story magazine - forging the future - summer 2015

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Invested in Our Story Learn Why You Are a Vital Part of the Mission to Reach the College Campus Resonate(ing) Influence Get a Glimpse of How Resonate is Reshaping the Collegiate Ministry Landscape

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Page 1: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

Invested in Our StoryLearn Why You Are a Vital Part of the Missionto Reach the College Campus

Resonate(ing) InfluenceGet a Glimpse of How Resonate is Reshaping the Collegiate Ministry Landscape

Page 2: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

1.

OVER 100 PEOPLE DECIDE TOFOLLOW JESUS FOR THE FIRST TIME

OVER 200 PEOPLE SENTOUT ON MISSION

OVER 2,100 PEOPLE ATTENDOUR EASTER SERVICES

OVER 85 BAPTISMS

& WE’RE STILL PRAYING FOR MORE. WILL YOU JOIN US?

Page 3: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

By: Keith Wieser I realized a few months ago that my 20-year high school reunion is fast approach-ing. This was significant because I started out with many of these peers in 1st grade. To get connected to the reunion process, I signed up for updates. Soon I realized I got more than I bargained for; at first, it was fun to see poorly scanned photos that brought me back to my younger days, but the joys of scrolling through faded photos quickly diminished when the sheer number of pictures, polls, and remem-ber-whens quickly became elements of spam in my day. Here is what I wish I could say to my classmates: the first few photos of your kid are great, but what draws me in is the context. I want to know more than the fact that they look just like you. Tell me how you got to where you are. Since we are connected in the past, I want to understand your context in the present. I want more than what Facebook can communi-cate. I really want to hear your story. This idea of sharing more than just what is happening pervades our church. Resonate was built upon the idea that explor-ing God is better in community. You are reading this because you are connected in some way to our community. You may be an

alum; you may be a financial partner; you may be a supporter; or you may be connected to Resonate by relationships. However you are connected to Resonate, you are a part of this community at some level. Our value of authentic community means that we strive to go deeper than just communicating what we are doing. There are lots of different mediums that communicate what is happening in Resonate – you can follow us on Twitter, friend us on Facebook, or even check our website. The Story – what you are reading right now – is different. The Story is meant to be the equiva-lent of “really” in your conversations. Tell me what’s going on…really. How are you doing… really? It’s the place where you go deeper; it’s the moment you understand more; it’s the why behind all of the what. It’s talking about what really matters, not just what’s keeping you busy. The Story is our place to talk about the things that matter. That’s the kind of relationship that we want to have with you. It’s a bold attempt to go beyond the typical newsletter, to create a window into the soul of a church. Every few months, we invite you into our world, into our context, and describe what

is happening in three college towns scattered across Idaho and Washington. The Story is meant to bridge the gap between Resonate and our community scattered across the world. The story of Resonate has never been self-contained and it was never meant to be. When we started this journey, we refused to believe that being self-contained and self-sup-porting was a valid reason not to start some-thing. Instead, we believed we could do something amazing if were able to bring people together to radically reshape how we reach the campus. We believed in people like you. Eight years later this truth remains: we need those outside of our story to stay invested in our story. So, in this edition of the Story, we invite you not only to peer into our world but to also participate in our world. Resonate thrives when our scattered communi-ty remembers that the world-changing things happening here are in large part due to their continued investment into this beautiful story.

Thank you – for caring, for praying, for investing, and for believing that God is not done with our story.

2.

INVESTED IN OUR STORYINVESTED IN OUR STORY

Page 4: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

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By: Josh Martin I grew up in a world of either/or choices. You could either like the Dallas Cowboys or the Houston Oilers, the Longhorns or the Aggies, Dr. Pepper or Coke, but you could not like both. You could like Mexican food, or you could move from Texas to somewhere far far away. In the church world it wasn’t much different. It seemed you had to make a choice: You could be traditional or you could be contemporary. You could use screens or use hymnals. You could preach sermon series or you could preach books of the bible verse by verse. You could have pews or chairs, jeans or slacks, ties or tee shirts. We’ve even gone so far as to invent a few new words: You can be an attractional church or you can be a missional church. You could be the gathered church or the scattered church. You could be seeker-sensitive or not. But you couldn’t be both. I think we need a new model. I think we need to be passionate about making an impact, not just making our model work. And frankly, I don’t think there is a pastor in the world who doesn’t want to make an impact. But the question remains: Is your church using every tool it has to move forward the mission? As a worship pastor - as someone responsible for our Sunday gatherings - I humbly ask: Is your Sunday gathering embar-rassing your mission or empowering your mission? Because what I’ve learned over the last 7 years is simple: In a collegiate church plant, attractional is missional. An attractional gathering can provide the muscle for your missional movement. A mighty weapon in the hand of a collegiate church planter is a compelling gathering, or to say it another way: Good luck being missional if you don’t have a place to gather that is attractional.

Now before you get mad, let me explain why I’m confident saying that. College students love to gather. They are looking for places to get together to meet people; they flock to concerts and movies and house parties. Can you imagine a college experience without gatherings? No. Because it wouldn’t be one. There’s a principle in the church growth world called the 80% rule. It says that when a church auditorium nears 80% capacity, you’re packed, additional growth will be limited, and additional service times (or a larger auditorium) should be developed. Church growth experts say no one else will come after 80%. College students say, “I don’t want to come until you reach 80% capacity.” They love to gather. College students love going to a sold out performance. They love restaurants that always have a wait time. When the quality of experience is high enough, people do not mind sharing it with many other people. Crowd density creates energy. Why wouldn’t you want an attractional gathering? Gathering is integral to the life of a student. Music is integral to the life of a student. Communication is integral to the life of a student. Art is integral. Calling is integral. Purpose is integral. And all of these areas are represented in the local church gathering. So, our best shot at reaching these 21 million college students is a gathering – a high quality, well-designed gathering with good music (yes, good music - one of the Resonate bands won a local battle of the bands contest and got to open for Snoop Dogg – crazy right?). Our best shot is a gathering with good preaching and good coffee, filled with exter-nally focused people living in compelling community – this is a highly effective tool to attract college students to your mission. We should attract more and more

people to our gatherings, and then invite them to be sent out as disciples who make disciples in community. The message is simple: We need to be as attractional as humanly possible one day a week and as missional as humanly possible every other day of the week. We have to be both. We have to leverage one inside the other. As author Mike Breen says, “Scatter-ing is the cake and gathering is the icing in the life of the church. We’ve become a fat church from eating a lot of icing. But don’t throw out the icing! Cake just never tastes quite as well without it.” We need to understand that if the worship service is our primary place of mission, we’ve already lost the battle. But if we don’t use the worship service as a place of mission we will lose the battle soon enough. Now I know, some of you aren’t excited about what I’m saying. I know a lot of you go to bed on Saturday night dreading Sunday, not dreaming about Sunday. But I believe with everything in me that the Lord wants to start a movement of collegiate churches that reach this generation by being both attractional and missional. The local church is what God is using to reach the world for Christ. May those local churches be filled with leaders who take seriously the Sunday gathering. And when I say attractional, I don’t mean shallow and shiny. I mean authentic and deep. I mean gatherings filled with people who are emotional in worship, tremble at the teaching of the word, and attract the masses, and who then walk out of those doors on Sunday to take on the world. Lost people will say, “Surely God was in their midst.“

By: Josh Martin Now before you get mad, let me people to our gatherings, and then invite them

Page 5: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

4.

By: Keith Wieser In the fall of 1962, two sociologists began an observational study of a small religious group newly arrived in San Francisco from Eugene, Oregon. The group was led by Dr. Young Oon Kim, a Korean woman who had once been a professor of religion at Ewha University in Seoul. She had been sent to America to seek converts to a new religious movement founded in Korea by Rev. Sun M. Moon. Dr. Kim had spent her first year in Oregon visiting various Christian clubs and study groups, attempting to interest people in her message. She gained little attention and no converts. Then, to save money, she rented a basement room in a house at the far edge of town. Her landlady was a young housewife who spent much of her time with the two housewives who lived on either side of her. These friendship connections created commu-nity among this group. That's when things took off – within a few months this group identified themselves as the American Branch of the Unification Church. A few months later, the group moved to San Francisco and continued to invite people into their community. Over the next few years, the Unification Church rapidly expanded; they began to be called "moonies" because they followed the teachings of Sun M. Moon. The "moonie" movement was most famously connected to mass weddings in the U.S. and Seoul, Korea. Although they led people astray in theology, they understood a

central truth about how people made decisions about spiritual things. Noted historian and sociologist Rodney Stark states: “Conversion is primarily about bringing one’s religious behavior into alignment with that of one’s friends, not about encountering attractive doctrines...Dozens of close-up studies of conversion have been conducted. All of them confirm that social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place.” When I read these words, something clicked in my mind about how people decide to follow Jesus. We have thought that people need to be convinced, when really they need to be connected. This truth is more than a sociological truth; it's a theological truth. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." - 1 John 4:12 When followers of Jesus love each other, they are living in a way that displays the love they have experienced from God. This kind of community takes an intangible God and tangibly displays His character. God’s people – living their lives toward each other with God’s love – is the most powerful picture we can demonstrate of who God is. This is why community among Christians is essential: it’s something to be put on display because it reveals God’s character more tangibly and more powerfully than anything else in the world. We shouldn’t hide

our little lights but instead invite people into experiencing this display of the gospel. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:35 Not only does Christian community paint a picture of God's love, it takes that picture and points to its author, God. How do people practically have their lives changed? They change when they see something compelling and are told why it's true and where they can find it. We can't simply talk to people about God when they don't have context. No wonder so many students are apathetic to gospel presentations. We tell them before we show them, and it doesn't compel them. In Resonate, our hope is to be people who love each other with God's love in the context of community, not just for our sake but for the sake of those around us. Our strategy is to bring others into environments where they can see gospel community. Through Villages, missional communities, and house parties, we desire to create irresistible pictures of God's love. Our goal is that people see the gospel first, and then have the gospel explained to them second. The great thing is we don't simply have a program or a preacher that our stories come from – we have people who love each other and over and over we have seen people decide to follow Jesus because they first decided to follow us. It's show and tell.

Page 6: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

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By: Drew Worsham A few years ago, there was a popular television show called “Heroes” about ordinary people who discovered they had extraordinary gifts and powers. They could choose, based on their integrity, to be on the villain’s side or they could choose to fight the villains and be counted among the heroes. The good guys’ objective was clear: "Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Three years ago, we took a drastically different approach to the college campus when we launched our first on-campus site in the center of Washington State University. Within three weeks it had become our largest site and increased our numbers in Pullman by 33%. My position on staff was changing – I moved from Creative Arts Pastor to On Campus Pastor. My focus was no longer the arts but to reach the freshmen at WSU and UI. Our mantra for the on-campus team became, ”Win the freshmen, win the world.” Dr. Bill Bright once said, “Win the campus today, win the world tomorrow.” At Resonate, we believe that to reach the campus most effectively, we must start with the freshmen. Because of that belief, we focus a lot of our efforts on reaching these first-year students by becoming their best friends and helping develop them as leaders. We want to help them become disciples of Christ who are making disciples. If I’m lucky, I will get them for 3.5 years; that’s why it’s so important to reach the freshman class.

As a disciple of Christ, a student needs to know and understand a number of key things. First off, who is Christ and what does it mean to follow Him? How do you read the bible? How do you pray? How do you hear from God? How do you respond to God with obedience? How do you live missionally? What does “missionally” even mean? How do you tell others about Jesus? How do you live in community? How do you serve the church? All important questions, but the real question for us is this: how do we accomplish what seems to be an overwhelming task with college students in such a short amount of time? The answer – we reach them as fast as we can; we reach the freshmen. We fix our eyes on this target for 4 key reasons: 1) Freshmen are the most easily influenced group of students on campus. They haven’t been hardened yet by all the campus groups competing for their time and energy. They are eager to get involved and are still wide-eyed and ready to try anything. Honestly, they are lonely and looking to connect with new friends. 2) Freshmen haven't yet set the rhythms that will carry them through their college career and still have open schedules and space for new friends. 3) Freshmen aren't spread out all over town. They are concentrated in small areas of campus. As creepy as it sounds, we know where they eat, sleep, hang out, and go to class. We know where they are, and we know

where they are headed. 4) Like I’ve said before, if we win a freshmen, we have 3.5 to 4 years to invest in them. Jesus had 3 years with His disciples to train them up and prepare them to be sent out on mission to change the world. At Resonate, we want at least that amount of time to do the same. We get asked the question a lot: with so much focus on freshmen, do we neglect the sophomores, juniors, and seniors? By no means! We care for, love, train, and equip all of our students, but most sophomores that were reached their freshman year already under-stand the importance of reaching the next incoming class. They understand the mission of God to “Go and make disciples.” Most of our freshmen will step up into leadership next year and lead Freshman Villages, lead our gathering teams, be on campus sharing the story of Jesus and making disciples of college students that are just a year or two younger than they are. They get it. And we get to pour our hearts and lives into them for the small window that they are in their college years. I remember reading not too long ago that 70 to 85% of high school students walk away from their faith and disconnect from the church by the time they hit their sophomore year of college. By the grace of God, we will prove that statistic to be untrue for our campuses. If we reach the freshmen, we will reach the campus, and therefore we will reach the world.

Page 7: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

6.

By: Craig Lovelace + Chris Routen As we have written in past articles, the future of collegiate church planting in the Northwest is bright. We have more teams forming, and, as we survey the land, the need is great and the opportunities are limitless. This spring break, as site pastors, we led a team of people to survey three college campuses in the Northwest where Resonate could potentially plant future churches to reach more students. In visiting these campuses, we prayed hard that we would be in alignment with what God is already doing there. In fact, we prayed that the Lord would lead us to places where He has already begun working. It is apparent from talking to students everywhere we went that He is in fact already moving and working there. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings increase; we simply ask Him where we should scatter the seed. Our first stop on the journey was Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. We spent several days there exploring the town and surveying the campus. When we got on campus, we immedi-ately recognized a deep need for community, fresh life, and the gospel among students. The students we talked to expressed that Western

gives off a “chill” vibe and that generally people were open to spiritual conversation. For better or worse, we found this to be true. Students were open to talk but many of them have been fooled into thinking that ascribing to a general form of spirituality is good enough, and that doesn’t necessarily mean faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. According to many students, there is a large percentage of the campus engaged in some sort of Christian ministry (about 15%). However, that still leaves 85% of the student body unreached by gospel community. At the end of our time in Bellingham, I (Craig) traveled back to the Palouse in order to head east to Missoula, MT and the University of Montana with my wife, Kellie, Pastor Keith, and Pastor Matthew. What we witnessed at UM was very comparable to the realities we saw at WWU. The only major difference was that a much smaller percentage were said to be involved in ministries on campus. I (Chris) and our team continued on to Eugene, Oregon, home to almost 25,000 students who call themselves Ducks. The campus is beautiful, green, and thriving. It is, in every way, world class. However, in talking to students, the deep need for a reason to exist

greater than self-gratification was wildly apparent. I asked one student, “What do you believe your purpose is for being here [in this room, at this university, or even on the planet]?” He responded, “I have no idea.” The Ducks may have the most beautiful campus, host the Olympic Trials, and have the biggest brands sponsor their athletic teams, but only Christ provides purpose and value beyond the material world. A college student is a college student - and the ones at UO need Christ too. Wherever they may be, wherever they may be from, they all need the same things: the gospel, community, and to be sent for the Kingdom of God. We believe that Resonate can provide the kind of community college students are hungry for and that reveals to them the love of the Father and His vision for their lives. Here’s what it’s going to take to reach the 100,000+ college students in the North-west: prayer, people, and power. We need prayer for God’s guidance and wisdom. We need people to go with church planting teams and people like you to support them financial-ly. But ultimately, we need power from the Holy Spirit to be missionaries who see students meet Jesus and have their lives transformed.

P R A Y E R,P E O P L E,

A N D

P O W E R

Page 8: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

7. 8.

By: Matthew Young This past February, much of the Resonate Staff traveled down to Oakland, California for the second ever Collegiate Collaborative. It was a meeting of collegiate church planters and ministers from across North America. There were 65 different ministries and churches represented there to share ideas and learn from each other as we seek to reach the college campus. It was a fabulous four days of fellowship and challenge that pushed our staff to think bigger and deeper about what we are a part of in Resonate Church. The biggest challenge came from our host church for the Collaborative, Gracepoint Church. Gracepoint has been reaching students on college campuses since the 1980’s when they began at the University of California at Berkeley. Since then, they’ve planted collegiate churches in Taiwan, Minnesota, Texas, and at six other campuses in the UC system. While they have a unique model for reaching the campus that is very different from our own, they inspire us toward our goals of planting churches all over the Northwest. Yet, what they most challenge us in is their under-standing of community. An emphasis on community has

always been a big part of Resonate’s mission and one of our core values. After all, “Explor-ing God is better in community.” We know that we as humans aren’t meant to do life alone and that to truly have a growing relationship with God we must have healthy relationships with other believers. It’s this belief that has shaped our small groups system of Villages and much of our evangelism and discipleship strategy. If we were in a competition of “the most community-minded church,” I would pick Resonate to do really well (sorry, I’m being influenced by the beginning of March madness as I type this). I’d say we’d do well -- that is, unless we were in the same bracket as Grace-point. At the end of Acts 2, we read a description of life in the early church when things were just getting started in Jerusalem. Scripture says the saints met together daily and studied the apostles’ teaching and ate together and shared their stuff and took care of each other and had EVERYTHING in common. It’s a beautiful picture of community. I’ve heard this description all my life and thought it sounded neat, amazing, and frankly… impossible. It was like a unicorn that was fun to talk about but not something that occurs in real life.

EXPLORING GODIS BETTER INCOMMUNITY...MORE THANWE KNOW

Page 9: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

7. 8.

Gracepoint’s mission statement is to have “An Acts 2 Church in Every College Town” and after a just a few days spent with them, I believe in their mission. They live their lives together as much as possible. As often as they can, they eat meals together and have students in their homes. They regularly plan to include more people in nearly everything they do to build community. For instance, when someone buys a new car, the biggest deter-mining factor in what they buy is, “How many people does it seat?” - which means they drive a lot of mini vans. When they buy pots and pans for the kitchen they get the extra large size, so they can cook for a group. During the Collaborative, 175 people stayed in the homes of Gracepoint members for 3 to 5 nights. There are stories of sacrificial living that are astound-ing. Like one guy who cashed in his retirement 3 times to help fund new church plants. A pastor’s wife said, “Without inconvenience there is no community.” And they regularly choose personal inconvenience for the good of the whole community. The family of Gracepoint Church is made up of some of the most joy-filled and gracious people I have ever met. Being inconvenienced by community hasn’t made them bitter and unhappy -- it has led them to

exude the fruit of God’s Spirit. As a Resonate Staff, we were challenged by these stories and this experi-ence of community with our Gracepoint friends. That type of community is contagious. We all walked away thinking: How do I die to myself and love more people in my life? What do I need to give up so that others’ needs can be met? How can Resonate push to the next level of community that challenges the status quo of American culture on the college campus and reveals the joy and mission of authentic gospel community? As leaders of Resonate, we want to exemplify lives that are, as Romans 12 says, daily submitted to God as living sacrifices, willing to set aside personal pride and conve-nience to serve each other with all that we have been given. May we be leaders and may we be a church that knows more of God because of our relationships with each other. May our campuses and towns know more about God because of how we live together and love each other. May God see fit to “give us favor with all the people” and “add to our numbers daily those who are being saved” (Acts 2:47) because of the community we live in.

Page 10: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

9. 10.

By: Brian N. Frye, Ph.D. When people in the Northwest hear “Washington State,” and the “University of Idaho,” they likely think of names like “Palouse,” “Cougs,” or “Vandals.” In church planting circles, however, there is another word that comes to mind before these. That word is: Resonate. From its roots as a traditional Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) at WSU, Resonate Church has emerged as a linchpin of the collegiate church planting world. When it launched in 2007, only a few were aware of Resonate. Those who were cared mostly about questions the ministry created: "Can you really do church with college students?" “Will a collegiate church plant last?” “Can collegiate churches really even make a difference?” Over time, Resonate students and leaders have answered those questions better than most could have predicted. They haven’t answered questions with words. Instead, they’ve proven themselves repeatedly with the best kind of response: faithfulness and fruitfulness. Today, Resonate is increasingly influencing ministries, churches, and pastors around the nation. That influence can be seen on many levels, but here are 7 ways Resonate is reshaping the collegiate-reaching culture of North America.

1. Discipling Multipliers

Over the last few years, Resonate has implemented the 3DM LifeShapes disciplemaking process throughout their church. In the process, they’ve learned how to make disciples who make disciples efficiently and effectively. Based on Resonate learning, other collegiate churches and ministries alike have adopted 3DM, looking to Resonate as a model, coach, and innovator in making disciples of college students and their leaders.

2. Multisiting & Video Venuing

Having originally launched in Pullman to reach the WSU campus, Resonate made the decision within the first two years of its ministry to launch a second church site in Moscow to reach the University of Idaho. This Moscow venue was the first of many live preaching and video venue sites. This one bold move showed the church world that college ministries and churches can (and should) launch new churches and venues on new campuses.

3. Script Writing

Resonate is committed to church planting, but they also see students graduate out of their church at a quick pace. Instead of just letting them go, they designed a “script” to educate and challenge every student at Resonate to either become a church planter or church planting team member. Other churches are now following that lead asking: 1) “What are we trying to prepare our students for upon departure?” and 2) “Have we prepared our students to become a generation of planters?”

4. Sermon Design Collaborating

To train the next generation of communicators, Resonate pastors utilize underclassmen for assistance in sermon design. Each week, college students sit in on the sermon creation process to collaborate on developing outlines, understanding the biblical text, and creating illustration. The consistent result is strong sermons designed (in part) by college students that speak to their lives directly. Other ministries have taken note and are utilizing similar systems to prepare emerging communicators.

Reshaping the Collegiate Ministry Landscape.

RESONATE INGINFLUENCE

Page 11: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

9. 10.

5. Leader Raising

Q: How does Resonate create leaders? A: In every way possible. To move a church from 50 people to 1000+ in 7 years, you’ve got to develop leaders exceedingly well. And to do that in a collegiate church where you lose a quarter of your church to graduation annually, you’ve got to build a system that capitalizes on every leadership niche imaginable. The Resonate leader-raising system, including 1) Villages (small groups), 2) Elevate (10-week summer training program), 3) staff-support development, 4) staff preparation and interviewing, 5) Huddle leadership, 5) outreach projects, 6) worship leader development, and 7) venue set up teams, are all utilized to move leadership forward at an incredible pace. These 7 activities (and dozens more not listed) enable Resonate to move people from non-Christians to disciplers to leaders to planters/plant team members as quickly and as safely as possible. Because of Resonate’s success, other titans in the collegiate church planting world have reevaluated, reformatted, and sometimes rebooted their systems with the understanding that they can also plant more and better churches.

6. Cultivating Creativity

Whether it is baptism videos, promotional pieces, design resources shared outside of Resonate, the Ellensburg album, or even The Story you’re reading now, Resonate consistently delivers creative genius. What’s the secret? Resonate is a magnet for creatives. They brilliantly recruit creatives, collide them around ideas, and then teach them to be even better. The result is an incubator for ministry-minded artisans and storytellers committed to the gospel in college and beyond. As a result, other ministries are increasingly looking to Resonate and its graduates for training in creativity and innovation. 7. Innovation Exporting

Perhaps most significantly, Resonate is investing heavily in moving collegiate church planting forward on the national scene. Beginning in 2010 (then again in 2013 and 2015), Resonate took the lead in bringing together collegiate church planters for learning-based gatherings called “Collegiate Church Planting Collaboratives.” These Collaboratives draw together collegiate-reaching multipliers to evaluate systems, cultivate relationships, and share best practices on planting in college circles. In 2014, due in large part to interest generated during the Collaboratives, Resonate led out again by piloting a gathering called Hitchhikers Guide to Resonate. During this immersion weekend, 80 leaders from around North America came to the Palouse for an all access pass, “look under the hood” tour of Resonate. These events have had a profound impact on hundreds of church and thousands of college students. But Resonate’s exportation of innovation goes even further. Whether by speaking at events, consulting with and coaching new leaders, serving on denominational task forces, taking part in learning cohorts, or serving on collegiate network teams, Resonate leaders give beyond reason-able expectation to share what they learn and to assist and inspire other leaders and churches to be all that God has called them to be. In these 7 ways (and probably many, many more), Resonate is challenging all of us to be stronger and bolder in the collegiate-reaching world. But don’t get stuck on what it is that Resonate does, or even how they do it. That would be a mistake. Focus on the “why” of how they do church and why they impact students so well. Resonate believes deeply and passionately in the gospel and they long to see their church (and all others) living Matthew 28:18-20. May we be like Resonate. May we be disciples who make disciples, who plant churches to start churches.

Brian N. Frye, Ph.D.National Collegiate Strategist

North American Mission Board (NAMB)

Page 12: Story Magazine - Forging the Future - Summer 2015

11.

By: Erin Czirr Over the last four years, Resonate has sent out more than 100 students to serve on a project called Christmas in China. We have partnered up with the International Mission Board to send students all across East Asian Universities for one purpose – to tell those who have never heard about the glorious gospel that is for every tribe and tongue. Christmas in China has not only allowed our students to participate in God’s work among the nations, but has returned to us our greatest student missionaries on our own campuses. Many Resonate staff members have also served on one of these teams. What we have learned from these projects is that the harvest is abundantly plentiful and the workers are vastly few. Because we have met countless missionaries and local believers who are begging for more workers, we cannot help but respond to this need. In the last year, our pastors and staff have become deeply burdened for the lostness of not only the Northwest, but the world. With more than 6,500 unreached people groups left on this earth, we simply cannot stay in the Pacific Northwest. It is our responsibility and joy as the church and body of Christ to work towards the completion of

the Great Commission. We are preparing to send out a team of missionaries to serve in East Asia among unreached people groups. We want to establish a constant presence not only in a city but more specifically on university campuses. In many cities in East Asia, just outside the city is what they call a U-City, or a university city. Many universities have moved outside of town and are contained within their own city. There could be anywhere from a hundred thousand to a million students in a U-city. We want to go to these U-Cities as students, teachers, entrepreneurs, and most importantly as good news to those who have never heard the gospel, with the goal of starting churches. Our target would be U-cities populat-ed with many unreached people groups, where we hope to send a team of 8 to 10 people to live year-round. Because new students graduate each year in Resonate, we hope to send them out as missionaries each year to build and grow the team so that we could send teams to multiple U-cities until we see multi-plying churches among these unreached people groups. The reason many of these people groups are still unreached is because they are the hardest to get to and the most difficult to communicate with. Our hope is to

train up college students of these people groups and send them back to their villages to start churches. It is the same strategy we use in the Northwest: raise up church planters who will go out and multiply. Not only do we want to send a team to live in East Asia, but we hope to begin a new summer project for our upper classmen. Many of our freshmen will spend their first summer in college in San Diego at Elevate, learning how to be a disciple. We want to create a missiological program for our upper classmen as well, offering the opportunity to spend 10 weeks planting their lives in East Asia as students to learn the language. We want our students to understand the lostness of the world and the great need for believers to lay down their lives for the sake of Christ. We want our church to be sent. That may be in Pullman, Moscow, East Asia, or the ends of the earth, but we must live our lives on mission each day working to build the kingdom no matter where we are. The worship of God among all peoples is not just why we go on mission projects, but why we can enjoy each breath. We pray that the students of our church would give their lives to that end.

Resonate Staff in East Asia this Spring, ExploringUniversity Cities & Opportunities for Long-Term Partnership

By: Erin Czirr Over the last four years, Resonate has sent out more than 100 students to serve on a

the Great Commission. We are preparing to send out a team of missionaries to serve in East Asia among

train up college students of these people groups and send them back to their villages to start churches. It is the same strategy we use in

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12.

By: Chad McMillan “That’s just the way it’s always been done.” Too often those are among the last words of a dying organization, whether the inevitability of its impending doom is under-stood in that moment or not. They are last words because we were never intended to be stagnant. God created us to be creative. Because His image resides in us, we are all made to facilitate change, innovation, and renewal in the environments where He has placed us. Without those actions, we cannot fulfill the mission He has for us. God placed Resonate Church in the heart of the university context. And it is within this mission field that we have been called to innovate. In fact, innovation has been a necessity in order for us to survive. When we accept sentiments such as “it’s always been done this way,” we allow our methods to determine our mission; however, because of the collegiate context, we have approached innovation from the perspective that if the

methods don’t fit our mission then the methods need to change, not the other way around. In creating a church that is made up primarily of college students, a variety of traditional methods will not fit this unique environment. One such method has been financial provision for ministry. The traditional method of provision has been to rely on the people in the pews to give out of obedience and worship. In a church made up of 85 - 90% college students, this would not allow our ministry to flourish as needed. Even if every person was obedient, a tithe for someone living on Top Ramen and student loans will not sustain the mission. Because of this reality, Resonate Church was yet again asked to put the mission first and thus create new methods. In doing so, we looked beyond church models towards models provided by non-profit organizations. Ministries such as Campus Crusade for Christ and Missionary Aviation Fellowship were a few of these examples, along with Habitat for Humanity and Keva. These organizations have

clearly defined their mission and then found a way to make it happen outside of traditional constraints. In looking at these organizations, we saw people actively pursuing the necessary resources to accomplish their mission. They did not wait on people but rather pursued them with purpose. And for a nontraditional church model such as ours, we have adopted these nontraditional church practices. Our staff raises their own personal financial support. We write grants with regularity. We ask people that have moved out of our context to continue to support the mission. We even ask people who have never been to a Resonate service. We pursue people that God might be calling to help in His mission. Where has God called you and what innovations do you need to pursue in order to see His mission accomplished? While change can be difficult, it is often necessary to hold methods loosely and to keep the mission as the most important objective.

MissionMotivates

Model

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our needs

numbers

Thank you so much for your continual support of Resonate Church. Whether you have prayed for us, served with us, or given to us, your involvement is vital to our mission moving forward. Our

church model is built around alumni and outside partners believing in and funding the collegiate church planting movement. We literally can’t do this without you.

• One 15-Passenger Van with 4-Wheel Drive to Haul Our Trailers and Students• 4 x 4 Truck to Haul Trailers• Video Camera to Film Sermons for Video Venues

Resonate by the Numbers: August 2014 - Present• Average Attendance (Across 5 Sites) - 850 (Spring 2015)• People Choosing to Follow Jesus for the First Time - 103• Baptisms - 85 (August 2014 - March 2015) - Plus 56 Scheduled for May 2015• People Attending Village (Small Groups) - 670• People Attending Huddle (Discipleship) - 402• People Sent Out on Mission - 220

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budget update

give online

HOW TO HELP

Thank youIf you have any questions or desire further details about these needs, please let us know. We’re happy to give

you any information you’d like and we are so grateful to have you on our team. We’re praying that through your generosity, the Lord will continue to expand the influence of His church in the world.

We love you guys,The Resonate Staff

• Go to www.EXPERIENCERESONATE.com/Give• Click on ‘Give Now’• On the left you will see ‘First Time.’ This will allow you to set up a donor account, so you can track your giving history or give a recurring (scheduled) gift.• You can designate your gift to our different funds and add a comment to direct your gift.

• Would you consider being an alumni monthly supporter?• Would you consider giving a one-time gift to Resonate Church?• Would you be willing to meet a ministry need listed to the left?• Do you know someone who could meet those needs?

Overall Budget: August 2014 - February 2015:

• Budget: $204,403• Giving: $196,799• Difference: -$7,244 (Behind Budget)

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RESONATE CHURCHP.O. BOX 1605 PULLMAN, WASHINGTON 99163

www. EXPERIENCERESONATE .com