Family Integration Q&A

An Interview with Pastor Ted Seago concerning Grace Community Church in Magnolia, Texas

BACKGROUND & CHURCH PROBLEMS
Q. Ted, to begin with, tell us a little about your background and what led you to start a family integrated church.
A. Well, this is my 30th year of ministry, and I grew up in Southern Baptist churches. After serving for many years as a minister of music and a youth minister, I completed my doctorate and moved into the education ministry in associate pastor positions.

In the mid to late 90s, I also became involved in starting new seeker-targeted churches. While doing so, I began to see some problems with the program driven approach.

My doctorate is in curriculum instructional design, so I was evaluating how we can truly educate both adults and children within the church. I began realizing that we weren’t doing what we thought we were doing. Our paradigm was flawed. We were not producing adults that were theologically literate, nor children that truly understood Scripture.

About that time I took an associate pastor position in the Conroe area. We, like most established churches, were interested in numerical growth and budgets. The flaw was that though we were getting a lot of people and growing ministries, but spiritual growth was not keeping up with budget growth. A lot of churches would like to see spiritual growth happening and would like to believe that it is, but you find that there is not a lot of spiritual depth in a lot of the members.

As I look back over the years, one of the problems I began to see was that there was very little focus on doctrinal teaching. Rather than teaching systematic theology, most were teaching “sporadic theology.” Very few people have developed their own personal desire to learn and grow, so all they get is a little bit about whatever the preacher is teaching from the pulpit. This made me evaluate my own doctrinal background and I found there were some large gaps that I needed to deal with first, and I did.

Meanwhile, my wife and I were leading marriage conferences and retreats and speaking at home school conferences. We have 9 children that call us mom and dad, so we have an opportunity to really understand family life. We were home schooling and helping other families with their academics endeavors. Why can’t we help parents teach spiritual truths as well? So we began to develop a model for a church where the fathers take on the spiritual leadership of the home and the family is the primary agent for Christian education.

We found that scripture teaches that parents are responsible for the teaching of doctrine and theology to their own children. The church should become a place where believers come to enjoy corporate worship, fellowship and times of prayer. But never did we find that the Bible teaches that the church should be responsible for teaching children spiritual truths or theology.


FOUNDING OF GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH
Q. So how did you get started with Grace Community Church?
A. First we started a joined some other wonderful families in founding Grace Covenant Baptist in the Willis area. It was doctrinally sound and teaching doctrine was very important and a priority. From that church, a few families moved to the FM 1488 area to establish Grace Community Church.

GCC was founded in June of 2003 by five home schooling families who believed in doctrinal purity. But they also knew that the father should be the head of the house and that Scripture should be exalted to be the primary teaching curriculum. We began to teach the Word, catechism, Scripture memory, and personal one-on-one discipleship through the family at home. Grace Community is committed to supporting our parents in this endeavor and provides material and direction. Over the last year, we have been blessed with many additional families who are like-minded and share our convictions. And over this last year we have discovered that men are looking for a church that teaches them how to be the spiritual leader in their homes.


FAMILY DRIVEN & COVENANTAL COMMUNITY
Q. Other than location, how does Grace Community differ from the earlier church?
A. Starting a new church in a new location, gave us the opportunity to evaluate what could we do more effectively. We decided to make some changes that we felt would better fit the family-driven, family-integrated church model. We did away with the whole concept of age segregation, and tried to do all we could to keep the family together when they came to church.

At GCC, we decided to develop a true “covennantal community.” (We joke about this meaning that we live life together and share power tools.) We looked closely at the Acts 2:42-44 model (where the early church shared all things in common) and asked what that would look like in today’s society.

The members of our church live all over the county, some driving as far as 40 miles to attend. However, in the covenantal approach, if one family is having a baby – then we are all having a baby. When someone is sick, we take care of each other. When you are on vacation, we are watching your house. When a tree falls in your yard, the men come to cut it up – because it is “our” yard.

If you share all things in common, my boat is your boat, and you can use it any time you want. When you need a power washer, come and get mine. Don’t rent one and spend sixty bucks - that’s money you could spend on your family!

We also put a lot more emphasis on fellowship, on our small group ministry, and on spending time in prayer and understanding each other’s prayer needs. We just live life as a biblical community of faith.


CHURCH LEADERSHIP: PASTORS / ELDERS, DEACONS
Q. With what sort of leadership did Grace Community start? And did this include paid pastors from the first?
A. We started with two founding elders, Pastor Dan Woody and myself, and then we quickly added four deacons to assist. We now have eight. I’ve been blessed to be a full-time vocational pastor from the start at GCC. Our families realize that it is important to have a pastor daily caring for our families. Initially, five families stepped out in faith and committed to support me financially. That was an incredible blessing and I believe it helped establish the church more quickly. Of course, they hoped this investment would bring returns, and additional giving would come from new families joining us - and it did! Almost immediately we had 10 and then 15 new families.

Our other elder, Dan Woody, has a full time job outside of the church. Yet the church is able to provide some financial support which is just as a blessing to his family.

We now have about 50 families, so it’s becoming a challenge to carry out a true biblical elder role, where you are really involved families’ lives and meeting needs. So we are praying that Dan will be our next full time elder before long.

Now we have a group of families in Sugarland that is hoping to start this fall with an elder. They, like GCC, would like to start with elders and deacons in place, and have adoptited our constitution. They are praying that God will send men in the founding families that will qualify to be elders or deacons.

Q. How did you define the roles of elders and deacons at Grace Community?
A. The difference between the elder and the deacon is primarily a teaching role. The deacons at our church have no administrative responsibility, nor do they meet monthly. They just take care of five families and one widowed (or divorced) woman. This is a Biblical model that we feel is very effective.

We especially want to care for our single moms. These five men along with the deacon, share the responsibility of caring for this one single mom woman. Anytime her plumbing breaks, her car doesn’t work, or anything else happens, she has five men that are right there to help her.

Every deacon also meets regularly with his six families, has fellowship with them, and makes sure that they are doing well both spiritually and physically. If anything happens, the deacons are there.

We also have an administrative council that takes most of the administrative responsibilities off of me as the pastor. They deal with all the financial matters which allows me to focus my attention of shepherding the families of Grace.

This also allows Pastor Dan and to have the time to prepare for the teaching and preaching ministry. There are many pastors today that are so busy with meetings and church business that they become more like business managers or administrators than pastors. To be a shepherd of the sheep, you have to know the sheep.And to know the sheep, you must have the time to be involved in their lives, to listen to them and understand their hurts and joys.


DISTINCTIVES OF GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH
Q. Would you explain to our readers some of the distinctives of Grace Community Church?
A.
Not Program Driven
We are not program driven. A lot of churches are realizing that some of their programs are overworking their families. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve been a program director and can say that I have trained some of the best in the country on how to do church programming. We are trying to grow families, and yet we are doing everything in our power to overwhelm them with our programming.

Over my 30 years in ministry, I have watched this develop. First we created youth minister positions, then we hired more staff and add more and more programs - good programs, like AWANAs, Evangelism Explosion, etc. Yet all these great programs pull people away from their families. We have a very simple approach to ministry.

At Grace Community, we have families join our church and say, “We’re here and we are ready to go to work!” But I say, “Great, go home and disciple your children.” And then they may say, “OK, that’s good, but we want to help grow the church. I’ve worked with the sound, and taught Sunday School. And I say, “That’s great – still, I want you to go home and take care of your family. I want you to go home and love your wife. I want you to spend some time that you would have spent here at church, taking your wife out on dates, growing your relationship and becoming very close with the woman of your dreams. Also I want you to spend time getting to know your children, taking them out on the lakeon a boat, etc. I want you to develop this wonderful, God-centered family life.”

We try to find ways to give time back to the families.. Many times the best thing the church can do for the family is to say, “Don’t get so involved. You don’t have to come up here on Sunday night or Wednesday night or Tuesday night.”

You need to choose what you can be a part of. You know your family life. If you start to feel overwhelmed, then something needs to change. That’s not the way the Christian family should be.

My instruction to women is to stay home (Titus 2). God’s intention was for the woman to focus on the needs of the family. To do that, during the season of raising children, mom needs to be home. When your children are teenagers or older and married, then, then you can look at whatever you want to do vocationally, or whatever. A lot of our women have college degrees, but they choose to put work aside in this season of their life so that they can be home with their children. Some of them have part-time interests, but none of them are running their own companies or have a career.

Youth Program
In our church we say we have the greatest youth ministers in the world – our dads. Our dads do all the planning for recreation. The children never have anyone other than their father to be a major impact player in their life and teaching them God’s Word. We say that we don’t have a youth ministry, but we do have a youth group, as we have a lot of teenagers. It’s just like we have a lot of children in our church, but we don’t have a “children’s ministry.”

With this model we have gathered a lot of other families that have been hurt by the typical approach to youth ministry. A lot of youth ministries today look and act a lot like the world, in the way they dress, talk, etc. Statistics are indicating that 85% ofstudents from a typical church will fall away from the faith within three years after finishing school. So if you have an 85% failure rate, then why do you keep doing things the same way? We are not!

We do have activities for all ages of kids, but most of our recreation is planned for the whole family. Now there are times when the older boys will get together for paint ball, led by some of the dads. There are also some planned play days especially for the younger children. However, all activities are driven by the parents, and the parents are the activities directors.

Unity & Purity
One of the keys to Grace Community is church unity and purity. By unity of the body, I mean that we are likeminded, unified in both our faith and in our approach to ministry. We are not eclectic. We don’t have some members wanting to have a youth minister and others not. When you have this like-mindedness, you will have unity. We have not had one disparaging or ugly word said - no griping or complaining, in our first year of ministry. This is because we are all like-minded and are all pursuing the same goal.

BECOMING A MEMBER
Q. How does one become a member at Grace Community?
A. Well first you come and check us out, and often folks will visit our website or call before coming. Every Sunday we have a fellowship meal after church which not only builds member relationships but helps us get an opportunity to know our visitors (and we can have anywhere from 30-60 visitors a week).

Every other week we offer a one-time information class before the worship service that is required before applying for membership. In this class, visitors receive a covenantal application with which they can applyfor membership. Signing this covenant indicates that you profess faith in Christ, have been baptized, have read the statement of faith and doctrine, and are prepared to support the mission, ministry and teachings of Grace Community Church. You also accept your responsibilities to grow in Christ, to attend regularly, to seek to use your gifts in the church, to support the church financially, to be accountable in doctrine and conduct, and to submit to the leadership and the scriptural authority of the elders.

The signed covenant is given to an elder, to be discussed among the elders before beginning an interview process. The elders have already had a chance to get to know you some prior to this. The interviews are to find out about your past and where you are presently. We want to identify what your spiritual needs are. Is there a marriage or a child challenge? What do we need to know to determine how we can best minister to you?

Many times we will tell someone that they first need to go back to their former church and make things right. This is very surprising to some but we want our members to be clean before the Lord when the join the GCC community. We may say that you need to go back and meet with your pastor, tell him exactly what you are doing, and seek forgiveness for anything that needs to be forgiven.

We will also ask about previous marriages. Do you need to go to your ex-spouse and ask forgiveness for a relationship that failed? Perhaps you have both gone on with your lives, but there’s still this caustic attitude. You need to go back and ask forgiveness for that, and make things right to the extent that you can. Our stance is that divorce is never an option.

We want to insure that new members are coming to Grace Community on the basis of prayer, with all forgiven and with a spirit of humility and graciousness. They should not be coming wanting their own way, or thinking that the church will change from it’s founding convictions.


DISCIPLING THE MEN
Q. Your materials speak a lot about discipling fathers to disciple their families. How do you do that at Grace Community?
A. What we seek to do is emphasize the discipleship of dads who in turn will disciple their families. That slogan is on the front of our worship guide and is what we do.

We set the fathers up where they have to participate and get involved on Sunday mornings in spiritual things - things designed to put them in the role of the spiritual leader and “priest” of the family.

First, each family sits together. It is not acceptable for a child to sit outside the family. If a child is visiting without his mom or dad, then he is “adopted” by another family.

At the end of the sermon, I ask the fathers to pray with their children and their wife. Then after the prayer time, we tell the dads that they may serve their family communion. So the father is a priest in prayer and a priest at the table.

Now how many dads can serve their children communion knowing they have been a sorry father all week? During the prayer time the dad may say, “I’ve got to confess guys - I need to ask your forgiveness. I’ve not been a very good dad this week.”

Following communion, the fathers take their family over to our offering area where we have two offering boxes. They pray over each offering that is given.

At the end of the service, I don’t offer a “walk-down” invitation, but I do challenge our children with this: “If Christ is coming alive in your heart and you want to accept Him as your savior, talk to your mom and dad.” What does that do? It sets up the dad as the spiritual teacher of the family. They become the spiritual guidance counselors. So you go to the priest of your family to talk about your relationship with Christ.

When a child comes to Christ, the father baptizes his children. If that child someday says, “I’m not sure if I’m saved, I’m not sure what happened,” the father can say, “I’m your father and I was there and talked to you about your salvation experience, and I baptized you.”

On the last Wednesday night of each month we meet with our dads and their older sons for prayer and teaching. Then we also have fathers’ council meetings, called right after church, and we make plans for upcoming church activities.

We also encourage our dads to be involved in personal study and make a lot of good resources available to them. We use a lot of Ligonier Ministries / R.C. Sproul’s materials. We have a book table of good materials setout every week and also make free tapes available. Then a lot of the teaching from the pulpit is focused on dads.

Lastly, the elders are involved in private conversations and one-on-one discipleship with the men. We also hold each other accountable. For example, we are accountable to each other for how we talk to our wives. If you talk to your wife in anything other than great honor, you will be called on the carpet!


SMALL GROUPS, MEN’S AND WOMEN’S MEETINGS
Q. What sort of small groups does Grace Community offer?
A. We offer small groups in communities, based upon where you live. A small group meets in Tomball, another is in Spring, one is in Conroe, another in the Woodlands. So we offer small groups based upon where our people live and can most easily drive to. On four nights of the week there is a small group meeting at one location or another. You can pick a small group based upon what night they meet or the one nearest your house.
Q. What goes on at these groups?
A. Five to ten families (including children) meet together for Bible study and prayer. Some small groups allow some of the smaller children to be in another room, but all the older children are included in the family Bible studies. Now if the study is something special, like a marriage issue, we might separate the children so we can talk more freely.

We encourage our people to go through a 12-week financial planning class, which we offer and use Crown Ministries (which we are studying in the small groups right now). We also encourage all of our people to go through the book as an overview of key doctrines.

We look for small group materials that are more Biblical based, where they are going to be in their Bible a lot more than in somebody else’s words.

Many of the people we get are illiterate about what the Bible says about marriage, or the family, or even what it says about salvation and our relationship in Christ. They have never been taught, encouraged, or even forced to be in the Word much. They have always given books or quarterlies to read, often with the scripture included so that you don’t even have to open your Bible. We try to focus on getting our people in the Word.

Besides participation in small groups, we also request our member families to be a part of a personal spiritual renewal weekend. We have separate weekends for men only and women only. We also encourage our members to participate in a marriage enrichment weekend each year.

Q. Besides the small groups, what other Bible teaching takes place?
A. My Sunday morning teaching is mostly expositional. We are teaching through books of the Bible (have finished Ephesians, portions of Matthew at Christmas and Easter seasons, and now working through 1 Peter). We focus on trying to teachour people how to study through the Word verse by verse.

We also have once a month meetings for the men and for the women, both of which include studying through books of the Bible.

Our women’s meetings are led by my wife Johnnie, who is very gifted in teaching other women. In these meetings we can deal with issues like modesty with our girls. We have a little saying, “We like to give our boys’ and men’s eyes the day off when they come to church – they shouldn’t have to be as careful at church as during the week.” We also talk about submission and challenges the contemporary Christian woman faces today. And we have prayer time with just women where they can really share their hearts.


EVANGELISM, COMMUNITY NEEDS, SINGLES & ELDERLY, DROP-IN VISITORS
Q. How does your church approach evangelism?
A. Evangelism is definitely part of our calling. We feel like our first and biggest mission field is the home. A close second is our family members outside of the immediate family. As relatives see our lifestyle and see how our children are different (their discipline and respect, etc.), it is testimony to a life-changing event. Our families make a wonderful evangelism tool. Then we teach all our people, and our teens especially, to look for opportunities to share Christ.
Q. How does Grace Community Church seek to meet needs in your community?
A. Our concept for meeting needs in our community is through our deacons and their assigned families. One of these families will come to a deacon and say, “My neighbor is out of work and their dryer went out, what can we do to help them?” So these five guys in that deacon’s group will work to get a dryer for this needyfamily. We spend probably more money than most churches on benevolence and missions, because we can, since we are not paying a building note. Our goal is to spend 33% of our funds, if not more, just on benevolent needs.

And since we are a covenantal community, if you lose a job, I’ve lost a job. So we will all try to help you get through this rough time. We will spend money paying car and house notes and doing whatever we need to do financially to help you get over this hump. We’ll help you buy a vehicle, refrigerators, we’ve done all kinds of things to help our members.

Then when we encounter someone outside the church who has a need, we consider these to be divine appointments. We take care of them. We’ve brought in a few homeless guys from the street and took care of them for months while they tried to get on their feet.

Q. Has Grace Community been successful in attracting singles and senior adults as members?
A. Obviously this church is going to appeal more to families. Yet, it has been amazing how many singles we have gotten, even some older ladies, mostly widows. They come into our body and feel the family and the spirit of unity, and they are protected and taken care of. We don’t have any older men at this point. We do have some younger single men. So we do get a wide range of folks.

We have had a lot of older couples come, who felt, for whatever reason, that this was not the church for them. They have gone somewhere else that had a seniors’ ministry. They just didn’t get the concept. They were looking for a church that was there to minister to them. Here, we would say, “You’ve got all this wisdom and wise counsel, we want you to be a minister to all these other families, to help give them direction.” However, we have two really great grandmother types, that just love on these kids and they wouldn’t be anywhere else.

Q. How do things work when you have drop-in visitors? Is there some awkwardness?
A. Yes, especially in the early months. You just can’t visit our church incognito. You are going to be thrust into an environment where you are going to have to be a worshipper and a participant. A lot of folks don’t want that level of accountability and that level of active involvement in the worship. Many of the things that we do, tend to make some uncomfortable.
So we lose some families from that, but we are getting better. We feel like this is the type of church many of these families need, but don’t realize it. Some families are falling apart, with dads not knowing what they are doing, moms frustrated, and couples on the verge of divorce. Unfortunately, some families can’t get past the, “We don’t look like the rest of these families.” Well of course not, we didn’t either at some point! But we don’t have the relationship yet, so they feel like we are looking down on them and they feel uncomfortable.
But I must quickly say that our families are now very good at making our visitors feel loved and welcomed. We now have sidewalk greeters and coffee pot greeters when you come inside. And we are immediately trying to connect with them before they start feeling all weird. Then they begin to realize that there are a lot of friendly people here. Sometimes visitors may say, “This is not for us, these are all a bunch of home schoolers.” But we are still hoping to get some more non-home schooling families that we can minister to. Right now we aren’t, but we are young - just 14 months old.
Overall, the success we have had has been overwhelming compared to what we expected. We were willing to say it might just be 5 or 10 families for a long time, but God has seen fit to bless us.


ADVICE FOR STARTING CHURCHES
Q. What advice would you give others about how to start a church like this?
A. This is my 3rd new church to start, so I’ve done it three different ways. I have also been involved with a lot of new start ministries with others. Starting Grace Covenant was easy. It involved finding people nearby that were of like mind (both doctrinally and a common heart for doing church differently). Being an associate pastor, I knew those families in the church that felt the same way I did. So we had available some of those families from a traditional church.

Information meetings are a great way to start a church. You just put the word out (in home school circles you can put an ad it in the support group newsletter). We also ran an ad in the regional home school newsletter (SETHSA) and we are still getting families from that.

We also did a mail-out to the community within a 5 mile radius of our church, telling who we were. This was not the usual, “Hey, are you looking for a church home? Come visit us” mailing. We said, “We are praying that God will send us like-minded families who share our convictions about faith, family, and the importance of teaching sound doctrine.” So you say specifically what you are looking for. Out of a 6,000 piece mailing, we picked up about 6 families. It was just 1%, but they were like-minded families.

One thing I’ve learned about starting new churches: Start with a commitment to teaching God’s Word, develop a good constitution, determine what ;you are not going to be and then launch. You say, “Here’s who we are, and we are not changing.” Then when people come, you give them a brochure that says exactly who you are.

If you take an eclectic approach, throwing as wide a net as you can, you will get people who don’t like something you are doing. So you spend a lot of time defending why youare doing what you are doing. And some will get upset and leave, but they really shouldn’t have joined your church in the beginning.

Most churches take anybody for most any reason. You just walk down an aisle and say you want to join, and they will take you right then. At Grace Community, it may take several months before you are actually received as a member. We spend a lot of time making sure you understand the church.


A FACILITY FOR MEETING
Q. What should a new church do about a meeting place? What has Grace Community done?
A. Facilities are not that hard to find. Most school districts are very open to renting facilities. Renting a school building is the most economical way to start a church. We encourage new churches to create an identity from the very beginning with a facility. Now a lot of churches get started in homes, and I’ve started that way before as well, but we have always quickly moved to a facility for more space. Space and bathrooms create a lot of unity and goodwill. You need a facility where kids can have some freedom without parents worrying that they are going to break grandma’s beautiful vase.

There are also community centers and some strip shopping centers that can be rented, but they are kind of expensive. Elementary schools are usually the most practical and economical because they are the least used schools. With an elementary, it is yours on the weekend and there is hardly ever anything going on.

For about $150 a week, you can have most of the space you need, which is a gymnasium and an auditorium. I try to stay out of classrooms, and just use common areas. When you rent a facility, you can use their wide hallways. We just put up a partition in the hallway and put a nursery or new members class there.

It is easier to find a school than someone’s house. You can put a sign out front on Sundays announcing you are meeting there. And you also have a parking lot, unlike at someone’s house where the neighbors may get upset.


TRANSITIONING A TRADITIONAL CHURCH
Q. What do you have to say to others desiring to transition a traditional church to this model?
A. It would be very difficult to transition a traditional church to this, even though it is happening in some Southern Baptist churches. One of our members, Voddie Baucham, has opportunities to speak nationally every week and he brings back reports about what other churches are experiencing. Many are beginning to realize that an 85% failure rate in youth ministry is not acceptable. Seeing only half of your members attend on any given Sunday should also not be acceptable.

There are flaws in how most Baptist churches handle membership, the walk down invitation, and in the program driven approach (which separates families). Something has to change!

Unfortunately many churches are hindered from changing by their assets. They must have a certain level of giving to meet budgetary requirements and any significant change may threaten that. Churches may see that they are over programmed but feel they can’t change because of budgets and assets.

We are starting new churches so we don’t have to deal with this problem. However, we are also working with some churches that have all these wonderful facilities and programming, but realize they need to change.

Another issue we are seeking to address is how to utilize a young youth pastor when you make such a change. He doesn’t qualify to be an elder and doesn’t truly qualify to be a shepherd of the church. With more age should come some wisdom in raising children and an ability to give wise counsel to younger families, but he doesn’t have that now.


CLOSING COMMENTS
Q. Do you have any closing thoughts you would like to leave with our readers?
A. Christian families all find themselves at different stages in their lives. Some are in the early stages of saying, “We are not doing everything like we should.” Your children are getting older or maybe your children are creating problems for you. You can just continue on the same path, hoping they will turn out well. Or you can begin to ask what you can do to change, what things will make a real difference in your children’s lives. Sometimes, it’s looking at where you are going to church. Many people are beginning to realize that they have got to have more support from their church. Many of these moms and dads have given their lives to work in church. They are doing everything, but they have received very little in return for their hours and years of dedication and service. There is a season for you to be fed and encouraged and supported. Afterwards, you will get back to that season where you can serve. Parents should not be made to feel guilty about not serving in the church. The most divine calling you can ever take on is the calling of being a mom and dad, and of being the spiritual leaders of your home. So stay focused on the primary goal, and that is the discipling of your children. You only have so many years with your children. You need to give them a model for Christian marriage and parenthood. They need to see a mom and dad that are so in love with each other that they see marriage as something wonderful. They need to see parents with good attitudes towards parenting, who are not alwaysstressed out – otherwise your children see parenting as stressful and painful and is just not worth it. I pray none of your readers are giving that impression of the sacred calling of being a mom and dad. Rejoice in this exciting opportunity to send sharp arrows out into this world!

Dr. Ted Seago is a home schooling father of 9 and has been a minister for 30 years and is presently the pastor of Grace Community Church in Magnolia, Texas, a Southern Baptist Church. Ted can be reached by email at Ted_Seago@msn.com.or by phone at 936-672-0231 For more information about Grace Community Church, visit their website at http://www.gracecommunityinfo.org