BENTONVILLE - Living on the other side of the world opened Mike McDaniel’s eyes to the kind of ministry he needed to pursue at home.
McDaniel, lead pastor and founder of Grace Point Church of Northwest Arkansas in Bentonville, spent four years, along with his wife and three children, as a pioneer missionary to the Tonga people in Zambia, Africa.
“We thought we were going to be there for the rest of our lives,” he said. But God had other plans.
McDaniel said God took his family to Africa so they could get a new perspective on the American church before bringing them back home to start a new kind of church - one with missions at the forefront.
“We had to go there to see God’s heart for the world,” McDaniel said.
They also saw that many churches in America were self-centered and uninvolved, he said.
“Missions was the program, not the heart,” of American churches, he said. “When it’s a program you can live with it or without it. When it’s your heart, you are dead without it. And we wanted it to be the heartbeat of the church,” McDaniel said of Grace Point.
The church’s mission work isn’t just for the people of the world, he said. It also is for the people of Northwest Arkansas.
“We have a tagline: ‘We’re a church for those who have given up on the church but haven’t given up on God,’” McDaniel said. “That was really big for us because we also saw that throughout America, a lot of people had been hurt by previous church experiences - that they’ve been wounded and they’ve walked away. They still believe in God, but they don’t believe in the church. And so we wanted to be that second chance for people to come back in and be reintroduced, be reenergized in their faith in Christ and their love for the church.”
Grace Point started in 2001 with 14 people meeting and praying in a living room, McDaniel said. The church was portable for the first five years and met in various places in Bentonville, including a hotel, an elementary school and a former restaurant. In 2006 a permanent structure was built and today the attendance on Sundays averages about 1,200. Attendance has increased every year, except one - the year people were turned away, McDaniel said.
“There was a time we had so many people in our preschool division that it was not safe,” he said.
McDaniel said most of the people who were turned away were guests, who typically arrive later than regular churchgoers. They were told there was no room for their children in the classrooms, he said. At that point, the pastor and congregation knew the church needed to expand. Temporary buildings were set up on the church grounds, and plans were begun to add on to the church.
Construction began about a year ago and is on track to be completed for services on July 14, McDaniel said.
“I don’t want to put our money into bricks and sticks, but it became a little necessary for us,” McDaniel said. “Otherwise you lose your momentum, you lose your growth.”
The church has, in fact, increased its giving to mission work during the expansion, McDaniel said.
“We will not jeopardize our missions, our ministries, for the financing of bricks and sticks,” he said. The church building “is a tool box to be used, and it is a great service to us, but it is not our master.”
“I want us to be more known for what happens outside of these four walls than what happens inside of these four walls,” McDaniel said. The emphasis on what happens outside of the church is what draws a lot of people to the church, said Kari Abbott, McDaniel’s assistant.
“It empowers people to be more than just a churchgoer on Sunday morning,” she said. “It’s truly about the change of someone’s life outside these four walls.”
Something else that draws people to the church and keeps them there is McDaniel, she said. “His values don’t change from Sunday to Monday,” Abbott said. “I think that’s why he’s so effective on Sunday morning as a pastor. He’s not going to preach a message or teach on something that he is not totally on board with.”
Tim Logan, associate pastor of media outreach, said McDaniel is genuinely interested in people and seeing them grow.
“He wants to see people moving in their faith and reach other people,”Logan said.
Both staff members say McDaniel is open with the staff and with the congregation. “Nothing is hidden,” Logan said. “I think people want to see that authenticity.”
“He doesn’t stand up on the stage and pretend that he is flawless,” Abbott said.
“He tells stories on himself, and it’s always something. Not a lot of people would share their sins, faults or things they don’t excel at.”
Religion, Pages 8 on 06/22/2013