Legacy Lane #1: Ascent Church

Today, we are going to look at the first of five legacy lanes and the 32 by 32 vision in greater detail. If you haven’t already please read the rest of our vision series before this post. We have been looking at our vision frame over the last two months on the blog and it all leads to these five weeks. ​

The above picture is our "vision frame" for more on this, check out the first post in this series. If you'd like to view a larger picture of the frame you can do so by clicking here. ​​

We call it a vision frame because it paints a picture of what the future could look like. Of course, we can't see the future and whatever God has in store for us is better than our plans, but that shouldn't stop us from setting our sights on big goals for the glory of God. For Ascent we have identified five areas, we call them legacy lanes, that we believe God has called us to impact.

Those areas are Ascent church, our local community, the state of Oklahoma, our nation, and the world. We will look at each of these individually, but in this post we will specifically focus on what we believe God is calling us to do with Ascent Church.


The Vision

In the last post, I detailed the 32 by 32 vision which is our dream of what Ascent could accomplish by the year 2032. In the post I showed how the vision would play out in each of the five legacy lanes. For the legacy lane regarding Ascent, we said that our goal was to; 1. Have 12 locations throughout rural northwest Oklahoma reaching 3,200 people in weekly attendance. 2. To have 132 missional communities filled with people living out their family servant missionary identities together.

I will explain the why and how for both of these goals with the remaining words I have left in this post. Which likely means I will have to be more brief than I want to be, so if you have any questions or thoughts please don’t hesitate to reach out for clarification.


Why do we have a goal of 12 locations?

Is Ascent trying to be like life.church? Is Ascent going to be “multi-site”?

I feel like both of these questions are going to be asked of us whenever we share this vision with others and while I love the ministry of life.church our vision is different. Also, whatever preconception you have of a multi-site church is probably a little different than what we have in mind.

We are pursuing a multi-site model because we believe that we will be able to have better ministry environments for less money and be able to invest more in missions. In rural ministry I’ve encountered the following problems:

1. Rural churches struggle with consistent pastoral turnover. It is rare for a church in a rural area to keep a pastor longer than five years. This means that the vision is constantly changing and the people never have time to gain trust in leadership.
2. Rural churches struggle financially. This is just simple. They don’t have as many people to give and this results in strained finances and in my experience it often leads to an unhealthy love of money. Instead of giving generously towards the community or missions, churches often hoard the money for a rainy day to come.
3. Rural churches can’t afford pastors with high leadership capability. Please don’t take this wrong. I am not saying that pastor’s in rural areas don’t have high leadership capability. Some of them certainly do. But, when a pastor of high capability comes everyone knows they won't stay long. Leaders want to lead and when they are capped out by a church and have an opportunity to lead elsewhere they take it. This is one of the reasons there is such a high rate of turnover in the rural areas. Pastor’s often move on to greater challenges and opportunities when they are offered.
4. Rural churches place burdens on pastors that lead to burnout. Since they are tight on money they pay a pastor to do everything. They are supposed to lead the church, preach 50 times a year, mow the lawn, teach the youth, clean the building & print the bulletins. Those with amazing work ethic can take this for awhile, but it seems to lead to burnout 99.9% of the time. No one can handle that load for long. If they can, odds are the most important jobs a pastor has are suffering, because he has to spend time doing all the other stuff a pastor of a bigger church would never be expected to do.
5. Rural churches are not able to make as big of an impact in missions. Back to the money piece of this equation, they simply don’t have the means or the desire to support missions in a large way.
6. Rural churches drift towards becoming inwardly focused and often fail to serve their community. This is because they have the hired hand mentality. "The pastor exist to serve us! We need to give so that we can buy more things we like." That tragically turns into entitlement and people begin to believe they deserve to have a church that serves them. Oh Lord, let that never become us. We exist for the mission of God, not for our own comfort.
7. Rural churches are often theologically thin. The pastor has little to no time to prepare a sermon and grow in his own theological knowledge because he is supposed to be mowing the grass and taking care of the administration needs of the church.
8. Rural churches have an uncertain future. In the not so distant past people went to church because they were supposed to and they went to the church in the town they lived in. This is no longer true. People have no problem traveling to a larger church 30 minutes away and they feel no social pressure to be a part of a church. This means rural churches have an uncertain future because people in their community will either not come at all or travel to a better church down the road.

Here is how I believe a network of churches acting as one church would solve these issues.

1. We would raise up a pastor already living and working in the community to serve as a campus pastor, not someone dependent upon a paycheck.
2. By partnering together, our bigger churches would be able to foot the bill for the smaller churches. Also, with a central staff and bi vocational campus staff we will dramatically decrease the cost of each individual church.
3. Instead of trying to get seminary graduates or ambition filled young men seeking full time ministry to fill our campus pastor positions, we will raise up men already living as a part of the community. We will certainly take those young ambitious men, but instead of putting them in a position that would act as a “stepping stone” for them, we will train them and send them out as a church planter or missionary.
4. The central staff will serve each campus in ways a rural church could only dream of. We will take care of all (or a large majority of) the administration, facility upkeep, and even sermon preparation, so that our campus pastors will be freed up to love and lead our people spiritually while continuing to be a part of the community God has placed them in.
5. Could a local church of 150 in rural Oklahoma plant 32 churches across the nation in 13 years? No, but as a network of 12 churches we would, together, be able to accomplish this and more!
6. The local leadership will not be seen as hired hands that are supposed to do everything, because they will not be full time. Our local pastor’s will have jobs of their own. Meaning every member will have to live out their identities as servants and missionaries. We will be by nature forced to look outside of our walls. We will be consistent with our outward mission, because there will not be turnover in leadership every two years.
7. We will be able to consistently provide theologically sound training and teaching. Because the campus pastors and full council of Elders are sharing the shepherding load, the central lead pastor will be able to focus on preparing the best sermons possible. Also, when our campus pastors preach 12-18 times a year, they will be able to prepare sermons together and have more time to properly handle God’s word in the pulpit. Also, as an effect of the central staffing we will be able to provide more resources and time towards training Elders theologically.
8. A church by itself is under threat if a few big givers move or leave for any other number of reasons, but in our model it won’t be a big deal. This is because our larger churches will be able to help the smaller churches in times of need. We would be able to provide the "big" church experience in smaller towns. People wouldn’t need to travel because we would have a campus in their own community.

How this would work

I have a lot left to say, but am going to be brief. First, we will not force anything. If we never have an opportunity to plant a campus, then we won’t. I believe that we will though. The primary way I believe this will work is through churches in target areas coming to us, because they are in danger of closing.

We would then revitalize the campus and relaunch as Ascent with people who are already apart of our church and live in that community. Our heart would be to raise up local Elders to serve the campus.


132 Missional Communities

The other part of our first legacy lane is the vision to see 132 active missional communities by 2032. This is vital because we believe MC’s are how we actually live out following Christ in our individual everyday lives.

We aren’t interested in putting on great Sunday events that people attend. We want to mobilize people to actually living as the church. We want to see people growing in their relationship with God, making a difference, living in their purpose, and truly experiencing freedom. We want to raise up a church of disciples who are making disciples.

If we have 132 MC’s, that would be 1,980 to 2,640 people authentically seeking to follow Jesus in the everyday stuff of life. That would be an amazing accomplishment and just the thought of it brings joy to my heart. Can you imagine how northwest Oklahoma would be transformed if that many people were seeking to (re)present and (rep)resent Jesus in everyday life? It would be an awesome place to live and a testimony to the goodness of our Lord.


Best case scenario

This stuff is cool to think about and consider, but if you're anything like me it's kind of overwhelming. I want to challenge you to think best case scenario with me over the course of this series. I think we drift to worst case scenario by nature. It’s easy for me to wonder if anyone will show up to our first service. It’s much more difficult to imagine things like this.

However, remember that God wants us to succeed! We need to have faith that He is going to do amazing things through us for His glory. We may not accomplish any of this by 2032, but we may accomplish ten times as much. We can focus on the worst or the best. I am asking you to dream with me and imagine what God might be doing.

I am so blessed to be a part of this journey with you.

Thank you for taking time to read this and the rest of our vision series. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or by emailing me at pastorblakefarley@gmail.com. 

​Pastor Blake ​​​