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Church gives birth to “150-pound baby”

by Jarred Opatz
Ashland Times-Gazette Special Projects Editor

Don Belsterling
Five Stones
Community Church

Pastor Arden Gilmer said it was like a mother giving birth to a daughter. That birth has resulted in a 150-pound baby, Pastor Don Belsterling said.

Park Street Brethren Church gave birth to Five Stones Community Church when it planted the new church about four months ago in Ashland [Ohio].

“We’re such a weird church plant,” said Belsterling, lead pastor at Five Stones. “We have so many people, but we haven’t publicly said anything because we’re trying to establish a strong foundation.

“It’s like that 150-pound baby—you have to be mature really fast,” added Belsterling, former associate pastor at Ashland’s Park Street Brethren Church where Gilmer is senior pastor.

Belsterling said Five Stones is planning some kind of public announcement and invitation to the Ashland community in August or September.

Until then, Belsterling said people are welcome to start coming to the contemporary church’s 10:30 a.m. Sunday service at the Ashland University Chapel.

Fast growth

And people have been coming by the hundreds without any public mailings, advertising, marketing, etc., said Belsterling, who added there are about 400 or 500 people involved with the church and about 300 or 400 who attend regularly.

“We believe we have a message that will change people’s lives and we want people to grow closer to Christ and we think we can help them to do that,” Belsterling said. “So the more the merrier. It’s not the idea that we want numbers. We want changed lives.”

With use of the Ashland University chapel, the new church is able to use a relatively new concept—ancient-future worship, Belsterling said.

“Our church is a great example of ancient-future worship, which is a fairly new rage,” Belsterling said. “We’re in an incredibly beautiful and traditional church setting, but I still preach in a T-shirt and jeans. We’ve got several great bands, and there’s a lot of celebration and joy.

“We’re more concerned with presenting our best before the Lord in our hearts rather than on our sleeves,” he added. “We want to be real and deep.”

Independent church now

Arden Gilmer
Park Street
Brethren Church

Because the facilities were having trouble handling Park Street Brethren Church’s growth, particularly with the church’s contemporary service, The Crossing, Five Stones Community Church was born.

Like a child who has left home, Five Stones now lives independently of its parent church and is self-sufficient. Park Street paid through the end of 2003 the salaries of Belsterling and Tim Bright, who took his job as youth pastor at Park Street to Five Stones, as well as provided the new church with some money to get started.

“We nurtured them and gave them a womb to develop in,” said Gilmer, who explained to the congregation the plant was all about their mission to expand the kingdom of God. “When you give birth that’s exciting. It’s a sign of growth.

“People donated a significant amount of money to the daughter church,” he added.

In its history, Park Street Brethren has planted other churches, but nothing as big as Five Stones, Gilmer said. He added the church hopes to plant more in the future, maybe as soon as four or five years. “We don’t want the mother to go into post-natal depression,” Gilmer said.

Many inspire the growth

Three main groups of people came together to bring Five Stones to life—a core group from Park Street, especially from The Crossing service; a solid group from University Church, an earlier church plant by Park Street that was having Sunday services in the AU Chapel but was having declining numbers; and many new people, mainly young couples and AU college students, Belsterling said.

In addition to having services at the AU Chapel, Five Stones offers many small groups for prayer and ministry.

Besides Bright, Belsterling said the church has five other staff members who are gifted, hard-working leaders with a great deal of experience and passion for Jesus.

On Claremont Avenue next to the post office, Five Stones has a ministry center in a former television repair building for staff meetings and small groups.

“We are being blessed beyond belief,” Belsterling said. “Ashland University has really been generous and kind to us. Ed Wagner, our landlord at the ministry center, is the best landlord in town and the people of our church are true servant leaders.”

Good partnership

AU has been just as happy with the arrangement, said Dr. Dan Lawson, dean of religious life at AU who is acting as the liaison between the university and the new church. Lawson said Five Stones gives AU students the type of church service that appeals to college students. He estimated about 80 to 100 AU students have been attending Five Stones. “I understand there’s a lot of teen-agers who attend, too,” Lawson said.

More than half the people who have been attending Five Stones are college-age or younger, said Belsterling, who added many young families have been attending with about 150 children and youth regularly in attendance.

“We are a very family-oriented church,” Belsterling said.

Giving the church its name

After discussing and praying about a name for their 150-pound baby, Belsterling said the church’s leadership came up with Five Stones because it’s something people can identify with since the story of David and Goliath is so well-known. In the Bible story, David slays the giant
Goliath with just a sling and five smooth stones.

With God’s help through a nurturing attitude, Belsterling said Five Stones hopes to help people become victorious over the giants in their lives they are struggling with, such as alcoholism and troubled marriages.

And he said he believes God will help guide this “150-pound baby” of theirs to great victories through Him. “We’re trying to keep up with God,” Belsterling said. “His blessings are way ahead of us. We’re just trying to keep up with his blessings.”

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Jarred Opatz can be reached at 419-281-0581, ext. 256, or by e-mail at jopatz@times-gazette.com, regarding this story and other story ideas.