The Village (interviewed by Lynnette Cole)

The Village Church is a fascinating church with much to offer any demographic. This church started out with the pastor, Reverend Cheri Holdridge, getting a "deep sense of calling that God wanted to do" something new. She prayer walked around the city trying to figure out where it was that God was calling her to plant. When the vision started to form, she shared it with her husband, Kurt Young, and they started what is considered an "alternative coffee house worship experience". This experience led them to plant what is today called "The Village". 

            The original plan was to have a multiple site church with coffee houses and be in multiple cities and be very progressive. It consisted of the plant being an edgy, progressive church. The vision has changed much since then and really taken it's own path. She had not realized how blue collar Toledo was and found that the people she wanted to start this church for were not as numerous as she had thought. The community was more conservative.

            Cheri had thought they would grow to about 100 or 150. She had wanted to plant 5 churches in 5 years and ended up taking longer than she had thought. She now aims for 1 church every 5 years. They are currently starting conversations about a second placement as The Village started to take form in 2008. The church is funded by the UCC and the UMC which is incredibly interesting and brilliant way of funding the project. Originally, the United Methodist Church had said no, but she was determined so she went on a year sabbatical after doing 2 turn-around churches and connected with the UCC. They decided to back her project and when she went back to the UMC and asked again if they would support her project, they said yes because she had a supporter.     They don't have a mother church but rather the denominations that fund them. This allows them to pay her salary, a music minister, administrative assistant, bass player, drummer, the band and the sunday school teacher. With all of these positions being funded it is very few hours a week that are put in by each person.

            They also started out with about ten people that she already knew, whether they had visited the other church and it didn't "stick" or they had gone to the other church and left. She had met them all through networking and when asked what type of church they wanted, they agreed that they wanted a progressive and casual church.

            She also did not start immediately with forming a vision or mission statement. She let that come organically. While she was in a restaurant, a woman asked her what her vision was, her response was, "To follow Jesus and change the world. When we're done with that, I'll get back to you." Little did she know that this was about to become the vision. Something simple but, to the point.

            Their mission statement now is,

             "We are the Village Church.  When we gather in community we remember that God is with us.  We know that we are imperfect people who make mistakes.  We give thanks that God loves us anyway.  In this community we practice patience, compassion, and forgiveness.  When we leave this gathering, we go out to share God’s healing love with a broken world.   We are Jesus’ instruments of hope in our world. We are followers of Jesus and we can change the world!"

            This affirmation of who they are is read every Sunday in worship.

            The prayer life of her and this congregation was and is not only intergral to this affirmation but to the entire church. The entire first year of planting she said she wouldn't have survived without a deep prayer life. They also have a spiritual retreat every year as well that is deeply rooted in prayer.     

            Leaders in The Village have not grown rapidly as most people that are worship in the space have been hurt by the church or have no experience with church. Through this, she has to gently guide them. She has taken the Exponential model and fit it onto her church context.

            The most important part is that healing needs to take place first and then they can start thinking about navigating the path towards being a leader. The ministry teams have developed slowly. They are given small managable jobs first then begin to form the ministry teams with who she thinks are able to be leaders. She tries not to go to all the meetings of every team but instead meets with the leaders ahead of time and makes sure to keep telling them to be on the lookout for their replacement so that they can go on to do other things.

            Cheri said that there were many things that she would do the same such as, having a conversation with a transgender person and asking them what it is that they needed in the community. Through this conversation, she was able to realize that they needed a support group as there wasn't one at all in the city. The first meeting had 25 people show up. The beauty that she is able to create through reaching out to people is absolutely amazing as she is called to find needs and figure out the best way that God wants to fill them.

            The Village is extremely LGBTQ friendly and is home to many people who have been burned by the church or have no church experience at all. This also means that the language that Cheri uses has to be very basic. She doesn't use any church term without explaining it first. For example, she calls the bulletin a program and the sanctuary a worship space. This keeps the environment very conversational and that's the easiest way to keep people included. There also can be questions asked during the service and even just after the service there is a time to respond to the sermon and process it through conversation.

            She also mentioned that the church started out doing many gathering events as service projects around the community and people loved it. The people that attend this church believe that it is an integral part of who they are and are more apt to invite friends to when they do the service learning than an actual church service.

            They also go to all kinds of festivals and hand out cold cups of water for free and they'll offer to even fill up peoples water bottles for free. If the person is interested in learning about the church, great! If not, they got some free water and no harm done. Some people will ask the church representatives at the table why they are doing this. They're response is, "because Jesus said to give water to thirsty people."

            This is part of the scripture passage that has inspired them which is Micah 6:8, "...do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God." They are doing justthat and treading carefully as they do.