Lincoln pastor receives grant for study, reflection
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BY ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
Seven years ago, Craig Walls came to Nebraska with a mission: to start a new Disciples of Christ congregation in Lincoln.
Walls admits he might have passed on the offer if his wife, Elizabeth, who is originally from Lincoln, did not still have family here.
Instead, the Walls family considered it a sign.
Since then, Walls’ SouthPointe Christian Church has grown from 12 to 180 people. It’s gone from worshipping in a basement conference room to a movie theater to a rented store front, to building a new church across from Scott Middle School on Pine Lake Road.
And now, Walls is one of 138 pastors from 133 U.S. churches to receive a grant from the National Clergy Renewal Program funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. of Indianapolis.
The program gives pastors and congregations a chance to create their own sabbath journeys, which include retracing their churches’ roots to connecting with churches in other countries.
“The workload and lifestyle of most pastors are difficult for many to understand,” said Craig Dykstra, endowment senior vice president for religion. “So many activities command a pastor’s time and attention — often urgent activities such as leading worship, counseling, visiting the sick and grieving — that there is little time left for the pastor to attend to his or her own spiritual growth, reflection and family life.”
As the only pastor of SouthPointe Christian Church, Walls has had little time to do anything but focus on the needs of his congregation and church.
He and the church will use the $44,120 grant for a three-month sabbatical in the summer of 2010.
During that time, a seminary professor will serve the church. Walls said his congregation will benefit from hearing someone new.
“I am the only minister they have ever had,” he said.
And Walls will benefit from time for prayer and reflection.
During daily work, you can lose focus of how active God is in your life and the life of your church, Walls said.
He wants to use the time to re-examine where SouthPointe Christian has been and where it will go in its second decade.
Walls and his family will travel to Scotland, where the Presbyterian tradition began, and “look at where our founders came out of,” he said.
“I will look at where God has led us, and how we got to this point as Disciples of Christ and as as SouthPointe Christian Church.”
As the third part of his sabbatical, Walls will visit other U.S. churches including The Gathering in San Diego, an emerging post-modern church, and the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, a Methodist mega-church.
The Disciples of Christ theology is not that different from Presbyterians and Methodists, Walls said. The church got its beginnings on the American frontier. Although the church grew significantly in the 19th century, its numbers have decreased over time.
Part of Walls’ mission as leader of SouthPointe Christian is to find a way “to continue to grow the movement we are a part of.”
The National Clergy Renewal Program grant will allow him to do that.
Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.
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