In an interview with DisciplesWorld, Rich McCullen, pastor of Missiongathering said he had never heard of the Disciples of Christ until a crisis happened in the fledgling congregation. Missiongathering started meeting about seven years ago in a "mainline" church. Prior to Missiongathering, McCullen had been on staff with Youth for Christ for 15 years and had grown frustrated in seeing "these non-religious kids not going to church even though they loved God. The church actually was rejecting these new Christian or sensitive pre-Christian kids because they didn't 'look' like 'Christian' kids." He wanted to devote more time to starting an alternative Sunday evening worship service for these disaffected teenage and young adult Christians. McCullen approached an innovative pastor of a mainline church, who invited him to use the facility and helped raise money. The first Sunday about 40 kids came, and in a few weeks, 250 to 300 were coming every Sunday, which was the attendance level for the next couple of years. Then the crisis came. A new pastor was appointed to serve the mainline church in which Missiongathering met. After several months of observing the Sunday evening alternative service, he took McCullen out to lunch and asked him, "So, when are we going to bring these kids into confirmation class?" McCullen didn't know how to respond. Finally, he said, "I don't think they will ever go to confirmation class. That's not why these kids are here. They're here because they're seeking God." The pastor gave McCullen three weeks to find another place to meet. Even though many of the long-time members of the mainline church came to the support of Missiongathering and openly opposed the pastor's decision, McCullen knew it was time to find another place to meet. In searching for a new place, he went naturally to the font of information for emerging church leaders — the Internet. In his research he stumbled upon www.disciples.org. "I couldn't believe it. I believe Sharon Watkins is right when she said that the Disciples of Christ are the best-kept secret. The more I read, the more I realized, 'This is who we are,'" he explains. "Before we even knew of the Disciples, we were celebrating the Lord's Supper every week. The theology is based on Jesus, and we can agree to disagree on the other things." McCullen called Don Shelton, regional minister of the Pacific Southwest Region, who promptly met with the Missiongathering leadership in San Diego. Shelton arranged a meeting with Torrey Pines Christian Church, which nested the congregation for about four years. "I get emotional when I think about how that church loved us, financially supported us, and believed in what we were doing," McCullen says. Missiongathering has since moved to a new venue, the historic North Park Theater. In addition, the congregation has provided pastoral support to First Christian Church in nearby Oceanside, one of the oldest Disciples congregations in California, and which has been going through transformation. On any given Sunday, about 160 to 220 gather at the North Park Theater, demonstrating a diversity of race, age, gender, and sexual orientation. McCullen credits strong support from the regional office and Rick Morse from Church Extension as keys to initial success for the fledgling congregation
I didn't know you were a Disciples of Christ guy. I thought you Rum-
Runners were all Baptist of some persuasion or another ;-)
Anyway, Rich McCullen and a team of folks from Missiongathering have
been visiting Charlotte this week (they fly out early tomorrow/
Thursday morning). They came to the Charlotte cohort Christmas party
on Saturday, which was really fun. (We had about 40 people at our
house in Gastonia!) Anyway, Rich and the Missiongathering folks are
very cool. Great people. It's been fun getting to hang out with them
and hear more of their story. Just FYI.
Shalom,
Steve K.
P.S. I've flagged a bunch of messages in this group as "spam," but I
don't know if Google is going to do anything about. If any of you
suspect your accounts may have been hacked, change your passwords ASAP
to prevent more crap posts from coming in.
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