Jeff Finley
By Jeff Finley
LifePoint Church isn’t located where you might expect to find one of the fastest-growing congregations in the Free Methodist Church USA .
“It’s really in the middle of nowhere,” Lead Pastor Rusty Gerhart said during a new episode of “The Light + Life Podcast” as he and Executive Pastor Doug Glein were interviewed by host Brett Heintzman. “We have a goat farm behind us and a trailer park next to us. Literally, I don’t think anybody actually drives by here unless it’s on purpose.”
“We call the goat farm behind us the LifePoint petting zoo,” Glein joked.
The goat neighbors have not kept the church in Lake Stevens, Washington, from experiencing tremendous growth — along with periodic setbacks— since its founding 25 years ago. Gerhart said that LifePoint “was birthed and launched really large, and it grew to maybe 700 people [with] lots of baptisms and lots of salvations.”
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“There was some healing work that needed to happen.” – Lead Pastor Rusty Gerhart
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The church opened another campus in Everett, Washington, but then LifePoint experienced numerical and financial decline. Gerhart said the challenges included “a large debt of $3 million” on the Everett campus. Thankfully, Pastor Eric and Virginia Spangler arrived and “did a phenomenal job. There was some healing work that needed to happen, and they are just lovely, amazing people.”
Another key factor in the church’s turnaround is its partnership with FM Financial (known as the Free Methodist Foundation when the partnership began).
“Honestly, because of [Pastor Spangler’s] work, God’s work, and the Free Methodist Foundation’s work, they were able to get all that paid off and sell that building, and really set the church in a healthy place,” Gerhart said. “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and are very grateful for all the work that they did and all of the sacrifices that they made.”
In 2014, then-Superintendent (now Bishop) Matt Whitehead asked Gerhart to leave the staff of Timberlake Church — one of the nation’s largest Free Methodist congregations — and become LifePoint’s lead pastor. Attendance for his first Sunday at LifePoint was 190.
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“Finances were in decline. Attendance was in decline … and God has done some miraculous work.” – Lead Pastor Rusty Gerhart
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“God took it from there, and we were able to see Him do amazing things over the last nine years,” said Gerhart, who acknowledged the experience has included “peaks and valleys” — especially in his early time at the church. “Finances were in decline. Attendance was in decline … and God has done some miraculous work. Two weekends ago, we had over 2,000 people here, and we are opening up another campus [in Marysville, Washington]. That campus will be hopefully completed by Christmas Eve of 2023.”
Gerhart estimated that the church has “baptized close to 1,000 people over the last nine years” with nearly “3,000 salvations.”
Glein said that he joined the pastoral team six years ago when the church staff primarily consisted of Gerhart and one other fulltime pastor along with “some weekend warrior types.” Since then, the church staff and finances have grown while LifePoint has kept its focus on Jesus.
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“We are not going to deviate from the mission that He’s given us.” – Executive Pastor Doug Glein
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“We’re committed to His plans and purposes, and we’re staying centered in His love and really trying to do that the best we can,” Glein said. “Certainly we’re imperfect, but as Pastor Rusty said, that’s really the sword that we’ll fall on. We’re going to continue to do what we can to make it all about Jesus. … One of the things that Rusty has modeled in a great way is that we are not going to deviate from the mission that He’s given us.”
Although finances have grown over time, LifePoint has experienced times of financial uncertainty.
“We have personally taken pay cuts. There were many times where we have said, ‘Don’t pay us this week.’ There were many times where we were operating in the red and had to sit there and just pray, ‘God, if you want this to continue, we need $20,000,’” Gerhart said. “Every time, He came through, and it wasn’t always in the form of ‘here’s a $20,000 check, and somebody just walked up.’ I would love that, but a lot of times it came with discipline, obedience, and obviously His miraculous hand as well. It comes from just continuing to walk as closely as we can with the Spirit.”
Going After the One
Gerhart said that one of the things LifePoint attempts to do “is discipling people who are far from God, and so helping them come to know who He is and know His grace.”
Of course, new efforts to find and reach lost sinners may upset some longtime saints who like things to remain the same.
“We really try to hone in on both discipling the saints but also going after the one,” Gerhart said. “A lot of Luke 15 goes into this ministry, and so, when you do that, there’s not a lot of finances that goes along with that for sure. So it’s been a challenge — especially for the first few years — of trying to just skim by and invest in ministry and put everything forward.”
He added the church’s survival and growth required “a lot of prayer,” which has resulted in people who “have been discipled to an extreme extent, and we’re proud of what God is doing in that.”
Building and Tech Improvements
Other challenges have included necessary renovations to accomplish ministry and accommodate growth.
“We were able to remodel this building. We’ve gone through three different financial campaigns,” said Gerhart. With FM Financial’s assistance, “we’ve been able to secure some funds in order to do some remodeling of our current building,” and “buying our additional building has been really, really, really helpful.”
Unlike the FM Financial team, government officials have not been as accommodating.
“Washington state is not all that lenient,” Gerhart noted.
Glein agreed and added, “They move slow in the permitting department.”
One permit took three years to receive.
“At that point, we were bursting at the seams again and having to do some tricky little things,” Gerhart said. “But again God is faithful.”
Like other churches, LifePoint has had to deal with a divisive political environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the church had some online capabilities before the COVID lockdown, Gerhart said, “we weren’t fully vested in it, and so gaining the capital to do that was challenging too.”
The church considered issues such as how to gather and maintain small groups online.
“Out of adversity comes incredible opportunities, and that’s what COVID did for us as far as our online presence, because we had a short period of time where that was literally all we were investing in,” Glein said.
Glein expressed gratitude to God that the church’s income increased in 2020.
“That’s purely God’s hand. It’s His grace and His mercy,” Glein said. “We definitely pivoted and did some things financially, for those of us that could reduce our salaries. … We were just in a position to be able to do that, so we could keep our staff paid because many of them had younger kids and families.”
Multiplying to Marysville
LifePoint “did a huge remodel in 2019–2020, but we’re already bursting at the seams,” Glein said. “We’re doing four services on Sunday mornings, which is hard. It’s tough. It’s taxing on the team.”
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“God, where do you want us to continue to move to?”
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When asked about the choice of Marysville for an additional campus, Glein said LifePoint has experienced “several years where we’ve just been continuously praying and looking: ‘God, where do you want us to continue to move to?’ We’ve looked at buildings and facilities all over the place, and this just happened to come on our radar. It’s an existing church, which helps us when it comes to permits and what the remodel process would cost. But we already have about 120 or so families that live in the Marysville area.”
Glein credited FM Financial Vice President Joshua Adams for helping LifePoint acquire the Marysville building.
“We took ownership of it August 1, and obviously Josh and the foundation have been just a tremendous help,” Glein said. “God places people like Josh in our lives and creates a partnership for us so that we’re able to do what we do. Josh does what he does; we do what we do — all for the sake of the kingdom.”
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