Organizational leadership guru Peter Drucker defined innovation as “the effort to create purposeful, focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential.” Innovative approaches to ministry are resulting in exciting growth for 10-year-old Parkway Christian Church.
Parkway, a daughter church of Christ’s Church of the Valley (Peoria, Arizona), was started in October 1997 by lead pastor Trent Renner. At the first service, 168 people attended in a rented facility on a Saturday night because nothing was available to rent on Sunday. While Christ’s Church of the Valley was averaging 2,000 people at the time, she did not send a core group of pioneers to plant the new church. Parkway, however, did receive financial support and mentoring from CCV pastor Don Wilson, Renner’s father-in-law, to provide a foundation for growth.
By the third week, Parkway had 54 people in worship and never dipped below 50 nor broke 100 again during those first two years meeting on Saturday nights. On Easter 1999, the church switched from Saturdays to Sundays and moved into a local high school with a 750-seat auditorium. Renner and his small team decided to immediately offer two services even though they had only about 40 adults and 25 children each week. This counterintuitive strategy paid off, and the church quickly jumped to 200 people.
Parkway spent the next five years at the school slowly growing to about 500 in attendance. Eventually, Church Development Fund helped Parkway secure 43 acres at a cost of $1.3 million and the church built a 12,000-square-foot facility containing worship seating for 400 people, plus four children’s classrooms and a nursery for $2 million.
Parkway moved into the new facility in July 2005 and the first weekend 1,400 attended, more than double the previous average.
The first year in this new facility was a sorting-out period, and the church experienced some turnover as attendance hovered around the 1,000 mark. Parkway has experienced consistent growth the last two years and has already outgrown her new facility. In the fall of 2006, the church initiated a $3 million capital campaign to add 40,000 additional square feet, including a second worship auditorium and children’s and student ministry areas.
Parkway currently offers five weekend worship services with three distinct styles. Parkway provides an acoustic “Unplugged” service and a “Traditions” service featuring classic traditional worship with volunteer worship leaders. An innovative feature of the “Traditions” service is the use of modern choruses transposed into a traditional hymn style and sound to introduce new music in a familiar way. The church also offers three “Edge” services with a full worship band. The “Edge” services are the largest and fastest-growing services, but Parkway is committed to offering multiple worship venues and styles.
Parkway’s long-term vision is to develop a center court campus with 15 500-seat auditoriums, with 10 looking and feeling like movie theaters. Parkway hopes to provide worship services and discipleship opportunities every day and night of the week.
After researching and studying group dynamics and room environments, Renner and his team determined 500 seats is the maximum capacity to maintain intimacy. With more than 500 seats a room begins to feel more like a sea of faceless people than a space for relational connections.
The church’s second auditorium is scheduled for completion by Easter 2008 and then Parkway will move to eight worship settings. All but one of these will include live music. Another Parkway innovation will be the introduction of a “no singing” worship service. This will include 10 minutes of video-driven images and thoughts followed by a 30-40 minute message and will conclude with a 30-40 minute talk show-style panel where attendees can debate the topic of the day in an interactive setting. Renner believes men will flock to the “no singing” service.
In addition to the 15 worship auditoriums, and in order to enhance their vision to provide relational-based ministry, Parkway leaders have plans to include an outdoor café, outdoor fireplace, and a playground for children with interactive water elements to provide a “third place” for individuals and families.
Small groups are the center of the church’s relational ministry. Parkway has adopted a tracking strategy developed by Real Life Ministries (Post Falls, Idaho) that includes making weekly phone calls to everyone who misses church on a weekend. The structure includes a staff member for every 300 attendees who leads small-group coaches who oversee small-group captains who work to develop individual small-group leaders.
This year Parkway made a decision to spend the next one to three years studying one teaching or command of Jesus each weekend in worship. The results have been amazing and have included a record number of personal commitments to Christ, rededications, and an attendance jump to 1,400 weekly.
