LifeWay Research (LWR): What's going on? Has this been growth that you guys developed a plan and went into, or has God just blessed you and you're along for the ride, all of the above? Tell me about that.
Jerry Harris: Well, in a lot of ways I think that church growth is kind of like faith. It's like walking through life backwards. You can't see where you're going, but you can see where you've been and where God's been and what He's done. And we do make plans. We actually do make plans, but very little of what we have done ever ended up looking like what it was originally intended to look like. And I think that's because I think we're good at adjustment and agility. John Wooden, the coach, used to always say, "Be quick, but don't hurry." And I think we're just good at seeing something, and then we're streamlined enough that we're able to respond quickly to that and make any adjustments. And then whatever that adjustment is and what it ends up evolving or morphing into turns out to be of great benefit. And we really look at that as the hand of God, just directing us, moving us and showing us opportunities. And as we respond to those opportunities in a positive way, then more opportunities open up from that.
LWR: What are some of the biggest challenges that you have faced?
JH: Well, we always face challenges with money, with space, with staff, just having enough of any of that. And then we have to constantly readjust our model, our structure. The paradigm changes as you grow from one thing to another thing, and so they way that you conduct yourself when you're a church of 500 is a whole lot different when you're a church of, 1500 or 2500 or 3500. Each time, and there's not like specific times, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that structure just changes a lot, and you just have to be up for that. I think anticipation is really important, to anticipate what's coming, and to try to be three-dimensional in growth, not just two-dimensional, not just wide and not deep. Those things, I think, they show themselves as the benefits come your way.
LWR: Can you give me some specifics of what you have done.
JH: First of all, to me, a big piece of what we are is where we are. I don't know about all the other churches that are fast growing churches, but I would make a bet that most of them are in growing areas. The Crossing is different in that because we are a micropolitan church. We're in a smaller community and a non-growing community. Actually, we're in three and moving to four non-growing communities. So we're in Quincy, Illinois. We're in Macomb, Illinois. We're in Kirksville, Missouri. And we're moving to Burlington, Iowa. And we're also in Mossel Bay, South Africa. And all of those communities are what the Census Bureau calls micropolitan communities. They're communities of 10,000 to 50,000. So we're not in a metro area. We're not in a suburban area. We're not in a bedroom community for a large area. So our population is static, not really growing, not really necessarily declining. And so growing a church in an area like that, there are a lot of drawbacks, and then there are a lot of real big benefits.
LWR: Could you name some of each drawback and benefit?
JH: Well, some of the drawbacks of being in a community like that is that they're kind of like Bob Evans. The way it was is the way it is. And so culturally, they're kind of a status quo community... But there really aren't a lot of downsides. You're not going to get all this influx of people that are moving in all the time, but you also don't get a lot that are moving out. So the community kind of has a static nature to it.
What is so positive, I mean there's a lot that's positive, but doing a counter-cultural church or a progressive church in a community like this is cutting edge. A lot of the things that we do aren't any different than what churches would do in L.A. or Chicago or Dallas...
So we're very intentional about creating a place where non-churched or under churched people would be very comfortable, which again, that's nothing new, but it's new in a micropolitan community. So there's 85 churches in Quincy, but there's no other church that's doing what we're doing, or anything close to what we're doing. And so we kind of get a monopoly on that approach by virtue of where we are. So people just flock to us. Now, what makes that really cool is that, on the Quincy campus we've got about, on a weekend we have about 2300 or 2400 people, and this is a town of 40,000. So that means that if there are 40 people in the McDonalds, two of them go to your church. So it really gives big time influence into the community. So being a large church in a micropolitan community means that you can kind of be a community shaper. You can really have influence in your community, and that has a lot of benefits.
LWR: How have you guys influenced your community? Could you give me some examples there as well?
JH: Yes. We have relationships with the City Council. We have relationships with the school system. We share parking with the school system. And they do things for us. We do things for them...
Now, you can have a church of 20,000 in Chicago, and you still won't have a place at the table. But in a micropolitan community, if you do that, you really can. And that's exciting. That has also happened in these other communities like our location in Macomb. They're just about running 1,000, and that's a town of 20,000. So when a little town of 20,000 people have 1,000 people in one church it's just incredible what kind of impact you can have.
LWR: Well, how did you sense God leading your church to always plant in the micropolitan area?
JH: That was when I came here; I've been here for 10 years, 11 years, it'll be 11 years in August, and it was a little church of 200 people. And we started to embrace the 80% of people that don't go to church anywhere. So we got really intentional about reaching non-churched people. That really became our target market. So we wouldn't advertise on a Christian radio station, because those are all people that are in that 20%, and we really wanted to reach that 80%. So a lot of our programming is really designed at reaching in to that community of that 80%.
Well, that really caught on, not just with non-believers or non-Christians or under churches or unchurched people, but also Christians that really wanted to make a difference in that group of 80%. So we attracted them as well. And one thing started another, and we ended up buying a college campus, and grew into that way faster than we thought we would. It was pretty incredible. Well, then we kept outgrowing our facility, and we kept adding services. Eventually, we realized we couldn't do that forever. And I thought, there's got to be a lid here somewhere.
Somewhere up here, you're going to saturate the community. And I really didn't believe much at the time in multisite in the Midwest. I thought well that will work in a metropolitan area, but I don't see how it could work in the semi rural Midwest, that they just wouldn't put up with not seeing a three-dimensional guy on their stage preaching.
We went down to LifeChurch and hung out with those guys for a while, and I was amazed. I went to the Oklahoma City campus first. That's their primary campus. Then I went to their Edmond campus, and I actually liked the multisite campus in Edmond better than the home site, and it changed my mind.
We all got together, and we said listen, we don't know how to do, we've never done metropolitan church, but we know how to do micropolitan. We know how to do this. So let's pick a community. And so Macomb was our next community. It's 60 miles away, so there was nobody from Macomb that came to our church in Quincy.
We just targeted it, and then we spent like $1.5 million dollars and hired five staff and blanketed the community with marketing. And when we opened, we had 874 people. It worked. So we also targeted next a community in Kirksville, Missouri. They're about 75 miles away. And we did the same thing, and they opened with just under 600. So they both opened as the largest churches in their community, and they're still the largest churches in their community. And people just flock to that. There was this real desire that we saw out of non-churched people or under churched people, and even Christian people that were kind of tired of the status quo, and they would just flock to this whole new concept, which isn't really a new concept, but it's new in these communities...
LWR: You've talked about how you've experienced growth. You're adding sites. I mean how has the economy affected you? Has it affected you?
JW: Well, that's a good question. It hasn't really. The reason is we are a church that is real intentional about reaching non-churched people, and non-churched people are not givers. So we've learned as a church to live on a lot less. I mean all the churches that I know of that are in our denomination are bringing in two, three, four, five times what we bring in. So we've learned how to do things a lot cheaper and still do them with excellence and do them effectively. We've just had to learn that because of our situation. Well, I think the churches that are really experiencing hardship financially are ones that are really depending on some big givers. And big givers are the ones that are heavily invested in the stock market and in all sorts of investments. That's who's really gotten hit hard. Since we don't have a lot of people like that and don't get a lot of money that way, it's spread out over such a wide area...
But the point is those downturns in the economy really didn't affect us in such a harsh way as a lot of people. Like in Quincy right now, I think our unemployment rate is somewhere right at 6%. So it's not like, Elkhart, Indiana or some of these places that have just really been turned upside down. And, these communities are kind of static. So anyway, but we were able to respond. One thing that we did is we opened up, in all our locations we opened up thrift stores, and we were using that entirely for benevolence. So we've been generating a lot of income, and then we can turn all that around and minister to people that are in need, even if they don't have anything to do with our church, just the community. That has really been an awesome thing to watch, just what happens through these thrift stores and the benevolence ministry that comes through it.
LWR: Now, are the thrift stores, are those manned by church members volunteering their time for store hours, or?
JH: Actually, we hire people, but they're hired out of our Celebrate Recovery program. We have a lot of addiction issues with people, and they get involved in Celebrate Recovery, which happens in all our locations. And then, of course, a lot of them needs jobs, and this is a great entry-level opportunity to not only make an income, but to do something for the kingdom of God. And so the amount of money that's generated through the thrift stores is enough to pay for the facilities, enough to pay for the people that work there. I think we went from $18,000 a year in local benevolence to just under $200,000 a year in local benevolence in one year, and it was just through the thrift store ministry.
LWR: Well, you said earlier just in several comments, in your discussion you were talking about people are attracted to your church, you think, because it's something different within their community. Are there any other reasons or any other things about the church that you believe are attracting these new believers?
JH: Well, most people have a concept of what church is, and I think that's reinforced by a lot of the churches in the community. And so when they come to The Crossing, before they ever make it in the door there's stuff that's happening to them. And like I said, none of this is new, but they're not used to this in this community. They're not used to having people, being friendly and helping them to park their car, or meeting them outside and directing them where they need to go, or once they get inside to see a play place like they see at a McDonalds or a Hardees. So their kids are immediately like see you mom. Or having computerized check-in for their children so they know that they have security, or being able to go into the children's areas and acclimate with their child and be able to either stay with them or watch them from behind like a one-way glass, and have these children's areas totally open. Because non-churched people, they don't trust church people. They hear about molestation and all that kind of stuff in churches cause, that's sensationalized, and so they get concerned about that, and they don't want to just release their child to a stranger. So we make sure all that's open so they can see and interact with all of that. When they're comfortable to go into the auditorium, we have closed circuit TV in those areas where they can observe. And then when they want to come in the auditorium and they're comfortable with that, then they can do that. So there's that kind of an aspect to it. Then there's a coffee bar where they can get a designer coffee, a buck and a half cheaper than Starbucks. And they're welcome to bring that in.
They come into the auditorium, it doesn't feel like a church. There's no stained glass windows. There's no pews. There's no pulpit. There's no hymnals. There's none of that. It looks very much like theater. So they're defenseless because they had an attitude in their mind of this is what it is, and then they go in there and it's like this is not at all what I thought it was. And so that opens them up and makes them want to, well let me just see what this is all about. And I think their curiosity level just really rises. And then we try to keep up, technologically.
All that stuff's happening in their workplace, and we're up on that. We're doing a lot of high end stuff technologically, which is also very exciting. Of course, we draw a lot of young people that way. I think they appreciate the way that we spend money on things that especially non-churched people would think as frivolous. You know, it's very, very form follows function, and very utilitarian. I think they appreciate that. And I think they get disarmed through that...
It's non-churched people that bring non-churched people because church people have already invited everybody they know. But non-churched people have all sorts of connections with people. And you know, that's a dynamic that feeds itself exponentially. And then our biggest responsibility then is; and that's attraction. And attraction is only a part of what we do. But once we get them here, we put all our efforts into discipleship. Okay, how are we going to grow you? How are we going to mature you? That's more important. But you can't mature someone that you don't even have a relationship with, and so we have to attract them, and then we really get intentional about discipleship.
LWR: Do you see that your church is reaching young families, or one age group in particular more than other age groups, or are you seeing growth across the board?
JH: No. Definitely, we grow a lot stronger in the younger age groups. And I think a lot of that is because we're counter cultural. The culture of Quincy is Lutheran, German Catholic. We're a river town, and we're right on the Mississippi River. So this town's been here a long time. There's a religious establishment here, and so other people that move in, they don't fit in. And they need a place to fit in, and they need a place where they can find community. We extensively use Facebook. You know, if you're over 50 you're just now hearing about Facebook. But if you're 25 you've been using it for six or seven years. So I mean we're very intentional about focusing downward.
We focus on younger individuals, singles, couples, families that are coming up, always trying to push down into that age group because there's like a nexus. There's a place where, I think, you just hit people, and everything that you say is relevant and makes sense. And then either the church grows with them and becomes less and less relevant until the church dies, or the church keeps focusing downward. So a lot of our staff, they're in their 20s. We don't have a lot of staff in their 40s or 50s. You know, I'm the old guy. I'm 49. You know, most everybody else is in their 20s.
LWR: Are other churches calling you guys up wanting to know what you're doing and how you're doing it?
JH: Yeah, they are. But that's been a fairly recent phenomenon, and the reason is because when you're ministering in Quincy, Illinois, you're off the grid, and it takes a while for people to recognize you, but that's happened now. It's happened, I'd say, in the last two years. We've gone from 1,700 to 3,700. This year, of the Independent Christian Church, we're the fastest growing Independent Christian Church in the nation, and that's in our brotherhood of churches. So when that stuff gets published, it gets out there, and it has been, and then it's just like oh what are these guys doing. And so then people want to know.
I've had opportunity to be in some of those environments now where people in larger areas have heard a little bit about us, and they want to know more, and so they come, show up, and we just open the doors and say look, here, see. All the stuff, all the services we do are live, which means we don't do DVD or taped messages. All the multisites are lived, and we figured out how to do that cheap. And so a lot of people are coming to hear or see that and that kind of stuff.
LWR: What are some principles you think you guys have gleaned and learned from your experience and your growth experience that would be beneficial to other churches?
JH: I would say, number one to me would be don't discount the potential of a micropolitan community. I think a lot of people overlook there are 577 micropolitan communities in the United States. There are 366 metropolitan areas. So there are more micropolitan, they represent 30 million people. 10% of the American population are in micropolitans.
But I think, as you look across the board in the Fastest Growing and the Largest Churches that you're compiling with Outreach magazine, I think you're going to see almost exclusively those dynamics happen in metropolitan and suburban settings. And I think that the kind of model that we have is one that could be used three ways. Number one is if you live in a micropolitan community, it shows you a model of how you can do church in such a way that will have incredible impact in that community for the kingdom of God, and you actually shape a community. If you live in a metropolitan area, with the technology that we have you don't have to be limited to that metropolitan area.
I know there's millions of people there, but you can have incredible impact in a micropolitan area, maybe 50, 60, 45 miles away from where you are using the technology that's available at a much lower cost than you would think and have an incredibly dynamic multisite location there. And if you're in a rural area, which is less than 10,000 people in a community, I think that our model shows them something that they might be able to grab a hold of and believe in. A lot of books that are published now are by these mega churches in metropolitan areas, and I think rural churches in communities of 10,000 or less, they go well that doesn't work here. But if they read about it in a micropolitan church, then they'd go, that might work. It's more attainable when they see it in a church that is in a community of 20,000 if they're in a community of 8,000 than if you're reading a book about a guy who has a church in Chicago and there's 3 million people to draw from. I mean in a church like ours you have to learn how to close the back door.
In a big suburban or metropolitan church all you have to really do is keep the front door open wider than the back, and you're growing. But in a micropolitan area you've got to shut that door. You've got to really hold on to the people. The stuff that is out there now like with Willow Creek and Reveal, that's what they're learning. They're learning that people are going out the back door as fast as they're coming in. And you can't do that in a micropolitan area. You've got to shut that back door because the well's only so deep. You can't just keep drawing people forever because there's a limited amount of people there.
LWR: How have you guys shut that back door?
JH: Discipleship. Discipleship shuts the door. And with regards to discipleship we believe in an intentional leader, a relational environment and a reproducible process. You have to have those three things. And of course, the relational environment that we use is small groups, but we're not doing small groups to have bible studies. We're doing small groups to build discipleship. We want people to become Christ followers. That's another whole story. But we really learned that from a church in Post Falls, Idaho, and they're one of your top 100. They're called Real Life Ministries, and the guy that is the Senior Pastor is a friend of mine. His name is Jim Putman. And they're in a micropolitan community.
They're in a community of 40,000 people, and they have a church that runs just under 9,000 every weekend. I mean you think about that. That's 1 out of every 4 people in that community anywhere goes to that church. And that's where we learned our discipleship model, and that's where we learned thrift stores and a number of other things. They've done incredible stuff, and that church is only 11 years old.
LWR: So with your discipleship have you had to expanded that ministry, your discipleship ministry?
JH: Yes, exponentially. We make that a primary decision. When people have an invitation in a church, do you want to come to Christ, we make that just as critical, and we're pushing that. I'm saying that three times in every sermon. I'm talking about you're not going to experience what you need to experience in Christ unless you are in discipleship, unless you are in a small group, unless you're sharing your life with others, and it has to happen in these kinds of environment. This is where we want you to be. We're real intentional about people making decisions in that direction. Jim Putman, he wrote a great book called Church is a Team Sport, and it really kind of outlines that whole process...
LWR: What advice would you give to churches that want to grow and churches that are growing? What would you tell them is essential? What advice would you give for them?
JH: Well, I don't know how all churches learn things, but I learn with my eyes, my ears and my hands. And so I would really encourage benchmarking. That means just taking your staff and going to other churches and seeing what they do, and not going to conferences because conferences are dressed up. But just seeing what they do and learning from that and adapting. I think that's a big one. I think a big one is encouraging your leadership to think in a streamlined way because I think agility is one of the things we lack the most in churches. We come up with ideas, but by the time we get them into where we're actually producing something, the time, the envelope has already opened and shut. You've got culture reinventing itself every couple of years, and sometimes there's so much bureaucracy in churches that they don't have the freedom to fail or try new things. When you're on the head end of the way and really ride the wave and getting leadership and staffing streamlined so that you can be agile and make quick responses, at least for us, has been absolutely critical.
It's absolutely critical to be able to make quick decisions and have the freedom to fail. So if it doesn't work out you can say well that didn't work out, we'll go to the next thing. Those are a couple of things I think have just really been key for us. And bloom where you're planted. I mean you'd think in a community that hasn't grown in a hundred years, you would not think that that church would grow, a church would grow, or at least grow quickly, let alone be the fastest growing church of your denomination. And don't discount the benefits of where you are. A lot of times, I think we're pessimistic because we're looking at all of the barriers rather than the opportunities. Some of those barriers, if you look on the other side of them, they're opportunities, and they can be incredible opportunities. So there's a few.
That was half of your question. The other half, if you want to grow, you've got to change. You can't grow and not change. Just look at your kids, I would like to save money. I have four children, and I would like for them to be able to wear the same clothes that they wore four years ago, but they changed, and those clothes don't fit anymore. And it's easy for us to understand that when we're buying clothes for our kids, but it's hard for us to understand that when it comes to the church. You can't grow if you can't change. And change is painful. I heard somebody say one time that leadership is making people uncomfortable at a rate that they can tolerate. And that's what I believe because change is uncomfortable. But you have to figure out how much of that discomfort can I give the people in order to make those changes and still have them tolerate it?
Feel free to discuss the interview in the comment section.
I love the quote, "I think we're good at adjustment and agility". It is so key for the church to have a little flexibility in its' methods and ministries rather than simply hammering ahead as if the world is not changing.
Always appreciate reading the blog.
After being an active christian for 15 years,I realized how my life was out of control, in a bad way, because it was really in my control. I opened up to God in new ways and stepped out in faith and began listening to God's voice more than my own or even those well intentioned brothers and sisters around me. I was called to the Crossing in Macomb and have found a family that is focused on God's plan, not ours. I have found a family ready to live by faith in God and not faith in self.
I have found a family that is ready to fly. Whether it really is on wings like an eagle or a Boeing 747, the focus is on flying. That action or function that God calls us to achieve. The form we take to achieve that purpose is secondary.
the Crossing, to me, in one word: moldable
the Crossing's "success", to me:
our moldability is place in God's hands
loved the interview.
I AM the Crossing,
Brian McIlhenny
I've been to the Kirksville campus. Jerry isn't kidding when he says they have learned to stretch a dollar while maintaining excellence. One advantages to the micropolitan areas that they have capitalized on is the lower cost and availability of facilities. The Kirksville campus is an old shoe factory that they have re-purposed for a church and thrift store. They have updated only what they had to and have taken advantage of the facility to create a very cool "industrial" feel that is attractive to their target. I live in a small town and would love to see this style of ministry catch on in smaller communities. Thanks for being a trailblazer Jerry.