WOC: My Community of Faith

Around the middle of January, 2003, I was invited to play guitar in the worship band of a church in Murfreesboro, TN. It was in the middle of their New Years Series, a tradition they had carried on for several years. A week or so before, they had just opened a new and innovative multi-venue worship space in lieu of a traditional sanctuary to support their growing congregation. The decision to go with two venues offered a live, theater-like worship space and a coffee house space with live worship and a video feed of the sermon. This gave the church three different spaces to use during any given week, which included the original sanctuary. I spent that first weekend playing the services in the live venue and, after enjoying the ministry, and being asked to come back again the following week, I never looked back. Brenda and I have worshiped there ever since.

World Outreach Church is nestled in the midst of a college town at the geographical heart of Tennessee. It is a diverse community with a growing industrial and manufacturing base. It's close proximity to Nashville makes Murfreesboro a bedroom community where commuters drive up and down interstate 24 to work and back. World Outreach Church (WOC) is conveniently located just a mile or so off of that thoroughfare. The church officially began on Easter Sunday, 1980, with 29 people. Today, 31 years later, G. Allen Jackson, Jr. , son of founders Dr. & Mrs. Jackson, has led WOC to a point where, just last week during our New Years Series, we saw 10,500 join us on campus for worship. In January, 2010, after outgrowing our other spaces, we moved into a new 125,000 square foot, 2,800 seat sanctuary--built to accommodate a growing congregation and designed to employ even greater technologies. Along with the other three spaces, we purpose to move into the future with numeric growth, and most importantly, spiritual depth.

I joined the staff of WOC in September of 2004 as a worship leader. At that point the attendance hovered around 2,000-2,500. It is amazing to see such phenomenal growth. I feel blessed to be a part of this wonderful spiritual community. People ask me what our staff has done to cause such an increase. Simply stated: God has done it--we just stay out of the way! As our main objective is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, I will list a few things that are, from my point of view, important foundations on which our ministry is built:

1) Excellence. We always ask ourselves while planing for services each week: are we giving this our best effort? Are we creating a service which is not only done with detailed care, but does it have heart, cultural relevance--does it communicate? I have said it before, and I'll say it again--doing things with excellence isn't for the weak or faint of heart, it requires WORK! God has blessed that effort at WOC!

2) Learn From the Past. At WOC, it is imperative to never repeat past mistakes. We move on! We don't huddle over triumphs of the past for very long either, we celebrate them and head toward the future. Many churches make the mistake of arriving at a certain stage with the attitude, "Well, we can rest now, we've made it." WOC is not a destination as much as living, breathing, God-infused body of believers, moving fearlessly into our community and beyond for the cause of Christ. Do we at some point turn people away saying--sorry, we're full...no room at the inn? Instead, we make room for more and continue to look for new ways to communicate the Gospel; we aren't shy of using new mediums of technology to communicate the Message.

3) Safety. We expend great effort in protecting the safety and security of our children. We require background checks on all people who serve in and and around our Next Generation ministries (ages birth through college). We require every parent or guardian to carry an ID tag to insure each child is released into the care of the correct person. Students register and check in and out of youth events using a bar code system so parents can rest assured that their teen is where they are supposed to be.

4) People Flow. WOC makes use of the natural flow of people in our community to maximize our efforts, our financial investment, and to influence the greatest amount of people. We make use of our Christmas Eve services where unbelievers come with family. Then a few weeks later, we host a three-week New Years Series in January to give holiday visitors a chance to assimilate into the church body. We have a large gathering at Easter in our local university's basketball arena where we, again, attract families and individuals that may never darken a door of our sanctuaries on campus. In years past we have invited even secular performers, devout believers who are willing to testify of their faith in Christ. We wrap packages for free at a local mall throughout December. We make a presence in the community every summer by hosting a concert downtown on the square. Halloween is time for Hallelujah Hoedown where we hosted upwards of 10,000 people last year. In short, we get out there throughout the year amongst the people of greater Murfreesboro. We don't wait for them to come to us.

5) Get Smaller As We Grow. A great success at WOC are small groups. We don't have a traditional Sunday School program but make use of our facilities and places off campus for people to meet each week. Even as our church grows, we create even more small groups to serve the needs of individuals and families. The small group is where much of the ministry and care is delivered. We now offer four service times and two functioning venues from which to choose each weekend. When you break that down, a family can choose one of eight times to worship where the particular attendance is never more than 2,800 in the large venue, or 300 in the coffee house. Some day we will have the other sanctuaries fired up an running again as our growing attendance requires. Even as we expand, an intimate church environment is a continued goal at WOC.

As I continue to serve at WOC, I learn new ways to communicate the Gospel. I want to share a video from one of our New Years Series services a couple of weeks ago. I had the honor of arranging and performing Amazing Grace for guitars. This is a great example of WOC meeting people where they are. God's grace IS amazing! Thanks, WOC, for allowing me to extend His grace through my abilities.