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MUST LOVE GOD AND BASKETBALL. That's how the
classified ad read. It was enough to pique the interest of the young North Carolina
minister, who after years serving as Associate Pastor of a large Presbyterian church in
Wilmington, had become restless. Months later Rev. Eric Lohe found himself in Indiana
where, after answering the call to move his family to the small town of Westfield, he
would begin his pastorate of the fledging CrossRoads Church.
Since the
Presbytery already had a number of really good traditional churches, they were looking for
an alternative that might attract people who wouldn't go to a "normal" church.
Lohe, who had already been doing work on how to attract the unchurched to a body of faith
in his North Carolina church, felt drawn to this new church start for that very reason. As
it turned out, it was not the unchurched, but the dechurched that Lohe's
ministry would end up attracting. Today over 85% of his church are made up of these
folks—with the other 15% being either the formerly unchurched or transplanted from
another church.
"The people who have had church experience, but have largely had a
bad experience in some way—these are who were attracted to our ministry and
who we are now seeking to serve, " says Lohe. "Our members come from across all
denominational lines—Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran—we get them
all," says Lohe. "And what our mission has been is to help those people
understand why—the experience they had, why they had it and how God can help them
heal and help them move on from that." And moving on is just what dechurched members
like Kevin Chobot and Tom and Sherry Goins have done—in some amazing ways. . . THERE'S MORE! |
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