Jeri Fugunt, Pastor Dale Lovelady and Scott Santos of Hickory Valley Christian Church have been participating in "40 Days of Purpose." Click to enlarge all our photos.
photo by Christina Siebold
Dale Lovelady, pastor of Hickory Valley Christian Church, sits in his book-lined study and shakes his head in disbelief while describing the changes his church has experienced in the last month.
“Our attendance has grown 30 percent in one month. We have 50 small study groups meeting every week, and as a church, we have changed our focus,” he says. “We have a new recognition of how short life really is. 50, 60, 70 years - it’s nothing but a twinkle in the eye of God. We all want to be used as an instrument in God’s hand today.”
Pastor Lovelady’s church is not alone in their renewed sense of purpose. As the first of three city-wide “40 Days of Purpose” campaigns comes to an end, more than 50 churches in Chattanooga are experiencing growing numbers and a new spiritual gusto, according to John Atherton of the Chattanooga Resource Foundation.
“We have seen across-the-board increases in attendance for churches participating in the campaign, but the exciting thing has been the 1,252 small study groups meeting all over Chattanooga. In most cases, up to one half of the people attending the weekly study groups are not currently in church,” Mr. Atherton says. “We knew what we wanted to accomplish when the campaign began, but we had no idea it would get this big.”
Based on author Rick Warren's New York Times #1 bestseller, "The Purpose Driven Life," the campaign was developed for churches to help their members explore the book’s central question, what on earth am I here for? Mr. Warren focuses on five central "purposes" God uses to give meaning to life - worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism.
Mr. Atherton says more than 4,000 churches across the country are participating in “40 Days of Purpose” this fall, but Chattanooga is hosting the pilot program for a city-wide campaign.
The program will be held three times in Chattanooga in the next 16 months - Fall 03, Spring 04, Fall 04. By the end of the three campaigns, organizers anticipate that 200 churches will have hosted the program and somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 Chattanoogans will have participated.
Pastor Lovelady says he was eager to host the program in his church, but did not anticipate the results he has seen. “I thought that it would help our faith and our relationship with God grow, but that was the extent of my vision,” he says. “Everything that I thought might happen has happened and gone far beyond my wildest dreams.”
Scott Santos is an elder at Hickory Valley Christian Church and hosts a small study group every week in his home. Each meeting begins with a 20-minute video lesson from Rick Warren, followed by discussion and prayer.
“We have a very diverse group. We have someone who is divorced, a young woman who is single and lonely, married couples, and several college kids. But we all need each other and we have learned that we can depend on each other,” he says.
Leading the study group has not kept Mr. Santos so busy feeding the flock that he has gone hungry in his own spiritual life. He says he is experiencing a relationship with God that he has never known before.
“I’m growing by quantum leaps,” he says. “This process has opened every closet I have and I feel real freedom for the first time in my life.”
Some of those closets are more obvious than others. Mr. Santos insists that exploring deep spiritual issues, such as finding your purpose in life, should not keep Christians from correcting more mundane weaknesses. And for Mr. Santos, a self-described “lead foot,” one very obvious change in his life has been a slower pace behind the wheel.
“God has infiltrated every part of my life,” he says. “I know that all of us cast a shadow, I had to ask what kind of shadow I was casting with my driving.”
Pastor Lovelady says Scott’s application of a spiritual truth to his everyday life is a victory that should not be overlooked. “So often in churches we do things that are long on emotion, but short on meaning. The principles in this book focus on the true meaning.”
Jeri Fugunt hosts eight women in her weekly study group. Though hesitant to volunteer at first, she says she has been rewarded many times for stepping out of her comfort zone.
“At the first meeting, I had three personal prayer requests. These were big requests, things that had troubled me and hurt me. One of them was answered in six hours. All three were answered by the end of that first week.”
While the Sunday morning service has grown since the campaign began, Pastor Lovelady says the small study groups have prompted the biggest changes. Fostering a deep sense of community among church members, he says the groups function more like families than classmates.
“People come in with their problems, saying ‘Here is what’s going on in my life, and if somebody doesn’t help me, I’m going to crash and burn.’ Then somebody else jumps in and says ‘Hey, I’ve been there, and you’re going to make it.’”
Pastor Lovelady expects 30-35 of the 50 study groups to continue after the program is completed. He says they have proved too valuable to eliminate after 40 days.
Mr. Atherton sees Chattanooga continuing its leadership role in the 40 Days of Purpose program, even after the three local campaigns are complete. “We plan on compiling a manual for other cities to follow when they take this campaign city-wide,” he says. “That gives us the potential as a city to impact the globe.”
As Hickory Valley Christian Church completes the 40-Day program this week, Pastor Lovelady says the real challenge will be maintaining the spiritual growth and sense of community they have found outside the high-intensity atmosphere of the campaign.
“We have to make sure that we don’t let down our sails and start drifting,” he says. “God will always do his part, so we need to keep our sails up and let the wind of God take us where He wants us to go from here.”