Meeting the Demands of Frontier Ministry in Anchorage, Alaska
I will never forget calling my wife and asking her if she would ever move to Anchorage, Alaska. At the time, Summer of 2018, we had been in central Kentucky for three and half years, bought a house, and loved the rural church we served at. We had no plans to leave anytime soon, and certainly not for a lead pastorate 4000 miles away from where we both grew up.
When we moved to Anchorage (spoiler, my wife said "no" at first, and then we both said "yes" once God made his will clear to us), we took over a church of about 75 adults and 40 kids. Median age was 31 and we were meeting in a middle school cafeteria.
Fast forward to today, and we average around 175 adults and 65 kids, and recently merged with a dying church in town to inherit 15 faithful saints in their 70's and a 40,000 square foot building in the heart of one of Anchorage's most densely populated neighborhoods.
In our five years, we have seen rapid increase, alarming decline, moved locations three times, never had a permanent sign anywhere we met, met in the morning, met in the evenings, and fought like crazy to keep Jesus as the bullseye of everything we do.
Practically, Anchorage is like nowhere else I have ever lived. As a disclaimer, I am certain that my experience here is not indicative of every other pastor's experience. But across the years, in every context, out of every version of church: from plant to mobile to merging to merged to established, the human needs have always been the same.
OUR PIONEERING EXPERIENCE BOILS DOWN TO FOUR BROAD CATEGORIES OF PEOPLE:
First, we have long-term residents. These are folks who were either born here and came back for their career, or who have a job in the federal government or medicine that will keep them financially stable and engaged with Anchorage as "home." I'll explain further, but this is the only category of person who has any sense of permanence at all.
Even for those who call Anchorage "home," there is always the outside chance of illness in the extended family, medical needs within the immediate family that demand care that is unavailable in Alaska, or a promotion or lay-off that drives them out of the state. No one is here for long, and that has shaped the way we do ministry in our frontier context more than any other aspect of life in Alaska.
Second are those who could stay in Anchorage or leave Anchorage based on a change to their stage of life. I believe it is universally true that Jesus-loving churches celebrate when babies are born or adopted into the church family.
We have learned that the arrival of a new baby (especially if it's the first baby for a couple) serves as a wedge that will either drive that family deeper into community and decide to put down roots in Anchorage, or it will be straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back and away they will go. Add in the long-term darkness that serves to amplify postpartum depression and seasonal mood disorder and folks can go from "all-in" to "almost gone" very quickly.
New babies, new jobs, moving from kids at home to an empty nest, entering retirement, losing physical mobility due to illness or age, and the list goes on. In many contexts, the transition into a new stage of life can mean a family moves to a new house in a new part of town. In Anchorage, those changes often mean a move out of state.
Category three is military families. Anchorage is home to the largest joint military base in Alaska. Since our church merger, we are located about six miles south of one of the main gates onto that base, and as a result we are a very easy landing place for families who are in Anchorage on orders.
Add to that the fact that Anchorage is considered a foreign assignment when it comes to the military pay scale, and we meet families who have recently moved to Anchorage sight unseen on a weekly basis. We are very often one of the first churches military families try, and we have done all we can do to embrace them and not make them feel like second class citizens just because they know they will be leaving in three years or less as soon as they arrive.
Military families fall into two broad categories, and we interact with them pretty differently. Category 3A is established military families who bring with them some degree of Christian maturity. Especially couples who have achieved the rank of colonel tend to be ready to join and serve the church in some capacity relatively soon after they have become covenant members.
We have had colonels, and their families serve as deacons, Life Group leaders, and affinity ministry leaders (like men's and women's ministries). It's probably another article for another time but finding ways to tap into the gifts and hearts of folks you have 24-36 months, no matter what, is challenging.
We have had to find uniquely intentional ways of helping folks like that become known by the church so that the congregation can appoint them to an office like deacon without shortcutting the process or cheapening the office itself. For example, we ordain deacons (we follow the NT model of formal appointment and commissioning), leading to ordaining a deacon the Sunday before he and his wife moved away. We feel that the value of church offices extends beyond the boundaries of our local church and try to do what we believe to be right regardless of how much fruit those decisions bear in our immediate context.
Staying with our third category of military families, let's move onto category 3B, young military families and military newlyweds. Because the government only pays to move families who are married before formal orders are issued, we have many young couples who got married too fast so Uncle Sam would foot the bill to move them here.
This is the scenario, and it happens all the time: Private Jones and Mrs. Jones got hitched six weeks into engagement. They had to pack everything, say goodbye to mom and dad, wrap up their undergrad degrees or transfer to an online program, and they definitely didn't make robust premarital counseling a priority.
Now Mrs. Jones (barely 22 years old) is pregnant with their first child while Private Jones is on a six-month deployment. Mrs. Jones is 2500 miles from where she grew up in Dallas, Texas, and she is struggling to enjoy the harsh beauty of Alaska.
Add to that the long darkness of winter (3 hours of daylight at its darkest), the fact that the base housing she is in was built in the 1980's and has never been updated, and the total lack of comradery among new military spouses whose husbands are competing for the same promotions, and you can see how Mrs. Jones might understandably wander into the big red church building (that's us!) that she passes each day on her way to the grocery store and back.
Now put yourself in the shoes of our team at True North on any given Sunday. We welcome families with some version of that story into our weekend services every week. How do you build a loving community out of people who are only there because they are so needy that they finally caved in and tried church as a last resort?
No shame to Mrs. Jones or Private Jones, but we constantly need new Life Groups, new mature believers, new elders and deacons to meet the needs that Mrs. and Private Jones might have met by staying close to either or both of their families of origin.
You are starting to get the idea of the revolving-door-meets-giant-game-of-four-square that is a church on the frontier.
Now, let's talk about the fourth category: the drifters. Drifters come from many walks of life. Some of them are Alaska Natives who shamed their family of origin and were shunned from their village. This happens all the time, and in Alaska all roads lead to Rome (or, in this case, Anchorage). Some drifters are the descendants of the hippie movement who are in Alaska to commune with nature, or to find themselves, or to lose themselves, or so they can live in their converted sprinter van and smoke weed.
Some drifters are theological nomads. Because Anchorage barely has its own dominant culture, and because high paying work brings people to town from all over the world, True North is home to all kinds of Christians. These past five years, we have baptized people who previously identified as Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Fundamental, Animist, "Nothing,” "Something,” and even, at times, "Everything." Thankfully, they all identify as followers of Jesus now.
Building a church that is unified and functions as a body out of all those different and disparate backgrounds and perspectives is tough. I thought I had at least heard of most Protestant denominations and traditions when I was in seminary in Louisville, but I have had to do more research than you would believe into the minute distinctions between regional variants of the same denomination.
Thankfully, regardless of where the drifters come from, once they find Jesus, they drift no more. And again, the blessing of life in Christ, like a new military assignment for the military families or a new baby for the long-term residents, can be a cause to dig deeper and jump in with our local church, or it can be the reason they leave the state, and we never hear from them again.
How do you dump long term residents, stage of lifers, two distinct types of military families, and drifters into the same bucket and achieve anything close to unity? How can all those people serve together, share their lives, discover who they are in Christ, and make a difference among the lost and marginalized in Anchorage?
That has been the neon-lit question blinking in my mind since the beginning of 2019. And hear me say that any progress that we have made toward that end has more often been despite our bright ideas and big plans. But I can say that, as God has put our team on His back and carried us, we have learned a thing or two about pioneering ministry in a frontier context.
If you will allow me a little bit more of your time, I would like to share three principles that frontier ministry demands for local church flourishing. I will finish this article with an appeal to you, your churches, and those who seek your guidance in plotting their own ministry trajectories.
1. CYCLICAL DISCIPLESHIP
True North Church will never have a five- or ten-year discipleship process. We experience membership turnover of at least 30% annually, and rarely are people leaving because they are upset or disagree with the church's theological positions. If we are going to take the time to plan, build, and execute a ministry then it must be central to our vision. We are always welcoming new people who will immediately become a meaningful part of our membership, while regularly saying goodbye to people whom we not only love but have grown to rely on.
I don't know who your favorite college football team is, but I'm sure at some point in the last two years you have lost a great player to the transfer portal. As frustrating as that can be as a teammate, imagine if your deacons, elders, Sunday School teachers, and service team leaders were entering the transfer portal four times a year.
You can fight it and die, or you can embrace it and decide to set up rhythms and cycles that work well in your context. Did you preach a really good series on the doctrine of the Image of God three years ago? Dust it off, rework the illustrations, and preach it again! You are preaching to 80% people who weren't here then, and the other 20% might have been away on a short-term assignment, out of state visiting family, or hanging in Hawaii for a week to get some much needed sunshine.
I have heard it said that most communicators under communicate by a power of 10. Reteach that class that was so good 18 months ago. Take another group of men through that book that was so transformative last year. Bring the same speaker in for the women's conference. In many contexts, your ministry content and presentation constantly change because the people are the same. In a frontier context, find out what works, and get really, really good at it. Then use it again and again. The Gospel hasn't changed, who says your programming has to either?
And all the time you save will allow you to build meaningful relationships quickly and personally with the constant influx of new faces and to pour the hours needed into always bringing on new elders and deacons. This may be unpopular where you live, but it has been one of the keys to vibrancy at True North.
2. CHAOS AS CATALYST
On the frontier, things that might be inconvenient elsewhere can become dramatic and serious fast. The pressure on marriages is especially fierce here because of the added stress of mental illness related to the cold, dark, and isolation. Add to that a very real culture of abuse among many Alaska Native communities, the stress of combat service in the military world, and the fact that a four-hour flight to Seattle gets you halfway to Anchorage, and relational cracks become deep faults in record time.
In a given week, it is normal for me to meet with a new believer about baptism, meet with a couple facing crisis, welcome a new baby into one of our church families, deal with the death of a member in our community from alcohol poisoning or a hiking or machinery accident, spend time with skeptics who are finally far enough away from the Bible belt to safely question their nominal faith, and tell a pastor from our association farewell because his church has cannibalized his family.
What you do with the lemons of frontier ministry starts with your understanding of God's sovereignty. Chaos happens here at a much higher rate than it ever did in Kentucky or Texas, my two previous ministry contexts. Like a wave breaking on the beach of your life, you can be swamped by the wave and struggle just to survive the chaos. Or you can ride the wave and allow all the sacred cows of your personal ministry preferences to be washed away.
True North is constantly changing and iterating. We experiment with new service times, new locations, new orders of service, high church style liturgy, low church style fellowship, outreach, discipleship, and the list goes on.
When a tree is tossed by storm winds, the only way it won't break is if it can bend with the wind. Stay rooted in the Gospel, and flex absolutely everywhere else you can. If you can see chaos as a catalyst, you will find that out of the wreckage and the adaptations you make that allow you to flex and survive, you will occasionally stumble across a solid gold idea that you would have never come across if you had faced chaos with rigidity.
3. ECCLESIOLOGICAL CLARITY
The elders of True North Church are as good at theological triage as any lay-led group I have ever known. We don't have time or opportunity to go very far into the theological weeds off the beaten path of Orthodoxy. Because of the diverse faith backgrounds of our members, we have to be abundantly clear about what is central to our understanding of the local church and allow unity in diversity on secondary and tertiary issues.
Now, before you accuse us of not really being Baptists, we still function with an elder-led and congregationally-ruled polity. Out of that shared responsibility to make the most important church decisions together, much theological and ecclesiological unity has emerged. It turns out that practice is as important as theory in local church life.
We stand with clarity on a handful of doctrinal distinctives: Eldership reserved for biblically qualified men, the Diaconate open to both biblically qualified men and women, live expositional preaching, congregational rule, heavy emphasis on small groups, and creative outreach that fits our immediate context (like weekly free women's exercise classes - taught by one of our female deacons who is a certified trainer - a huge success!).
What we don't have is time or space to fight about the specifics of eschatology (pre-, post- or a-), the ordo salutis, whether communion is best served open or closed, politics, cultural issues, or how many minutes it took God to make the Earth (for example).
Follow the New Testament's model: constitute, agree to a covenant, appoint elders, appoint deacons, welcome members, administer baptism and communion to those who have surrendered their lives to Jesus, preach the whole Bible, share the Gospel, love on the poor and hurting, protect those who cannot protect themselves, get your members in groups built around the Bible, and leave all the other fights to the discernment bloggers, podcasters, and Twitter theobros. You have beloved saints to send off in Jesus’ name, and you have new folks to meet, and love, and shepherd.
Be clear about what matters. Model unity among your elders, even when you disagree on something tertiary. Refuse to be baited or lured into the online theological debate of the week. Be willing to frustrate prospective members who want their pastor to be a warrior-king.
You lead from the bottom, from the back of the flock. You go the way of Jesus, and you insist that that is the only way into life.
Cyclical discipleship. Chaos as catalyst. Ecclesiological clarity. These are very different guiding principles from those used by established churches in the contiguous United States. Maybe as you have been reading, you have started to form a new vision in your imagination about what it might mean to help care for a local church. Maybe your pulse quickened, or your face flushed as a new spark of inspiration caught in your spirit. Or maybe someone's face came who has the rugged streak of a pioneering ministry leader.
Will you act on that new vision? Will you allow that spark to catch fire? Will you call that man or woman who came to mind and share this article with them?
Brothers and sisters, we need your help. Since 2014, Alaska has shrunk from 123 local Baptist churches to 83. Those churches that persist today are losing ground, and many are functionally obsolete with dwindling membership and under equipped pastors (if they have a pastor at all). We need men and women who are willing to help plant, replant, revive, and strengthen local churches who have lost their way and surrendered themselves to the nostalgia of "how things used to be."
True North Church is prepared to host and train planting residents in partnership with the Alaska Baptist Resource Network, the Send Network, and the Pillar Network. Anchorage alone needs at least six new efforts in order to reach the various neighborhoods of the city with the Gospel.
Are you willing to get outside of the established church box? Can you ride the wave of chaos with joy as Jesus drowns your sacred cows and carries you to new ways of expanding the Kingdom of God? Are you willing to stand your ground on a few things to be charitable and open to believers and drifters from all walks of life?
Pray for us. Pray with us. Come yourselves, and if you can't come then send us your best and brightest. Ministry on the frontier is tough, but the fields (and the snow-capped mountains) are white for the harvest.