Digital Discipleship on a Budget at Connect Christian Church

Not every church boasts over a century of history and service, but Connect Christian Church can make that claim.

“[The original area] used to be a junction point for a railroad in Missouri, then it became a brand new city called Carl Junction in 1885,” said Kenan Klein, Worship and Student Minister at Connect Christian. “A group of 36 individuals… saw that there was no church and thought, we need to put a church there to ‘connect people to Jesus.’”

Their church today has around 400 active members—and an atypical growth story. Because of their smaller community size and resources, they’re somewhat limited in what they can achieve locally.

The name of their church is no coincidence. They literally discovered the phrase “connect people to Jesus” on their founders’ paperwork from nearly 140 years ago. So they branded themselves as Connect Christian Church and, instead of solely ministering to their small local community, they embraced the use of technology to reach people everywhere.

That’s not to say their approach hasn’t earned some baffled looks. “A lot of churches our size don’t do this, and they freak out when they hear about it,” Kenan said with a laugh.

But they’ve had undeniable success. A once-local church member who moved to Montana has established a church out of his RV, and relies on Connect Christian’s online sermons, Bible studies, and music to drive his ministry. A family in Iowa that has no church within 45 miles decided to start their own house church based on Connect Christian’s digital content.

And now Kenan’s leading a similar charge in a neighboring Missouri community. “We’ll be starting a new campus about 10 miles away [from our church] in a neighborhood of 2,000 people, that’s an eight-block neighborhood that has zero churches in it. It’s mostly an impoverished neighborhood… most people barely have a car, a lot of people are food insecure, and the biggest deal is they can’t walk to church.”

“We’re going to start with 50 people,” Kenan said—a choice made to reinforce their mission of connection. “It needs to be small enough to feel like it’s not overwhelming, but big enough to feel like it’s something you can be a part of.”

While this new campus will initially meet on Saturday nights, Connect Christian’s already leveraging their technology solutions to reach this new community. Their custom app has been particularly effective at building engagement at this early stage.

“Especially for those who have trouble navigating the internet, they have a one-stop shop… They can give online through the app. They can take sermon notes through the app and also do their daily devotional studies and watch videos through it.

They believe in this mindset so much, it’s written in bold across their website: Being Disciples Who Make Disciples Anywhere. And Pushpay’s proud of the small role our tools play in helping them achieve their mission.

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