April 2020 Update
Hello Lift Church,
We are frequently thinking and praying for you as we navigate through the coronavirus and current church turmoil. We lovingly submit to the government’s decree to stay home, but we long to be together again!
That being said, we wanted to address the concern in our church by naming the turmoil we are going through: this is a crisis. We say that not to panic you, but to unify the church now more than ever by standing firm in the Gospel and the hope of Christ together. We pray that out of this hard time, our faith will grow and the Gospel will be spread for God’s glory.
Over the last three weeks, our elders have been exploring and investigating the struggle that we are currently facing at Lift Church. As they made phone calls to ministry and group leaders, there was a consistent story that was being shared. This is what they learned and heard:
We have reached people for Christ.
We heard stories of true, authentic life-change. People coming to know Jesus Christ and finding uncommon community for the first time at a church that was thriving and vibrant.
We are currently in a crisis.
For some it started a couple of years ago, for others around 6 months ago. But the crisis consisted of a variety of these elements:
Confusion with communication of staff transitions and reasoning
Division in the elder room
Distraction from our mission to make disciples
Grief over the loss of staff, elders, and members of Lift Church
Ignoring the pain caused by challenging transitions
All of this has resulted in finding our church in a place of brokenness, sorrow, and severed trust. We know that some of you are angry and hurt because you love and are invested in this church. We are grieving with you as we find ourselves at this point in our journey with Lift Church and with God. None of us expected or wanted to be having this conversation today. But when Jesus said “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows...”, He ended the statement with a promise of hope: “...take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).
We need God’s help to do something new, and we believe He will do that as we humble ourselves and ask Him.
In light of the issues that our church has experienced, the elder team took time to pray through three options:
Keep the status-quo
Immediately, we knew this was not a viable option. The best way for Lift Church to glorify God cannot be to continue on the trajectory we currently find ourselves on.
Pastor Steve Deedrick resigns
Over the past month, there have been accusations and calls for Steve’s resignation. Please be assured that we are responding to these accusations in a biblical way. However, we do not agree with all of the accusations against Steve and we do not believe this letter is the appropriate place to respond to them. As the elders talked about this possibility, Steve was very open in listening to what others had to say and humbly submitted to whatever the majority decision was from the elder team. We all agreed that Steve is not biblically disqualified for ministry and therefore our desire is for him to remain as a pastor of Lift Church.
Pursue a revitalization process
This option is a five-phase process that would analyze our church’s current culture while preparing us to pivot, revitalize, and reposition ourselves for the future. The elders unanimously agreed that moving forward with this option is what is best for Lift Church. The following paragraphs outline some of the practical ways you will see this begin to take effect in our church.
Process of Revitalization
First, we are empowering Steve to personally have a revitalization in his own life. This will include the following commitments in which Steve will be held accountable to the elders of Lift Church:
Steve will step away from serving as a governing elder from May 1 to July 31, 2020. The current elder team will pursue and examine additions of local, biblically qualified men to join the elder team.
Steve will continue to pursue biblical reconciliation with former staff and elders.
Steve will continue to work through the counseling discussions that he previously had with Dan Turner, a biblical counselor from Michigan.
Steve will work with Highpoint Church on leadership development and how to lead a healthy staff.
Steve will refine and grow in his ability to communicate both in preaching and relationally.
Steve will continue to be coached by Lyle Wells from Integrus Leadership.
Steve will take three months off from his current role on staff to allow time for his revitalization. He will continue to preach at least once a month during this time.
Second, this will include a journey that we invite our church body to enter into with Highpoint Send Network, in which we will walk through the following five phases:
Phase 1 - Autopsy Without Blame: Too often we want a plan and a solution without proper evaluation and autopsy to understand the reasons for our current reality. Too often we want to point fingers and blame someone else for the issues that we are having. This is why we will start with an evaluation of our church, our leadership, and our culture.
Phase 2 - Normalize the Narrative. At times our first response in a church crisis is to write an unintentional narrative that says, “Our church is completely messed up, this isn’t normal and no other church could be this unhealthy.” The reality is the Church is made up of broken, sinful people. We will make mistakes. Yet, we have an amazing God who takes what is broken and brings life. We need to identify our own brokenness and sinfulness, yet not let that paralyze our hope for a new day and a new future in Jesus!
Phase 3 - Clarify the Culture: Once we arrive at phase 3, we should no longer need to be reactionary on a daily basis, but rather have enough of a solid footing to start looking into the future. This is important as something big has to change. It’s time to start looking for some catalytic shifts. It’s highly unlikely that we are going to reset a culture without making a substantial shift that focuses on Jesus and what He has ahead of us.
Phase 4 - Leadership Roles & Structure: This is the time for us to look at the team we have and the team we need. We will define and communicate positions for our staff so they can thrive within the culture we clarified. We are incredibly thankful to the current staff who are working hard to help us shepherd the flock and continue to equip the saints.
Phase 5 - Restart: This is the time to cast a new vision for the future that gives handholds for our church to grab onto. We will invite everyone to join us for what God has for us moving forward, knowing we’ve done the work to learn from the mistakes of the past.
As we have fasted and prayed for our church, we believe that God is at work through this specific situation. We have learned so much about the responsibility we have to shepherd people through conflict, disagreements, and the pain of loss. We admit that we have failed to always communicate effectively while also understanding that our role is not to please every person’s opinions - including our own. Rather, we want to continually humble ourselves as we ask God to lead us, convict us of sin in our lives, and allow His Word to take us deeper in our walks with Him. In turn, we want our primary responsibility to be helping people believe in, belong to, and become like Jesus.
We know with the state of the world, it is really difficult to predict when the next time we can all be together in a room will be. For that reason, we are setting up Zoom calls with every Lift Group so that you can attend virtually to hear more, ask questions, and pray with us as we move forward. We will also set up opportunities for those who are not in a Lift Group to meet with the elders virtually. We are limiting the number of people on each call so we can effectively communicate and engage with one another. You can contact the elders to join one of these meetings by emailing elders@liftchurch.co.
We want to convey our gratitude to every person who has expressed their concerns and perspectives of Lift Church. While it may be difficult, we believe these hard conversations are absolutely necessary to do the work required of us to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-3)
As we step forward into this new season, we want to invite you to come with us. It will not be perfect nor will it be easy. But we believe, through the power of the Holy Spirit and with the pursuit of the mission of Jesus Christ, we will come through it ready to serve the Lord better than ever before.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
You are loved,
- The Elders of Lift Church.