Community Christian Church

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Networking Their Faith

21st-century missionaries take risks in nationwide effort to build new branches of their Naperville- based church

Posted on Friday, July 09, 2004

by Beth Sneller, Daily Herald Staff Writer

Doug and Marilyn Blauser wanted to know when God was speaking to them. They had no idea how much it was going to cost. The former Bolingbrook couple, who used to attend Community Christian Church in Naperville, pursued their goal four years ago by studying the series "Experiencing God" with their Bible study group. It didn't take long before Marilyn noticed God was saying the same thing every time she prayed. He was telling her, she said, to "downsize, reorganize and get ready to move." She wasn't quite sure what that meant. Then, Community Christian announced plans to plant a new church in Denver. The Rev. Dave Richa was looking for volunteers to move with him. He wasn't asking for money; he simply wanted fellow Christians to help him in spreading the word. Marilyn immediately knew that was where her family was supposed to go.

hat "call" to parishioners now has become commonplace for Community Christian, which boasts six sites in southern DuPage and northern Will counties. Those include the church's headquarters on Ogden Avenue in Naperville, and the newest site at Naperville North High School. The congregation wants to start a movement of churches across the nation, all focused on bringing people back to Christ.

Three years ago, Richa and 35 members - including the Blausers - moved to Denver to begin Jacob's Well Community Church. About a year ago, the Rev. David Limero brought 15 more people to Bakersfield, Calif., to begin Life Journey Christian Church. And this fall, the Rev. Dave Dummitt, a 1996 Wheaton College graduate, will lead yet another group to start a church in Detroit. "It's pretty extraordinary," said Dave Ferguson, lead pastor at Community Christian and the one who's driving the church planting effort, called the New Thing network. If Ferguson has his way, the network will have dozens of locations nationwide. And there will be more people coming back to Christ.

Led By God

The Blausers certainly never intended to become missionaries three years ago. A computer contract consultant for Indianapolis-based Simon Marketing, Doug was making good money and Marilyn didn't need to work. The couple's oldest son had just gotten married, and Doug and Marilyn were enjoying having all their family in the same area. So when Marilyn mentioned moving, Doug wasn't receptive. "It was kind of a threatening thing to me at first," he said. A preliminary job search, he said, showed there were few positions in his field in Denver. "My big thing was, how am I going to provide for my family?" he said. "Then, in a Bible reading, God basically said to me, 'Don't be afraid. I will provide.' It didn't really matter whether I could find work, because it wasn't about that." So it was settled: They would follow where God led.

During the spring and summer of 2001, the Blausers and others who would be moving from Illinois to Colorado made plans to sell their homes and look for new places to live in Denver's tight housing market. Like Moses and the children of Israel, they headed into new territory, banking on their trust in God. And like that exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago, their journey was fraught with hardships and tests of faith.  The first year they were there, nearly all the new transplants became sick, Richa said. "Living here is different than living in Chicago," he said. "There's less humidity." Yet with the help of parishioners from a neighboring church, the small group of Chicagoans managed to slowly build their church.

Building A Vision

Ferguson and other church officials have identified about a dozen sites - including Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., and Seattle - where they'd like to plant more churches. So far, they've placed the two in Bakersfield and Denver. They are close to sending people to Detroit and Manhattan. But they're always looking to make contacts in those other cities - spiritual networking, if you will. "I think of myself as a spiritual entrepreneur who focuses on bringing people back to God," Ferguson said. His purpose is always the same - to share the love of Christ, and help people understand their sins are forgiven through Christ's death and resurrection. The difference between his church and many others is that he focuses his ministry on those who currently aren't attending church.

At all the sites, Community Christian researches the area and maps out a plan of action. Leaders make sure the church has a place to meet before the "planters" move to the new location. In Detroit, they'll meet in a health club gym. The club owner - whom Ferguson met through other contacts - is a Christian who wants to evangelize to the people who frequent his business. Dummitt is spending this summer getting to know the members at Community Christian. Soon, he'll look for volunteers to move to Detroit. Ferguson acknowledges planting churches takes away some of his members. But he says he can find more "seekers" to fill seats on Sundays. With any luck, he says, Community Christian will develop a reputation as "that church where they send you off on a mission right away." "I would love for us to have a reputation as being a church that's a little dangerous," he said.

The new churches, like Community Christian, are non- denominational. Yet they work together through weekly video conferences, during which they decide what their focus will be. Though the New Thing network may sound like another new denomination, Ferguson and Dummitt say it isn't. "Many times, denominations are based around a doctrine," Dummitt  "This is based around a mission." Lyle Schaller, a nationally known religious commentator based in Naperville, said there are thousands of similar networks, or associations, of churches throughout the world. They've been around for more than 100 years. They're different from denominations, Schaller said, because their relationship with each other isn't legally binding. "Denominations and associations are pretty much at opposite ends of the spectrum," he said. Such networks, however, often have a short life span. "These are very fragile associations," Schaller said. "Once you have a change of leadership, that new leader has to decide whether the church is going to continue going in the same direction as all the other churches."

Ferguson has been building relationships with other large churches in Naperville, trying to make those congregations part of his planting movement. Those churches would have the added challenge of explaining to their denominational leadership why they're joining forces with an ecumenical network. "Denominations aren't going to disappear," Ferguson said. "But I think we're going to start working together."

Unfinished Business

Meanwhile, the 50 people who left Chicago for the West still are struggling to figure out God's mission for them. The past two years haven't been easy for the Blausers. Doug didn't find a permanent job. Instead, he and his wife have relied on investments, money from her small sewing business and income from an ATM business they started in Chicago. Last summer, Doug worked three jobs, one of which was selling door hangers door-to-door for 7 cents apiece. He's now working on a computer contract job, but that's only through September. Steady work isn't the only thing the Blausers have missed. Their newly married son and his wife, who live near Chicago, now have two children. "Right now, our biggest cost is not being near our grandchildren," Marilyn said. But the Blausers don't regret their decision.

"The past couple of years, we really have grown spiritually," Doug said. "It's almost the wrong question to ask why we're struggling like this. The right question is, 'What are you trying to teach us, God?'" "It's been a lesson to us over and over again. When we got right down to the wire, he'd turn around and say, 'Here's an opportunity to make a little income.'" After Doug's contract job ends, he doesn't plan to look for more work. He and Marilyn think they'll be able to draw enough money from their investments to live on. Instead of working, they want to find other opportunities to serve God and their church. They're sure that means they'll have to leave Denver. But they're not afraid. "We don't know when or where we're going to go," Doug said. "We just know it's going to happen. God's not done with us yet."