The three-year plan: why we're starting a church in Big Rapids

I never wanted to start a church.

I want to say that first, because the rest of this story doesn't make sense without it.

I grew up in church. When I was ten, I was sitting in a pastors' conference — a meeting meant for pastors and ministry workers, and I was just a kid from the host church who'd tagged along — and the Lord called me. Not vaguely. Specifically. To preach, to serve Him, to give my life to the ministry. I wasn't a perfect kid and I didn't become one, but from that day on I was serious about Jesus, serious about the Bible, and sure of what I was going to do with my life: I was going to be a pastor.

So I went to Bible college. I majored in media and minored in Bible, which meant I took the preaching classes, the hermeneutics classes, the church education and Bible classes a pastoral major takes — and I also took the media and marketing classes that, it turns out, God would use to feed my family. (I run a marketing agency with my brother today. That's the day job.) I met Kailee there. And when I graduated I did exactly what I'd planned: I went to work at a church in Michigan.

Eight years as an assistant pastor

For just under four years I served as an assistant pastor at a church in Michigan. I led the choir and the music. I preached. I taught Sunday school, ran discipleship, went soul-winning, planned events, built the church's video and social media and graphics, and did whatever else needed doing. Kailee and I had met in college and married a few years later, once I'd moved to Michigan — June of 2018, at Hemlock Park in Big Rapids. Our first daughter was born in 2020.

Then we moved to Iowa and I did it all again for just under four more years at a church there.

The whole time, the plan was the same plan I'd had since I was ten: eventually I'd take a church. Maybe one that needed a pastor. Maybe one where I'd come alongside a pastor and step into the lead role when the time came. That's the normal path, and I was on it.

Why not take a church?

Somewhere in Iowa my plans and desires started to shift — in God's timing and inside His plan, not against it. Not because I stopped wanting to pastor, and not because of anything to do with the church I was serving. It's that over eight years in ministry I got a close look at what happens inside churches when things go wrong. Deacons who overstep. Long-time members who treat "member" like a title with rights attached, and use those rights to run the place. A Pharisaical kind of Christianity that's more interested in position than in Jesus.

Not every church is like that. But a lot are, and here's the math I kept running: if you take an existing church, it takes about five years before you can start making real changes. If you start a church, it takes about five years to get it off the ground. Same five years. Only one of them ends with a church built the way the Bible says a church should be built, from the foundation.

I still didn't want to start one. That felt like something other people did.

The night we said "three-year plan"

We'd been in Michigan visiting Kailee's family, who live just south of Big Rapids. I'd been talking with my brother-in-law about the idea of starting a church — where it might be, what it might look like. When we got home, Kailee and I stayed up late talking about it, mostly hypothetically. And Big Rapids kept coming up.

I've always been drawn to that town. I don't fully know why. Kailee is from near there. Whenever we went tubing or canoeing it was on the Muskegon River. Whenever we drove up to land north of there, we drove through Big Rapids to get there. We got married there — at Hemlock Park, right on the river, June 2, 2018, a gorgeous day with the cottonwoods letting go so it looked like it was snowing in June. On other trips we'd eat at The Rock at Ferris. I loved the feel of it: a small town that feels bigger than it is, a hub for all the rural country around it. Whenever we were in the area I'd invent a reason to drive up — Dunham's, Meijer, Biggby, anything.

That night, a phrase kept coming out of my mouth. It had been showing up in books I was reading, and now it was showing up in our conversation: a three-year plan. What would we do in three years? If we started a church in Big Rapids, what would a three-year plan look like? By the end of the night it was a running joke. Three-year plan. Three-year plan.

The next day

Kailee has a habit of trying to talk me into coming home for lunch. The drive was about fifteen minutes each way, and that day it felt like an inconvenience, so I resisted. She won.

Driving back to the church after lunch, I took a different route than usual. No reason. I had an audiobook playing about hearing God's voice, and I'd mostly zoned out of it, but the idea was still sitting on me, and I found myself praying something like: Lord, it's easy to say I want You to speak to me. Help me actually listen. Help me notice.

I pulled up behind a car at a stoplight and looked at the license plate.

3YRPLAN.

It was an Iowa State plate. Two things about that. Iowa is full of custom plates — they're everywhere, so the word on a plate isn't the strange part. The strange part is that we were in Cedar Rapids, which is Hawkeye country. Almost every plate around you there is black and gold. An Iowa State plate is the odd one out in that town, and Iowa State's colors are cardinal and gold — red and gold.

And if you know anything about Ferris State University in Big Rapids, you know their colors are red and gold.

I took a picture and sent it to Kailee without a word of explanation. Before I could type anything, she called. "What is that?" She'd read it exactly the way I had.

That was January 19, 2023.

I never wanted to start a church. But I'd asked God to speak, He spoke, and I've looked back since at every step that got me to that stoplight — the calling as a boy, the eight years of learning what a church is and isn't, the town I'd fallen in love with for no reason I could name — and I can't call any of it an accident.

Where we are now

That was a little over three years ago. It has not been an easy road. As I write this we aren't in Big Rapids yet — we're selling our home and moving up for one reason: to start TheWay.

We don't have it all figured out. We're doing what we believe God has told us to do, and we're trusting Him for the rest.

If you're in Big Rapids or anywhere near it, we'd love for you to be part of this from the beginning. Wherever you are — a new believer, not a believer, a believer who's drifted, someone who's been hurt by church, young or old — you're invited. This is what we're going to do: pursue Jesus in faith. Take some risks. Love Him and draw closer to Him. Study the Scriptures and learn them. Use the gifts the Holy Spirit has given each of us. And grow, together, as one body. You can read where we believe all of this is headed on the vision page.

Come follow Jesus with us.

— Dillon