Despite a lack of a building of its own, Life Church makes plans to serve community

Written by

MICHELLE GEORGE
The Eagle-Gazette Staff

LANCASTER — Simple and organic.

Those are the two words Ron Grubb likes to use when he describes the church he and his family started up in Lancaster earlier this month.

 

When the Grubb family thinks of their new church, known as Life Church, they don’t envision Sunday school classes and Christmas programs and concerts. They’re not concerned with packing the church pews every Saturday or immediately finding a place of their own to have weekly services.

Instead, the family is focused on fellowship and teaching others how to go out and serve the community.

“Churches have a tendency to become complex and programs begin to overlap, which is natural when you bring hundreds of people together,” said Ron Grubb, pastor of Life Church. “But we try to stay focused on worship and teaching the Bible and having a congregation that fellowships together. … We want to become bigger than life, and we see that as doing community involvement and acting as servants to the community.”

So far, the Grubb’s idea of a simplistic, organic church seems to be one that others are interested in exploring. More than 300 people showed up to Life Church’s first service at Covenant Christian Church in Pleasantville on Jan. 15, much to the delight of Ron Grubb and his son, Jason, who also is a pastor.

“That was probably double of what we had hoped. … It was a huge show of support for the church and our family,” Jason Grubb said.

Ron Grubb, along with his wife, Marilyn, and Jason and his wife, Becky, first began exploring the idea of starting up a church late last year.

Before then, Ron Grubb served as pastor of Lancaster Community Church, which he also helped to start up. In the fall, he resigned from the position and began focusing on planting Life Church in the community.

“People will ask, ‘Why one more new church?'” Grubb said. “The stats are that there are 45,000 people in Lancaster and a little less than 11,000 of them are in church, so there is plenty of room for new concepts.”

Grubb said his focus for Life Church is not so much about getting people to come to church as it is about reaching out and serving people in the community.

“Any number (of people) that show up is fine, we will work with what we can…we’re less concerned about the attraction model — we probably won’t be doing big Christmas programs or concerts,” he said. “Larger churches or ‘mega’ churches will sometimes use concerts and events as an ‘attraction model’ to get people to come to church, but our focus is outside the walls, not inside the walls.”

“Our format isn’t that we have a commodity to offer, but you have to come to us to get it.”

Jason Grubb said one way that Life Church will work to train and disciple people to serve within the community is by offering a school of ministry through SOMA, a family of ministries out of Chillicothe.

“On thing we want to focus on is training people through ministry to be their own church or pastor,” Jason Grubb said. “Our belief is not to be called to come under one pastor, but to be trained and discipled and go out and share the love of the church.”

Jason Grubb said the school is accredited through Wagner Leadership Institute; the full course offered at Life Church would take two years to complete, he said.

He said the school of ministry is something distinctive the church can offer locally to people and to other churches.

“We feel a calling to serve Fairfield County; for us, it’s not about starting another church to start another church, but about serving and training people through this school of ministry,” he said.

Ron and Jason Grubb said they’re excited to see what the future holds for Life Church. For now, they will continue to conduct services every Saturday at Covenant Christian Church. They’re unsure as to whether they’ll relocate any time soon to a home of their own.

“I think if we could get to moving, that would be great, but it’s not about the building,” Jason Grubb said. “We’d like to have our own home, but our main focus is to continue to serve people, whether they’re in the community or in church.”

Ron Grubb agreed.

“I feel like I have a calling to pastor, so we’re taking that step,” he said. “We have committed to this church plan and, if it works, we’ll take it a step at a time. That may include a building, it may not.”

Michelle George can be reached at (740) 681-4342 or mgeorge@lancastereaglegazette.com.