Three years ago a large church of 4,000 merged with a smaller church of 1,500 people, and the pastor of that smaller church, Terry Crist, became the senior pastor. The other pastor, Gary Kinnaman, stepped into a pastor-at-large role with his own personal ministry. Word of Grace church of Mesa, AZ, and CitiChurch in Scottsdale, AZ, chose a new name, City of Grace.
The story of that merger was told in the January 2009 issue of Church Executive. In a time when mergers, in addition to multi-site expansions, are becoming more attractive [see sidebar article on another Arizona merger],we visited again with Pastor Crist to see how the merger was progressing.
“Pastoral transitions are difficult under any circumstance,” Terry Crist reflects. “In our case there were several layers to the transition. On the surface, there was the pastoral transition from Gary Kinnaman to myself. A little deeper there was a generational transition with Gary being a Boomer, and myself being a Gen-X-er. At another level there was a transition in our style of worship and teaching.
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