Archive: Tipp City Turnaround

By Cynthia D. Lanning

Ginghamsburg UMC boasts eight times the attendance it had eight years ago

The church growth strategies at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio, sound like prescriptions for failure. Prospective members must first attend an orientation session, followed by a 16-session membership training class with heavy homework assignments. No wonder that of the 40 to 50 people who attend each quarter’s membership training classes, only about 26 decide to actually join the church.

None of this bothers pastor Mike Slaughter. “Membership is not the goal; discipleship is,” he explains. “We care more about them than names on a roster.” He believes people can rush into church membership like an unwise marriage. In contrast, his flock is challenged, and people join only after counting the high cost of discipleship.

Nevertheless, people in this north-Dayton suburb are responding to that challenge in droves. Unlike most United Methodist churches where weekly attendance is a fraction of actual membership, at Ginghamsburg some 700 people attend Sunday services despite a membership of only 400. About 20 first-time families attend each week.

But things weren’t always that way. Rev. Slaughter remembers his first Sunday at Ginghamsburg, his second appointment after graduating from Asbury Seminary. (His first appointment was to Anderson Hills United Methodist Church in eastern Cincinnati, where he was youth minister to 200 teenagers.) On his first Sunday as senior (and only) pastor, 118 people showed up to inspect the new young preacher. He remembers realizing that this congregation was smaller than the youth group he had led at Anderson Hills.

The next Sunday was even bleaker as the church slid back into its pattern of 70 to 90 people attending each Sunday.

Undaunted, Rev. Slaughter began inviting people from the church into his home on Wednesday nights. Using the Bible and classics such as Basic Christianity by John Stott and The Problem with Wineskins by Howard Snyder, Rev. Slaughter wrote a “Basic Christianity” curriculum to help people learn who Christ is and understand gifts and their place in the church. (The membership/discipleship course Ginghamsburg uses today is based on that original course, with refinements and additions made by those who have taught it in the years since.) He also began inviting youth into his home for similar discipleship training.

Lynn and Diane Kubal joined that first small group in Rev. Slaughter’s home. “I had been wandering around for 40 years thinking I was a Christian but wasn’t. We knew something was missing,” says Lynn. Today Lynn and his wife, Diane, who is Ginghamsburg’s full-time staff person in charge of adult ministry, lead the rigorous “Basic Christianity” course.

Class members are asked to make a personal decision for Christ in the fifth session of the course, after the groundwork has been laid. Lynn believes this emphasis on discipleship has spurred the church’s remarkable growth. “The Holy Spirit is there to guide us, but if people aren’t obedient, the work won’t get done.”

The Kubals have just begun videotaping the “Basic Christianity” course so people who miss one of the 16 sessions can make it up. The videotapes also help the course leaders learn names and faces more quickly.

A ”Real Mixed Bag” Church

Today, the Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church is what Rev. Slaughter calls, “a real mixed bag … it’s what a church has to be to grow. We’ve not claimed any handle.” Christians who consider themselves evangelical, charismatic, liturgical or doctrinal in orientation feel comfortable at Ginghamsburg. The church’s three Sunday morning worship services have not assumed different flavors. Instead, a wide variety of people attend each service—some in blue jeans, some in shirts and ties, some with uplifted hands, some holding hands. “We’re going from a real Wesleyan model, reaching out to make disciples,” says Rev. Slaughter. “We are more of a witness to the world if we can love each other in our differences.”

An Unlikely “Super-Preacher”

Rev. Slaughter is a friendly type who would rather slip a witness for Christ into a conversation about cars than accost his listener with ultimatums. He doesn’t write people off, perhaps because he remembers how far he once strayed from the path.

Although he grew up in a “traditional Methodist Church,” his senior year in high school found him living anything but a committed Christian lifestyle. Three days before graduation his grades were so low he almost didn’t get his diploma. Only because a teacher changed an “F” to a “D” at the last minute was he allowed to graduate. He was in a rock group when two of his fellow band members were busted for drugs. Who wouldn’t have given up on the young Mike Slaughter?

But he says that God was dealing with him during that time. “I began to search. I had no direction, no purpose, no self-esteem.” Although his family’s church was not evangelical, he did know enough about the Bible to turn to it for answers, and accepted Christ over a period of time. “I went from darkness to light,” he explains.

He attended the University of Cincinnati the next year, and the former “F” student earned a 3.4 grade point average his first quarter. After graduating magna cum laude, he entered Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, upon the advice of a woman in his church. “Asbury was a breath of fresh air,” he recalls.

A Vision in a Field

Rev. Slaughter says he always felt God had a special plan for Ginghamsburg, even before he began his ministry there. “I had a vision while standing in the field behind the church that God had a special plan,” he recalls. “I don’t want this to be a ‘successful’ church but to be the Body of Christ, a place where lives are radically changed through Christ and people are sent out to win others.” This is the legacy he coveted for his church.

At Ginghamsburg the emphasis on discipleship extends to every age level. A separate full-time staff person oversees children’s, youth and adult ministries. Last year more than 350 people participated in week-long camping experiences for families, kids, teens and adults, which the Ginghamsburg staff plans.

Rev. Slaughter wants his church’s members to have three points of contact with the church: (1) worship/ learning, (2) small groups for personal growth and (3) opportunities for ministry/serving.

Ginghamsburg UMC helps meet people’s needs and then works to move them into the life of the church. The church doesn’t want to be caught unaware by changes in society. For example, statistics indicate that by 1990 half of the adult population will be single. Therefore, the next staff members they plan to hire will minister to unmarried persons.

Rev. Slaughter says the church should be “a place where people should be able to dream God’s dream by seeing burning bushes.” He suggests the church should then “throw gasoline on those burning bushes. Too many churches are throwing water on those fires instead.”

Spirit-filled preaching has definitely contributed to the church’s growth. “He’s got to be the easiest teacher to listen to,” says Jackie Allen. “He includes history in his sermons and doesn’t talk down to you.”

This unconventional United Methodist Church continues to grow, even though it has no evangelism committee. “We never got around to it,” Rev. Slaughter explains. In 1979 about 90 people attended worship service, with 60 in Sunday school. Today some 700 people attend its three services and 520 come to its Sunday school. In 1979 the entire budget was $27,000; today it is just under $500,000. Rev. Slaughter remembers when the church had only one phone line; today it has four. Often all four lines are in use, and he has to wait to make calls. If only all churches could have such problems!

Getting the Attention of Unchurched People

Ginghamsburg UMC aggressively seeks new members from among the unchurched by its contemporary style of service, its many community outreach programs and even by its snappy paid advertisements (prepared by ad agency employees in the church) in local newspapers. The exciting happenings have even attracted news reporters from local papers. For example, the Dayton daily paper ran a large article with photos headlined “The Little Church That Could.”

First-time visitors receive a personal letter from the pastor. Later they receive an invitation from assistant pastor Rev. Tom Sager to attend the monthly orientation meeting.

Ginghamsburg is going to start a policy of delivering a tin of cookies to all first-time visitors the week after they attend with a brief “we’re glad you’re here—call me if you have any questions” message. The church is also thinking of beginning 5:30 p.m. Saturday or Sunday night worship for people who don’t attend Sunday morning services. And if a congregation member misses three Sundays, someone from the church contacts him’ or her.

Growing Pains

One drawback to this growth, Rev. Slaughter has discovered, is that it is now impossible for him to know every person who attends worship services. He tells about a time he stopped to put gas in his car, and someone came up to him and said they enjoyed last Sunday’s sermon. Rey. Slaughter realized with a pang that he didn’t know that person. “But the important thing is that someone does,” he observes.

Rev. Slaughter has contact with his staff and key leaders in the church, who in turn oversee the various small groups. “That small group leader is their minister,” he notes.

The Value of a Free Pulpit

Has a dynamic pastor who is outspoken about his literal Biblical beliefs been hassled by the United Methodist hierarchy? Rev. Slaughter says he has not. He is “excited about the freedom the United Methodist Church gives us to be Christians. We lose the prophetic right to be pastors if we try to tow denominational lines. Our obedience is to Christ.”

Ginghamsburg has had strong support from its district superintendent, the West Ohio Annual Conference, and its bishop, including the financial support the church has needed to grow. “I’m under appointment, like anyone else. I’m accountable, and I like that,” says Rev. Slaughter. He observes that some large, loosely-structured, non-UM churches don’t have that sense of accountability and therefore have lost integrity. “The United Methodist Church allows a lot of freedom for revival to take place at the local church level,” Rev. Slaughter continues.

People from United Methodist backgrounds are glad to find their spiritual needs met so well in a UM church. “We were looking for a dynamic, Bible-based learning and growth experience,” says Bill McGraw. “We discovered it here. We were taught to love and be loved. At first we had a hard time adjusting to the style of worship (I was used to the pipe organ)—the praise songs instead of traditional hymns, clapping hands, people praying instead of just the preacher.”

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Jones are also life-time United Methodist. “We were looking for a church that really was excited about the Gospel. We became misfits wherever we were,” says Clarence. “In most churches there isn’t enough leadership and small groups foster leadership.” The Jones’ also support Good News. “The renewal movement is slow,” he notes, “but people who drop out have no right to criticize. You have to stay [in the UMC] to have an effect.”

Saying Goodbye to the Little Church by the Side of the Road

Not all churches would welcome this kind of growth. Rev. Slaughter estimates that maybe 25 of the original 90 church-goers left when the church began to expand. “Some wanted it to stay the little church by the side of the road,” he remembers. The defectors had no trouble finding many churches that fit that description.

Is there any limit to how large a church should grow? In Rev. Slaughter’s opinion, no, “as long as there are lost people. A church dies when it quits reproducing new cells.”

Not surprisingly, Rev. Slaughter is now frequently asked to speak about church growth around the country. What is surprising is his message: “People shouldn’t judge value by size. They say, ‘We’re OK because we’re big.’ We were OK when we were only 90 people. We can plan; God causes the growth.”

Cynthia Lanning is a free-lance writer in Cincinnatti, Ohio.