Serving Your Pastors

The most visible people in any church are the pastors. We don't mean the most important people, but due to the nature of their calling and role, their impact is usually greater than that of any other single person! They are a major voice in creating vision and setting direction and are expected to have a sense of what is happening throughout the entire local church body.

As part of our committment to serving your pastors, we hold a variety of retreats to strenghten them. Each fall we hold two for all of our pastors and their spouses. Each spring we also have affinity retreats for our senior and solo pastors based on the size of the church and staff they serve. This allows them time for a brief retreat to pray, study, and discuss leadership with others who serve in similar situations. They come away supported and refreshed. Many have said that these retreats are among the most helpful days of the year for their ministry. Additionally, we sponsor various retreats for associate staff pastors throughout the year.

We encourage you to have any of your staff pastors contact the district office to find out how to get involved.

Discover the Central District

Someone recently said to me, "Your district seems to be passionate about starting churches, helping churches and their pastors, and helping them reach your growing ethnic population."

As a first impression of our ministry, that's accurate. We are committed to planting new churches, helping our churches and pastors have healthy ministries, and becoming a movement that includes all peoples. But, as a support organization for churches in Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and SE South Dakota, our goal is to provide even more than just that first impression.

As you explore our ministry and discover more about us, you'll find multiple levels of solid support for your church. Among our excellent resources, we have a first class camping and retreat ministry, consultants for discipleship and challenging church situations, a great student ministry team, a ministry-expansion loan fund, a women’s ministry leadership team, a building consultant, and a ministry for pastors' wives. I encourage you to engage with our great team of highly motivated people, all eager to help you.

—Superintendent Cal Swan

Solid Rock Builders

"Building our district one church at a time."

At some point while working through the exciting process of starting and establishing a new church, many congregations sense the need for a permanent home. To support and facilitate this step, we've created Solid Rock Builders, one of the district's newest ministries.

Gary Shaw leads a group of volunteers that is dedicated to helping young and growing churches with a first building or first remodeling plan for an existing structure. A Solid Rock team member is available to assist with each stage of the project—from the initial building discussion through design work, construction phases, and the final wrap-up.

As a result of our commitment to the multiplication of healthy churches, we're regularly launching new church plants. In fact, we've grown from 80 to 130 churches in just the last decade! Many of these congregations will be able to build a much better facility with the help of our dedicated Central District volunteers.

Gary Shaw is your first contact to see how you can become involved as a volunteer or for questions as to how your church can make use of this ministry.

Solid Rock is committed to helping young churches remain committed to their mission.