Convicted by God to start the church, Kingsway Christian Church was founded in 1973 by nine families. At the early stage of the church, they met at Avon High School and a local bank's conference room. As the church grew, they moved to their present property a few years in, and fifty years later, Kingsway has grown to be a force of reckoning in its Avon, Indiana, community.

Despite having experienced different difficult seasons in its fifty years, God has been gracious to Kingsway Christian Church, and the growth the church is experiencing is evident. It is not just in the lives of the people who call Kingsway home but also in the surrounding community and beyond the borders through strategic partnerships. Worthy of note is that Kingsway has enjoyed consistency in leadership, having only had two Lead Pastors in fifty years. The founding Pastor, John Caldwell, led Kingsway for the first thirty-six years. Matt Nickoson, the present Lead Pastor, assumed the position in 2009 and has continued for fourteen years.

Faithfully aligning God’s word

As a restoration movement church, Kingsway Christian Church is devoted to creating an environment where people strive to become more like Jesus while staying committed to Biblical truth. According to Brett Cadwell, the Executive Pastor at Kingsway, the church's vision statement is vital in driving the mission to challenge the people. Describing the four lanes of the church’s vision, he said that becoming more like Jesus involves thriving spiritually, multiplying impacts, growing leaders, and loving our neighbors.

To achieve the mission of helping people become more like Jesus, Pastor Cadwell stated that they broke the four lanes of the church’s vision into a growth path of four actions. This, he said, helps to personalize it for individual growth. He noted the four actions: 'connect, serve, give, and go.’ He said people consistently share their salvation experience beyond the church walls when they get to the go action.

Responding to Kingsway’s posture for outreach, Pastor Cadwell reinforced the church’s longstanding commitment to local and global outreach. With an emphasis on global missions, he said the church continues to send people and dollars around the world. He stated that reaching the world for Christ is deeply rooted in the heart of the founding Pastor, John Caldwell, and the church. Kingsway is partnering with organizations like Go Ministries, Reach India, New Mission International, Hope Healthcare, Sheltering Wings, etc.

He said he believes outreach happens in three ways: global mission partners, local mission partners, and the church itself. The church supports seven global and five local partners to drive these beyond what Kingsway is doing to serve its immediate community. In addition, Pastor Cadwell further stated that, although they encourage people to serve on Sunday mornings, they also emphasize the need to serve people outside the church.

Using the blessing of their expansive building, Kingsway is going beyond expectation to be a beacon of hope to their community. The recent transition of the school, which has occupied a large proportion of the church’s property for forty-plus years, opened a lot of space for ministry opportunities. According to Pastor Cadwell, as they continued to pray for guidance to maximize impact with the space, they received two opportunities to partner with organizations, which set the stage for the next phase. With the desperate need for daycare options in Avon, one of those opportunities is to partner with Pathways Learning Academy to accommodate up to two hundred kids. “We know we are not the only solution, but we want to be part of the solution,” he said. He stated that they are excited to be the second church in Indiana, after Northview Church, to welcome Pathways into their church.

In addition, Pastor Cadwell explained how God worked things out for the Department of Child Services (DCS) to welcome the idea of using the available space at Kingsway to meet the pressing needs of children and their families. He said it was unexpected because they were used to giving and hardly had people reach out to help them. This partnership, he said, has led to “The DCS Safe Space Project.” This project involves a group of volunteers, two thousand square feet of space dedicated to helping reunite families, counseling, storage, and an overnight room for children in emergency situations. “Any church, with a room, a heart for children, and a relationship with DCS, can make a lot of impact,” Pastor Cadwell explained.

Furthermore, Pastor Cadwell believes that discipleship always leaves room for growth because none of us are ever accomplished and must continue to grow until we reach Heaven. He said that Kingsway is looking at different avenues to continue to connect the church with the community. According to him, they were exploring what it would look like to have a counseling center and how to use the available gymnasiums to enrich the lives of the youths by partnering with several local sports organizations.

In conclusion, Pastor Cadwell longs for a time when people in America will, again, look to the church as the heartbeat of their communities and a place they can count on in all areas of their lives. Kingsway leadership recognizes that the need for a healthy culture starts with the leaders and staff. Through a lot of work by all, the staff culture of Kingsway Christian Church is rich and healthy. He stated that churches must focus on creating a healthy staff culture because it reflects the results. “Culture is such a hard thing to replicate, but I want every church to be healthy and a great place to work,” he said.