Core Story - Center Grove Presbyterian Church

Background

Center Grove Presbyterian Church (CGPC) was chartered on October 23, 1983
as part of the PC (USA) denomination. This year we celebrate our 25th
anniversary! The church was the dream of a small group of families who wanted
to see a reformed church in the Center Grove area. Our church was planted by
Southport Presbyterian, under the leadership of organizing pastor, Quentin Small.

Quentin led the church as God provided an opportunity to purchase 15 acres of

a former orchard in 1982. By 1985, we were worshipping in a new building. By
1991, we added a fellowship hall and a Christian Education wing.

Steve Oglesbee became our

second installed pastor in July
1999, and he stayed through 7 ½
years of sustained growth –
leaving in February 2008.

During Steve’s time here, we

added several staff positions
including Children’s Ministry
Equipper, Music Ministry Equipper,
Youth Ministry Equipper and Lay
Commissioned Pastor. We also
dealt with controversies within the
PC (USA). In 2007 our church Membership
affirmed it will continue its
membership in the PC (USA) as
long as the actions of the denomination do not require us to go against the
authority of scripture in order to continue our ministry within the denomination.

Our church has always had a heart for missions, and was founded with a policy
of using 50% of all undesignated giving to the Mission Fund – which is
administered separately from the General Fund.

According to the Presbyterian church, the first step in calling a new installed
pastor is to develop a Core Vision for CGPC – a picture of where we believe
God is calling us as a church family. The following story reflects what we have
discovered about our community and ourselves as shown in a Congregational
Survey taken on August 11, 2008.

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The Community

For this survey we defined the community as a 5-mile radius around the church.
In essence, our local mission field is mostly white, very affluent, well-educated,
and diverse among life-styles and age groups. The area has grown at twice the
national average and is poised for continued growth. The community is
predominantly traditional, 2-parent families.

Our community wants churches to provide cultural programs, sports or camping

programs, food and clothing resources, day schools and day care, counseling,
retirement activities, and marriage enrichment opportunities.

The community feels most stressed by opportunities for security - like jobs,
retirement, time for leisure. Other areas of concern are health and
neighborhood safety.

Our Congregation

We had 212 people take the survey. Based on those responses, we found we
are very similar to the community. However, we are whiter, wealthier, better
educated and a little less diverse.

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Our congregation has grown at a pace even greater than the community
growth rate. This represents an increase of 248 or 129% since 1990. If the trend
since 2000 continues into the next five years, membership will increase by 260
bring our total membership to 700. Even if the interim period should slow the
trend, we should plan to grow to a size of 700 to 800 over the next 10 years.

The predominant age group in our church seems to be those aged 7–26 with
42% of the congregation falling into that group.

The survey tells us our congregation’s potential to give money to support the
church is “extremely high.” Despite this potential, we have faced extreme
pressures meeting our General Fund giving while easily covering our Mission
commitments for the past several years.

Our congregation was very strong in defining “recreation” as an area they

wanted from the church. The category of recreation includes family
activities/outings, youth social programs, sports/camping activities, active
retirement programs, and cultural programs including music, art, drama.

We seem to be a church and a community that wants to play together, as well

as pray together. We seem hungry to relate to each other through leisure
activities as well as worship and study.

Our congregation also believes we should provide food and clothing resources,
spiritual retreats, theological discussions and bible studies.

The Gaps

Two kinds of gaps showed up in the survey: gaps between the congregation
and the community; and gaps between what we say we want and what we
actually provide.

One key non-gap to note: Both the church and community have a strong desire
for “recreation.”

The community desires several programs not offered by CGPC, and not rated as
important by us (according to survey results), including:
• Church sponsored Day School
• Marriage enrichment opportunities
• Personal or Family Counseling
• Parent Training Programs
• Day Care Services
• Twelve Step Recovery Programs
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The community also has a moderate desire for divorce recovery and care for
the terminally ill, but our church did not rate those as important.

Several church programs we currently offer received low ratings, including:

• Visitation of sick and shut-in
• Community Outreach
• Pre-School
• Prayer Ministries
• Adult Education Ministries

The survey showed that CGPC has a strong heart for finding and meeting
community needs in the Center Grove area. For example, we rated ourselves as
doing poorly in community outreach. We also rated the areas of social justice
and local mission as very important.

According to the survey, CGPC has a very low resistance to change – lower
than the nation and lower than the community.

CGPC has a preference for more contemporary worship than the community as
a whole. We also want contemporary leadership that empowers, welcomes
new ideas, has an informal style and encourages lay leadership.

Summary

As we look toward a vision for the future we need to ask several questions about
how CGPC relates to the community and how our similarities and our gaps
affect our future.

Now the questions to ask ourselves are:

• What surprises you about these results?
• What encourages you about these results?
• What might God be challenging us to do?
• Where do you feel God is calling us over the next 5 to 10 years?

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