With the mission statement “To grow in our relationship with Christ and share the hope of the gospel,” Warsaw Community Church is living out the great commission in impactful ways.

Becoming a mission-minded church: Warsaw Community Church

With the mission statement “To grow in our relationship with Christ and share the hope of the gospel,” Warsaw Community Church is living out the great commission in impactful ways. Although the Church was founded on what Bonnie Swanson, an Executive Pastor at WCC, called “The seeker church,” it has become what she states is a missional church in the last few years. She explained that being a seeker church emphasizes attracting people to Church while being a missional church focuses more on growing people to become disciples.

A Church founded in 1993 with 150 people meeting regularly in an elementary school has experienced continuous growth. However, during a recent survey to review people’s depth in their walk with God, Warsaw Community Church realized they needed to make some changes. The survey highlighted the need to equip people to grow deeper in their personal walk with God to become disciples who carry the gospel’s message where they live, work, and play.

To equip the people, Warsaw Community Church developed a framework: birth truth, identity, and growth truth. The birth truth emphasizes the truth of whom you become through salvation; identity buttresses who you are in Christ; and the growth truth expounds on maturity through discipleship. “Until a Christ follower understands their role in the work of ministry, they won’t be able to do evangelism,” states Pastor Swanson.

She further explained that the Church had to fully adopt the mission of discipleship and outreach to become a missional church. Over the last five years, they have been investing time and resources in training and developing people so they could grow other people. One such program was “One God, One Story,” where an invited speaker taught people how to understand and share the Bible. Although it was held on a Saturday, over three hundred people showed up to participate. Building off that, they had another event that spanned three Wednesdays called “Discovering Evangelism,” with over two hundred people in attendance.

According to Pastor Swanson, the response to the missional mindset is encouraging because it shows that people are hungry for God. She stated that the most impactful aspect is watching people want to grow in their faith because when the Church becomes grace-filled, we’ll remove the barriers that hinder people from evangelism. She said for people to give up their Saturday to attend Church for growth reasons speaks to this.

Responding to the question of the most impactful ministry for the mission of Warsaw Community Church, Pastor Swanson states that the initiative of growth groups has a tremendous impact. “It’s all about relationships. Nothing will happen outside relationships, and growth groups do ministry work,” she states. The growth groups follow the sermon series, where they dive deeper into sermon topics and do challenges to practice what they learn. With over six hundred people signed up for the growth groups, it continues to be a great channel through which people can grow so they can grow others.

God is doing amazing things through the forward-thinking mission of Warsaw Community Church, but Pastor Swanson believes there’s always room for growth; one such is developing a mentorship program, training the people to become mentors to equip others. She said if there was one thing they could have done differently in the twenty-something years before, it would be to have turned to the people earlier instead of the leaders trying to do everything themselves.

She is grateful for how the Northview Network plays into the mission-mindedness by helping to equip other churches and Christian leaders to lead people. She advises the Church of Christ to stand on God’s word. She said, in a world desperately needing Jesus, “We need to be more dependent on His word and the Holy Spirit.”