Special project: Ministerial alliances
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‘Doing good in Jesus’ name’
Ministerial alliances build up member churches and meet community needs.
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The Laurel Church of Christ’s front door opens to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Tennessee, and at its back door lies one of the neediest. When Mark Smith arrived as the congregation’s preacher 18 years ago, ministering out the back door became a focal point of Laurel’s involvement in the Sequoyah Hills neighborhood.
Mark Smith
A dozen churches of different fellowships form the Sequoyah Hills Ministerial Alliance, comprising churches in the neighborhood adjacent to the University of Tennessee.
Just Lead, an after-school program that brings about 65 kids to the building from schools in poorer areas, was begun by the Methodist church but is now interdenominational and largely foundation funded.
“We also cooperate with The Dream Center, started by a group of Pentecostal churches in town. We’re the only non-Pentecostal church working with them,” Smith said. Each week, Laurel volunteers fill up a truck with groceries from the Dream Center warehouse and serve about 40 families.
Smith said “nothing connects us more with faith than to be actively doing good in Jesus’ name.”
Smith also participates in the Three Rivers Collaborative, a ministry begun by the Independent Christian Church that works to develop churches through cohorts of like-minded churches that meet monthly. Then the cohorts all meet together quarterly.
Related: Special project: Ministerial alliances
Smith described one group as “progressive-leaning Churches of Christ.” Another includes Independent Christian Churches. A third, predominantly Black churches that are AME/Pentecostal. And a fourth, four churches in downtown Knoxville.
Smith has since left his ministry role in Tennessee to move to the Dallas area — where he and his wife will be closer to grandchildren as they launch The Careworks Ministry to Ministers.
Just Lead is a Knoxville after-school program that brings about 65 kids to the Laurel church building from schools in poorer areas.
“It’s going to be a Dallas version of Three Rivers focusing on ministers and their families,” Smith said. Initially he plans on a cohort of just Church of Christ ministers but hopes to launch others.
“The plan is to quickly reach out to Independent Christian churches,” Smith said, “and then let God direct it from there.”
Building relationships, reaching the unchurched
The Long Beach Church Collective serves two purposes — blessing ministers and blessing a community.
Grey Powell
Grey Powell, minister for the Long Beach Church of Christ in California, said the ministerial alliance’s first focus is on relationship building, providing resources for ministry leaders, prayer, pastoral care, service opportunities — and taco parties.
The second focus addresses ongoing needs in Long Beach that churches can rally around — ones that are difficult for one church to meet alone.
For example, Reconcile Long Beach helps foster kids and works toward reconciling families. And once a year, through Love Our City, churches partner on service projects, like cleaning up parks.
Two churches were hubs for collecting items for people affected by the Los Angeles fires, so all the churches could contribute and the collective was a point for distribution.
About 30 churches are involved, which sounds like a lot. But Long Beach is home to the Port of Los Angeles and a multicultural population of almost 450,000 people. The conglomerate of cities stretching from San Diego to Malibu boasts roughly 20 million people.
Reconcile Long Beach trains mentors for 18-21 years old who have aged out of foster care.
“I’ve been in Churches of Christ my entire life — Harding grad, York for a master’s,” Powell said, referencing universities in Searcy, Ark. and York, Neb., associated with Churches of Christ. “ I’m from Louisiana, coached in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas — I’ve never been anywhere with a church collective like here in Long Beach.”
Even before he moved there, he received a lunch invitation from the minister of the Park Christian Church, which leads the collective.
That jump start helped him get acquainted with the community and lead a congregation from 35 members to 135 today.
“We’re not having swelling, we’re actually having growth — new believers, people believing and getting baptized. There are 40-year-old men who don’t know the stories of Jonah or Noah.”
“Almost all of those people are unchurched, new to Christianity,” Powell said. “We’re not having swelling, we’re actually having growth — new believers, people believing and getting baptized. There are 40-year-old men who don’t know the stories of Jonah or Noah.
“Yes, it’s secular here, but there are still a lot of Christians and lots of churches,” he explained. “There’s just so many people. The churches are stronger out here than people in the South think they are. Everything else is just so loud.”
CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact [email protected].
