Church Unity: Moving Beyond Diversity to Oneness (Part 2)

Don’t miss Part 1 of our interview, where Jason Strand talks about his calling into ministry, church unity, and when he stepped into the senior pastor role—at the beginning of a pandemic.

Once that vital point was clarified, what other factors contributed to what has been happening at Eagle Brook?

First, a nuanced understanding about the nature of true growth. Attendance is an indicator of health and growth, but it’s not the most important thing for us. Instead, we track and celebrate how many people have made a decision for Christ, and how things are going with our groups.

Part of the reason why we had a great year was because we had our best year in groups ever, by far. That lifts everything. We have the highest number of people connected into biblical community with other people that we have ever had. We have had to ask, How do we connect with people? And we had to go a step further, asking, How do we connect with people online?

As people have increased their online attendance, you may have regular online attendees who live several hours from your church or in a different state. Or maybe you have an online attendee who lives near your church but for whatever reason chooses not to come. We as pastors must stress, “OK, that’s great. We’re grateful you’re watching the message, that you’re connected to the services. But we want something more for you.”

How do we get that person connected? How do we encourage them to become a disciple of Christ, not just an online attendee? I think that’s one of the biggest questions.

How have you worked to answer them?

We have these things we call viewing groups. Not a great name, but it is what they are. Since the pandemic, particularly all through the Midwest, churches in small towns are closing their doors. Everywhere in our five-state area, there are tons of churches closing their doors. Something that started organically was that people began to find places where they could livestream and project the Eagle Brook service. It could be at the American Legion, it could be at an old church, it could be in someone’s living room, but people could show our services and then invite others to come.

Today we have 30 of these now throughout the country, the smallest at eight people, and the largest at 250 people. Anybody who has a heart to reach their town for Christ can do that. One of the coolest stories? There is a bar in Wisconsin called The Booze Bar.

Isn’t that name a little redundant?

For sure [laughs]. Anyway, the owner started showing our services on Monday nights. Now 70 people are coming. Then the Baptist church in their town closed down, and so this guy bought the Baptist church and has launched a church where they show Eagle Brook services.

Henry Blackaby used to say, “Join God where he’s working.” So that’s what we’re trying to do. We have a goal to increase the number of viewing groups we have and are investing in our online experience. We do think that is the front door where people check out your church these days, so we are putting a lot into our online experience—and how that can lead to connecting people through groups and other kinds of communities.

Paul J. Pastor