New Churches Aim to Win Souls With Individuality
In June 2001 the Holston Annual Conference appointed three young pastors to plant new churches in diverse areas. Here are progress updates on each.

The Rock — Johnson City, Tenn.
In the early 1990s, the congregation at East Pine Grove Park UMC considered installing a fence to separate itself from unsightly low-income rental properties. Instead, they built a $12,000 playground for the kids who lived in those homes.

By summer 2001, the playground had evolved into a clothes closet followed by a full-time ministry, Coalition for Kids, with 11 staff members and a $250,000 budget. In addition to an after-school program for 100 children, the ministry offers a place where neighboring families can come for fellowship and prayer in a 10,000-quare-foot warehouse building.

“The Coalition was doing five days a week what the church ought to be doing anyway,” says the Rev. Randy Hensley, age 37, Coalition for Kids director and pastor for the new church. “The only thing that was missing was a worship service.”

As of July 15, residents of the east , Johnson City inner-city community have a worship service, too. Funded by the Holston Conference for three years, The Rock is already averaging 46 in worship attendance in the Coalition for Kids building. Worshippers are offered a contemporarystyle service that’s short on liturgy and long on music from a band and a donated $8,000 sound system. Three children have been baptized and three Bible study groups are ongoing. A new Saturdaynight youth ministry, complete with loud dance music and strobe lights, drew 50 kids on the first night.

Located 100 yards away, The Rock is considered to be a second worship service of East Pine Grove Park, pastored by the Rev. Hagan McClellan. East Pine Grove’s average worship attendance: 104. “That’s another miracle part of this story, that such big ministries have come out of a small church,” said Hensley.

Soulworx —Knoxville, Tenn.
Weathering bad press and a downtown business community that doesn’t necessarily want them, leaders of a new church in Knoxville’s Old City are just days away from kicking off a project that’s been more than two years in the making.

On Nov. 9, Soulworx will launch a Friday night worship service designed to appeal to the 20s crowd, with a video wall and music the Rev. Stephen DeFur calls loud and hard-driving.” Located in a downtown city block, Soulworx is only steps away from biker bars, trendy restaurants and antique stores characterizing the Old City” section of Knoxville.

The 31-year-old associate pastor at Cokesbury UMC, Soulworx’s mother church, DeFur had his first vision of a “new way of doing ministry” in the late 1990s. Before long, the pastor had pulled together a group of 20-somethings who plunged into creating something unique and “ultra high tech.”

Cokesbury Senior Pastor Steve Sallee and Holston Conference leaders were intrigued. Downtown business owners were not.

The fear was that a Christian organization would attract the homeless and other “unsavory” groups. Local TV crews played up the criticism. The deposit that Soulworx put down on a lease was returned; the owner said he sold the building.

With the promise of three full years of conference funding and a new site that’s nearly ready for the November launch, DeFur isn’t looking back. “We’re here now,” he said, holding a paintbrush. While it’s true the upper floor of the Soulworx building will soon host Alcoholics Anonymous and single-mother groups, “I wish people would understand that we’re going to be good neighbors,” he said. “There are a lot people down here who need help. We want to be a positive influence.”

Blount County Church Plant —Maryville, Tenn.
“We don’t have a name, and we don’t have a place,” says the Rev. Jeff Wadley, age 37. But the church plant sponsored by Fairview UMC and the Holston Conference does have a start on developing the small group ministry that will ultimately build a new congregation.

With a church-plant team of 29 adults, Wadley already has a family base of (with children included) 51 people. Groups have been formed to recruit a band, find a meeting place, develop a children’s ministry, invite new people, and set up communications and finances. Monthly “preview” worship services for team members and friends may start in January 2002. The official worship launch won’t occur until after Labor Day 2002.

Wadley says the book of Nehemiah has been key in helping his team cast a vision and seeing it through to reality. The fledgling church has even experienced its first baptism; of nine-year-old Will Hooper, son of a church member.

“In my 12 years of ministry, I never dreamed that I would be doing a church plant,” said Wadley, who worked with youth at Fairview for nine years. “It’s been amazing how God has placed people and things in my path to lead me in this direction. I’m just holding on for the ride.”

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