Daring to Reimagine

by Lance Finley, CGGC Executive Director

Change is hard. Regardless of age, change is just hard. There seems to be some wisdom in the fact that change gets harder with age. We recently talked with two congregations who are daring to reimagine what their ministries could become. Such actions always require a fair amount of resolve as well as a willingness to risk beyond what’s known and seen. This is particularly true when it comes to dealing with congregations that are well over one hundred years old.

About forty-five minutes northeast of Pittsburgh, PA, a church called Saved by Grace (formerly Brackenridge Church of God) is engaging their local context in a new way. The congregation is led by pastors George and Marcie Marasia, who have served the congregation since 2015, and they work alongside church leaders Patrick and Beth Linhart.

George and Marcie Marasia

Established in 1869, Saved By Grace has a long and rich history in Brackenridge, PA. But in 2019, the congregation changed its name from the Brackenridge First Church of God to Saved By Grace, in part to give the congregation a fresh approach to the surrounding community. In doing so, Save by Grace sparked a desire to make a radical reorientation.

This past year they moved their gathering to Freeport, only a distance of about 5 miles, and the congregation is currently in the process of selling the former church building in Brackenridge. Now Saved by Grace utilizes rented space in Freeport for some of their gathering times. As it turns out, Freeport is where most of the congregation lives, works, and plays anyway. “This is where we have the best opportunity to ‘be’ the church in the midst of the community where we spend most of our time,” relates George. By making the move from Brackenridge to Freeport, the church is no longer operating in a community as visitors but as residents. There’s a real focus on living as the church, seven days a week rather than just attending a church service on Sunday mornings. The move and the sale of the building are just natural outcomes of a journey they’ve been on for several years.

When COVID hit in early 2020, Saved By Grace, like many congregations, suspended their in-person worship for four to five weeks in the spring of 2020. They had already made the shift to digital previously, so the shift wasn’t as dramatic as it was for some congregations. But as they re-emerged out of this time, they began living into a form of gathering that is much more non-traditional than your average Sunday morning gathering, but it’s served them well.

Worship, Discussion, and Food

The typical Sunday morning gathering happens at what has become known as the “Building @ 211 5th Street” in Freeport. The building is a former pharmacy and pizza shop located in the heart of Freeport. The Marasias and Linharts are co-vocational pastors and the space Saved By Grace utilizes for gatherings just happens to be located in the same space that the pastoral couples have leased to operate their small businesses that provide their co-vocational support. Their co-vocational enterprises provide the space for congregational gatherings and activities, including most of their Sunday morning gatherings.

Sunday morning is a mix of familiar elements but perhaps all situated in a more relaxed or relational approach to church life. The congregation engages in worship together but also has a more interactive teaching and discussion time that can run anywhere from a half-hour to an hour. They walk through a couple of chapters of scripture with an approach that emphasizes discussion and answering questions rather than just a monologue. The discussion typically happens over some good food as well. George emphasizes the importance of being led by the Spirit and how that may shape the discussion each week. “We may come in with the idea that we’re going to handle x, y and z. But when someone gets stuck at x, we stop and work through it together, and that means we may not get to y and z like we had planned.” This time is an allages gathering with young and old participating and contributing to the discussion and learning together.

George notes the difference between the former way of “doing church” to their present experience. “We used to spend a lot of time and energy on the church building. Now we’re focusing our resources on people. We live in this community, and we serve the people of this community.” And it’s not just talk, they’re seeing the impact of their efforts. Many folks who feel disenfranchised from the typical church find the community at Saved By Grace to be a place that welcomes them and walks with them. Marcie shares, “We’ve made some connections with folks in the LGBTQ community here.” Beth adds, “It is very hard to build trust with those who already feel hurt. We haven't compromised our beliefs. If asked where we stand on an issue, we are open and share. However, we focus on simply introducing people to Jesus and practice loving them where they are. We trust the Holy Spirit to move and work in them from there. There is no condemnation or judgment; there is simply love. Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor. We try to show this in everything we do.”

Saved By Grace looks for places to serve in the life of the larger community. The “Building @ 211 5th Street” was offered as a place to get out of the cold and get something cold or hot to drink during the recent community Christmas celebration and parade. George says, “We want to be people who help fill the gaps in our community and, as we do so, help change their idea or perception of church. We want to live as the church every day!”

Saved By Grace is striving to build a disciplemaking culture that helps people live out their faith in Christ where they live, work, and play. Beth adds, “When things get shut down again, we’re creating a model that’s sustainable through these kinds of disruptions. You can be the church at work, in your home, and in your neighborhood and it isn’t dependent upon one central gathering or access to the paid professional pastors.”

George and Marcie offer the following reflection from their own journey at Saved By Grace: “Pray, listen to, and do what God says.” They also are quick to add that “Sundays are fun again instead of exhausting.” George offers one last piece of wisdom for those who want to help their own congregations dare to reimagine, “Be patient and wait on the Lord and His timing. Not every congregation can be turned around like a speed boat.”

That’s how a 153-year-old congregation is working to reimagine its ministry. But, if you were to travel about two hundred and thirty miles to Lancaster County, PA, you’ll find another congregation that’s even older working to do the same. The Elizabethtown First Church of God was established in 1837. David Robinson has been the pastor at E-town since 2016.

Pastor David Robinson

David shares that the impetus to reimagine grew out of a couple of different issues at Elizabethtown. The congregation is 185 years old and had been in decline for decades. The congregation’s 120-year-old building was becoming more difficult to maintain given the steady decline in attendance and income. The congregation was faced with some difficult decisions and worked to right-size their budget and make it work, but then COVID hit, exacerbating the budget situation and making the trajectory unsustainable. They made the difficult decision to sell the building.

David relates that it was his predecessor, Dr. Mark Yarer, who had helped the church develop an openness to an outward-focused mission which had resulted in making the building available to several other mission-minded groups. The building was being used seven days a week by various organizations, including a Christian school, therapy services, and the St. Monica & St. Augustine Coptic Orthodox Church of Elizabethtown. They had developed a great relationship with St. Monica & St. Augustine, and the congregation had expressed a desire to purchase the facility. The two congregations finalized the sale of the old facility at 144 South Market Street this past September.

David shares that as important as the financial challenges were, they were not the primary driver for what led the congregation to reimagine its future as a congregation. “I had a growing dissatisfaction with the reality of the North American church. How we operate, how we think about worship, and how we go about making disciples. I had a growing uneasiness with the status quo of the way we were doing church.” David continues, “It was a process. God placed some people in my life who were asking the same kind of questions about how the church needed to change. It was more about getting back to what the church was meant to be, caring for people and being the church more than just going to a service on Sunday.”

David shared that there was a period of time when he and other leaders sought out different training and investment to flesh out this growing sense of discontent with the status quo. David was introduced to a book, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West Again by George G. Hunter III, through an Eastern Region Conference Boot Camp. One of the book's premises is that faith is more caught than taught. David notes that the elders and church council at E-Town worked through the book as they explored what the future might look like. This long process of learning, seeking the Lord, discerning, and preparing ultimately led to a decision to decentralize the church.

Today, the Elizabethtown First Church of God is a collective of church houses. The term “house” is borrowed from the traditional English educational system, which places people into groups called “houses.” The houses are not where you meet, but rather, groups of people. The four church houses meet weekly for worship, discipleship, and service. Each house has its own schedule and currently gathers at a variety of times ranging from Saturday evening to Sunday evening.

Each church house has a weekly gathering with teaching and discipleship, as well as other gatherings that focus on outreach and service. On the second Sunday of the month, all four church houses gather together at the old Elizabethtown First Church of God building on South Market Street for a time of celebrating what the Lord has done over the past month, worship, teaching, and sharing a meal together. Each church house knows that the intention is to see the house multiply eventually and start new church houses. With that in mind, every house has a leader and a mentee being trained to lead a new house at some point in the future.

When asked about the learnings from such an enormous shift – from a traditional congregational approach to a decentralized network of church houses, David shared several key insights. He was quick to point out the strength and maturity of their elders as they led the church through such a dramatic shift. They demonstrate a love for one another and have developed a trust and transparency that was key in helping the congregation make such an enormous change.

One of their biggest challenges and learning opportunities has come in the way of figuring out how to help each church house handle a diversity of children and youth. Some houses have younger children, while others have school-aged children or teenagers. Each one has had to figure out an approach that works for their context, whether that means integrating all ages together or providing something specifically for the children.

David also notes that his role as pastor has undergone a transformation. He’s shifted to more of a supporting and equipping role instead of being the essential servant of the church. Dave’s work primarily focuses on training and equipping the house leaders. While he provides the themes and scriptures each month for house meetings, each house has great freedom to adapt and innovate. This shift has allowed him to focus more on developing people and relationships rather than just producing weekly services.

Dave shares an interesting observation from his interactions with other leaders about the shift they’ve made at E-Town. “I find that a lot of pastors have approached me with sympathy when they learn that we’ve sold our building. It’s as if they always see the fact that we don’t own a building as bad news. We don’t see it that way. We believe this might be one of the best things that could have happened to us. We’re no longer enslaved to maintaining a building we couldn’t afford, and we’re no longer chained to a Sunday morning mindset. We believe this is helping us truly embrace the priesthood of all believers. I know we all say that we believe in the priesthood of all believers, but I’m not convinced that we really mean it. For E-town, we’re trying to live out the priesthood of all believers.”

The brothers and sisters at E-Town are just a few months into living out their faith in this new (and old) way. They’ve learned a lot and risked a lot to come to this point, and there is still more learning and risking ahead. They’re committed to learning how to multiply, but they’re still early in this process. They’re learning what it means to become followers of Jesus in ways that are genuine and stretching.

Two different congregations. Two different stories and approaches. A love for Christ and a willingness to risk are the common threads that bind these two congregations. Jesus always calls beyond our own comfort and preferences in ways that stretch and mature our faith. What does your local fellowship need to risk for the sake of the kingdom of God? It might require abandoning a physical location, or it might demand some other kind of risk. We’re grateful for these two congregations and their willingness to dare to reimagine what could be. May their tribe increase.