than two years after the church held its first bonfire beach service, attendance averages about 400 each weekend.
The church, which is “super-connected” to Planetshakers City Church in Australia, has a vision see the entire city “come to know the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ.”
“I attribute it to following the will of God and listening to Him even when it doesn’t make sense,” Johnson says.
Koinonia Christian Church
Every growing church is a marriage-building church.
That’s the secret behind the growth of Koinonia Christian Church in Arlington, Texas, a church that exploded from a five-person Bible study a decade ago to a congregation of more than 4,000 members today.
“When you become a marriage-building church, you are pumping health and life into your church which creates the foundation for it,” says Jimmy Evans, the founder of Marriage Today, a Texas-based ministry dedicated to restoring the dream of marriage in America. “It creates an inductive atmosphere where people will want to come because they know something great will happen in their relationships.”
In 2004, Koinonia pastor Dr. Ronnie Goines, his wife Nikki and three other people started a Bible study in the Goines’ family living room. Over the next two years, the Bible study gave birth to what eventually became Koinoinia, a church that had grown to about 70 members by 2006.
But the growth of the church didn’t really take off until Nikki came home one day and told her husband about the Marriage Today ministry. They listened to a CD that teaches couples how to have a strong marriage.
“I was blown away by it,” Goines says.”We said, ‘We have to open this up to our people.’ ”
The church created what became known as the COMMITTED marriage ministry. COMMITTED is not only designed to “save” marriages, but to make good marriages better.
“Many people mistakenly base the decision to marry on love, but don’t realize that love alone is not the basis for a healthy marriage,” Goines says. “Many couples are in divorce court every day and still in love. However, if your marriage is based on commitment, even during seasons where love is not felt, a couple is committed to working it out.”
The church is modeled after Evans’ ministry.
“From our perspective, churches are ignoring some of the biggest issues in society—one of those being the demise of marriage,” says Evans, author of Marriage on the Rock and co-host of the Marriage Today with Jimmy Evans television program. “People want to be married. It’s in their DNA. When you help people be married, you are not trying to push something on them they don’t want. They just don’t know how.”
Goines says it’s unbalanced theology for a church to not teach about strong marriages.
“According to Ephesians 5:32, marriage is a profound mystery that is akin to Christ and the church,” Goines says. “Therefore a solid understanding of marriage is somehow amalgamated with a solid understanding of Christ.”
Initially, only a few couples signed up for the sessions. But as word spread, the meetings soon drew 20 to 30 couples. Over the next year, attendance shot from 100 to more than 400.
“In the midst of that, I discovered there is a big void in the home when it comes to men embracing their roles as husbands and leaders,” Goines says.
During the sessions, Goines says men would often tell him that they didn’t know how to live the lifestyle of a godly man, but if he asked them about the responsibilities of a pastor they could easily offer a good answer.
“They had a pretty accurate idea of what they expected from me as their pastor,” Goines says. “With that discovery, I started to teach men that they are to be the pastors of their homes.”
As word of saved marriages began to spread, more and more people started attending the church and going to the COMMITTED sessions. By 2008, the congregation had grown to 2,000 people.
“People are coming to get the real deal on not just on how to be married, but how to enjoy their marriages,” Goines says. “We taught men and women how to embrace their roles as God designed. ”
Today, the church has more than 4,000 members. Goines says the growth is largely the result of Marriage Today and its initial generosity in sending the church a year’s worth of curriculum, books and DVDs at no charge.
“They sowed that seed into our ministry and now today, as God would have it, I’m scheduled to speak at a Marriage Today conference,” Goines says. “I met Jimmy Evans personally. That’s an awesome honor for me to be friends with a guy who is responsible not just for our church growth, but also for saving so many marriages in our church.”
OneChurch Columbus
Like most church-planting pastors, Greg Ford had many trepidations about the new venture he and his wife Shaylyn had taken on when they moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 2011. They had been trained for this through the Assemblies of God, but building relationships and trust among the community was an entirely different thing.
The Fords’ vision was to establish a church that would not only attract Bible-believing Christians but also the unchurched and those who had little knowledge of Jesus. Attracting that type of crowd to church certainly wasn’t going to be easy.
As a second means of income, Greg Ford took a job at the front desk of a local Crossfit gym. An athlete himself, Ford soon discovered that he could relate easily to the members of the Crossfit gym and that they were receptive to hearing the gospel.
“I was the morning person, so I’d arrive at the gym every morning at 4:30 a.m. and the doors would open at 5,” said Ford, 33, a former youth pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Toledo, Ohio. “Literally there would hundreds of people each day that gave me the opportunity to build friendships let people get to know what we were trying to do. You had regular fitness buffs, but you also had professional athletes and former pro athletes that went to the club, and most of these people weren’t going to church.”
OneChurch’s Crossfit campus—an 8,000 square-foot facility in New Albany—holds services on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. in that gym. Ford says he has about 100 people who call that church their home church, but normally has 50 people in attendance on Sunday. Not only can attendees hear an inspiring message, but they can stay for a free Crossfit workout afterward.
“We define worship in broader terms than some.”
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OneChurch’s Cornerstone Campus in Westerville holds two services on Sunday mornings and has grown to around 600 members. Between the two campuses, OneChurch has attracted both the lost and believers who are new to the faith.
Ford says his biggest thrill is seeing people get saved on a regular basis and then discipling them.
“We’ve had a lot of turnover, and that’s been a challenge. But, it’s been exciting to watch our church grow so rapidly,” Ford said. “God is really doing some amazing things here.”
Redemption Point Church
Redemption Point Pastor Kevin Wallace has a vision to pastor the “most loving church in America”—not to mention one of the more miraculous.
As pastor of a church in Ooltewah, Tennessee, that has grown from 34 attendees at its first meeting in 2000 to more than 1,200 today, Wallace seems to be well on his way to fulfilling that calling.
However, the early years weren’t easy. In fact, the pastor of Redemption Point Church says it was “hell on earth.”
“This is the part people don’t usually hear about,” Wallace says. “My 1-year-old son Jeremiah had seven kidney stones in his right kidney. My newborn son and my wife in the first six months both got spinal meningitis within the same week. I almost had a nervous breakdown. But what catapulted our church into the first wave of explosive, quick growth was that God healed my son of kidney stones, and he healed my wife and newborn son of spinal meningitis.
“Our agnostic doctor confessed that although she didn’t believe in miracles, something had to have happened because the kidney stones disappeared. It was definitely after the church had prayed. And when those miracles happened, the church went from 34 people to about 200 people in nine months. We went into a major revival mode.”
During this time, a number of miracles occurred among members of this Church of God congregation, including a mother with a walker who “threw off that walker and took off trotting around the church without a walker,” Wallace says.
“The church was rather dead, to be honest, when Kevin got here,” says Ron Phillips, the senior pastor at Abba’s House in Hixson, Tennessee and host of the Ron Phillips From Abba’s House television program. “He began in his joyful and enthusiastic way to preach the Bible and grew the campus in Ooltewah.
“I’ve never seen a church advance as rapidly as his church. It hasn’t happened because he embraced some modern or contemporary model. It’s advanced because there is a strong presence of God on this young man’s life. It’s obvious he’s gifted by the Holy Spirit, in addition to his own natural talents as a preacher. He’s a great people person and a great man in the pulpit. He seems to attract resources as well that have brought great favor to him.”
Wallace, who received a word of prophecy from Phillips as a youth that he would become “a voice in your generation,” says church growth experts are often shocked by his church’s success “because so many times we do the opposite of what we are supposed to do to grow.”
“We broke all the rules,” Wallace says.
Instead of giving a 25-minute sermon, Wallace often preaches for 45-50 minutes, and worship services can last for hours.
“It’s almost old-fashioned with a fresh, prophetic sort of focus,” Wallace says. “I don’t like weirdness, but at the same time I think that our churches have gotten so normal that anytime we get back to the Bible everyone thinks we’re abnormal.
“When people come to our church, they may see people fall out on the floors, speak in tongues and there is an interpretation and healings occur. That is shocking to even some Spirit-filled people who come to church, but that is the paradigm that the New Testament church is called to operate in. While some people think that’s abnormal, we think it’s normal.”
In the past, ministers have been told that if they allow the gifts of the Spirit to flourish that their congregations won’t grow, Wallace says.
“But in the Book of Acts every explosive growth season in the church was tied to supernatural and miraculous sorts of activity where God broke in and just did things that only He can do. When He did that, and the people allowed Him to and entire cities and communities were transformed.”
Wallace says the church needs to refocus on the things of God and let the Spirit of the Lord do what only the Holy Spirit can.
“We have seen the limits of what man’s gifts and man’s abilities can produce in the church,” Wallace says. “Whatever we see now is as good as it can get without God restoring true apostolic power and authority. The only thing that I think will revive the church in America is an authentic demonstration of the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Freedom Church
Freedom Church started with seven friends from his Bible study going to a Laundromat in Chatsworth, California, putting quarters in the machines and paying for everyone’s laundry.
“We did it without any strings attached–just a way to love and serve the community in a really under-resourced area,” says Freedom Church Pastor Justice Coleman. “Over the course of months, we made a lot of friends. I prayed for people, I did a funeral and we did more than 1,000 loads of laundry.
“When it came time to start the church, we had a group of people who were really excited about it. They were like, ‘When are you going to start your church?’ ”
In deciding on a place for the church to meet, Coleman thought about a tattoo-covered friend he once invited to church who felt so awkward that he never returned.
“It was then that I realized that the church experience he had was fine—like the pastor did a great sermon and people were welcoming—but it wasn’t good for Jake and he never came back,” Coleman says. “I realized that I wanted to start a church so people would have a place they felt like they could belong before they even believed.”
One day, Coleman approached the owner of McGee’s Irish Pub in Chatsworth to see if he could hold his church services there.
“He didn’t want me to start a church in there,” Coleman says. “He said, ‘I don’t want my bar turning into a church.’ With fasting and prayer and by the grace of God—and the right price—he agreed to rent it out to us.”
The first service was held on Easter Sunday in 2011, and about 100 people showed up.
“We wanted to start a church in a pub because I felt it would be the most comfortable place people who are not Christians to go,” Coleman says. “We were trying to start a church to reach as-yet-not Christians. We were trying to create a church where people can belong before they believe, and an Irish pub seemed like a good place for that.”
Jack Hayford, former pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California, where Coleman grew up, says Coleman is an “outstanding young leader, and I’m grateful for his leadership and for what’s occurring over at Freedom Church.”
After meeting at the pub for a while, the church relocated to a middle school and opened a campus in Highland Park near downtown Los Angeles. About 500 people now attend the two campuses each weekend.
“I think people are really hungry for real and authentic faith and real and authentic community,” Coleman says. “The No. 1 thing I hear from people when they take a survey or are talking about the church is that it just felt real. We are talking about real stuff every week that is very practical.”
7 more churches in America experiencing rapid growth
Here’s a look at some more rapidly growing churches in America:
1) The Fellowship Church, Antioch, California (ARC) – For the better part of seven years, The Fellowship Church, established in 2003, stayed stagnant at around 350 members. Pastor Shaun Nepstad was essentially a one-man band, doing everything from worship to visitation, announcements and preaching.
After much prayer and a new vision, the congregation hit a growth spurt a little more than three years ago, and Sunday attendance now stands at around 1,500. Nepstad attributes that to the church’s faithfulness in serving the community and getting everyone involved as a volunteer.
Gratitude baskets to police officers, free BBQ for the homeless and passing out coffee and donuts to commuters at the local train station are only some of the ways members of The Fellowship Church brings the gospel to the unchurched.
“All of these outreaches are to get people in the church serving,” Nepstad says. “I’ve heard 11 percent of people in the church have the gift of evangelism. So what do the other 89 percent do? We’ve got to figure out a kind way to reach God’s lost kids.”
2) New Hope Leeward, Waipahu, Hawaii (Foursquare) – Under the direction of Pastor Mike Lwin, New Hope Leeward, a January 2003 church plant, outgrew the Leeward Community College Theater where it met when it opened. By the end of its first year, it became clear that God had huge plans for the church. It moved into a new home, the Leeward Ministry Center, and the church has grown to more than 1,200 members for that campus.
However, the church has birthed three other campuses, and its attendance numbers have reached 5,000. Three more campuses on the Hawaiian Islands are planned.
3) Abundant Life Church of God, San Antonio, Texas (COG) – A multi-cultural church under the direction of Pastor Eliezer Bonilla, Abundant Life adopted a small-group ministry strategy and started a second all-English service in 2003, shifting its focus from the congregation to the community. The church planted a second campus in 2008, and, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the congregation has grown from 200 to 2,000 in less than six years.
The fruit of these gradual changes has yielded four worship services (two in Spanish and two in English) and it has cemented a growing trend where Hispanic churches are planting English-speaking congregations.
4) Mill City Church, Fort Collins, Colorado (ARC) – Not unlike many others, Mill City Church’s small-group ministry is thriving. Instead of meeting at church members’ homes, however, MCC has it what it calls City Groups, which look to be the hands and feet of Jesus by paying attention to and meeting needs around their families, neighborhoods or workplaces. This outreach has helped MCC in its growth spurt since being launched in 2012.
Mill City Church, under the direction of Pastor Aaron Stern, is a church plant of the Association of Related Churches and has grown to 1,000 members in less than two years.
5) New Hope Church of God, Trenton, New Jersey (COG) – Ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in America, Trenton is where God instructed Pastor Philip Bonaparte to set down roots for New Hope. With one location already in East Windsor, Bonaparte, a doctor by trade, founded a second congregation in Trenton in January 2013 and decided to go full-time as a pastor.
In a little more than a year, the congregation of New Hope has swelled from less than 50 to 500. Among its many outreaches are a food bank and clothing ministry to help the poor and destitute of Trenton. As another testament to its growth, New Hope began a third congregation in Long Branch, New Jersey, in July 2013.
6) Hope Fellowship Church, Frisco, Texas (AG) – In a little more than a decade, Hope Fellowship, which initially met as a church plant at a daycare center, averages 5,500 on Sunday mornings. Pastor John McKinzie chose Frisco to set down roots because of its moniker as one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation.
“We just put up a sign and we initially had 51 people,” McKinzie said. “It was the only place in the whole city that was open to start a church.”
7) TurningPoint Church, Lexington, Kentucky (ARC) – Launched in February 2012, Turning Point Church’s congregation has swelled to 1,200 in a little more than two years under the direction of Pastor Josh Mauney with Sunday services at 9:00, 10:15 and 11:30 a.m.
Yet another ARC church plant, TurningPoint’s mission is to “help every person we can find their place in God’s plan.” TurningPoint’s Connect Groups, including its Café Team, College Survival Guide, Friday Friends, Men Being Men and Making the Most of Your Marriage, help keep the congregation connected to each other and the community.
Shawn A. Akers is the managing editor of Ministry Today magazine.
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If You’re Not Dead, God’s Not Done
“Don’t Quit in the Dip by my friend Shaun Nepstad is a powerful and much-needed resource for all of us. One thing this book reminds us of is that we have the option to not quit, no matter how impossible our circumstances seem. But Shaun points out something even more crucial for us to understand: you and I were never designed to give up! While the desire to quit might be woven into the fabric of our human condition, so also is the resilience and the fortitude to stay in the fight until we experience victory.”
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