Monday this week I traveled to Orlando, Florida to participate in the National New Church Conference: www.exponentialconference.com. My hope was to learn about the DNA of reproducing churches. I for one want our church planting agenda to move from addition to multiplication. Basically I’m praying that the Lord will open a door for us so we may recapture the church expansion momentum of our founding. Reaching people for Christ and developing churches is our spiritual genetic heritage. It was the mandate Winebrenner laid down at our beginning in 1830. Anyway, I was joined in the experience by several of our pastors and two regional directors, including Bob Eatherton, Dave Green, Greg McIntosh and Jeff Rockey from our Tulip Church (MRC), Frank Sabelhaus and Eric Starkey from our church plant in Terre Haute, IN (MRC), Rick Mason, Kirk Schneemann, and Bill Shoemaker (all GLC). Since I’m composing this in the airport on my way to the conference, I promise to give you a more complete report in a later eNews. However, in the spirit of the conference I want to share one of our CGGC reproducing church stories that I know well. Forgive me if I repeat some of the details from previous eNews articles.

Last Sunday, Linda and I visited two ERC congregations, Mt Holly Springs and New Hope.

In 1985, the Plainfield congregation began a Bible study in Mt Holly, which is about a 10-mile crow fly away. Several families from the Holly area were attending Plainfield, but the distance precluded more than a Sunday morning involvement. Ray and Val Killinger opened their home for the study group. The adults met upstairs and the kids met below in the family room. True to CGGC custom, refreshments were served after service. This thread of hospitality became an embedded trait of what developed. The Bible study out-grew the Killinger house and so began to meet in the local funeral home. Now that’s an apropos place to start a church! Eric Hollinger allowed the church to use his large parlor gratis. You can imagine the jibs and jabs the church received, but the work prospered. About this time, Vic Shifler became the pastor. The early days of the church were unsteady, but people like Dale and Pamela Miller, Neva Barrick, Larry Hummel and Jim Moss, Sr. helped hold the work together. I also provided some ministry help.

The church began looking for a more permanent home, a place they could call their own. I had dreams that the congregation might build a ministry center along route 34 on the north end of town where there was open property. We even prayed over the land. It was not to be, at least not then. Through a providential sequence of events the Brethren in Christ congregation moved and offered to sell their old facility on Fairfield Street to our Mt Holly Church. It took some sacrifice on the part of the people and some help from the then East Pennsylvania Conference, but the building was purchased. With renovation and a lot of sweat equity it became the congregation’s home. In the course of the next decade and a half the church grew steadily, went to multiple services and expanded the bethel several times. They also bought some of the neighboring property when it became available to expand parking. This steady growth and development happened under the leadership of Pastor Dick and Sharon Reese. They both came from our Newburg (ERC) Church where they were encouraged in ministry by Pastor K. Hull Byers.

Several years ago it became evident to Dick and his elders that they had a number of people coming to worship from the north side of Carlisle about 7 to 12 miles away or more. So, Dick approached the Conference about Mt Holly becoming a two church charge. He and the people at Mt Holly would start up a new congregation, New Hope, north of Carlisle in the old Hillcrest facility.

New Hope Church of God

They did and Dick served both congregations for a time, at least until his protégé Dennis Killinger received sufficient training and experience to take over the work.

About two years ago the Lutheran church in Mt Holly decided to close its doors and sell their facility and acreage to the Church of God for a third of its appraised value.

The Mt Holly Springs Bethel

I’m leaving out bunches of details, but this opportunity was little short of miraculous. Last year on May 20, Linda and I participated in the historic march of the church led by a bagpiper from the old site on Fairfield Street to the new. Since the move the congregation continues to grow so that they’re now talking about the need to build an addition. Interestingly the new location is a parcel taken from the land we prayed over in 1985.

Isn’t the Lord good? Full of surprises too! I’m praying for more CGGC churches to follow the Mt Holly example. Churches mothering churches was our past and is our future.

Pastor Ed