LifeWay Church honored Patty and I this summer for our 40 years of history here. It has inspired me to write out some meaningful moments and people over these four decades. Today I write part 7.
Don Turner and the “Merger” that became LifeWay Church:
It’s been more than two decades now, but for the most of the early 2000’s here in our church people would often ask about the merger of churches that occurred in the year 2003. Yes, its true that I was the Church Planting Pastor of the church we called “Palisades” beginning in 1984, and Don Turner was the Church Planting Pastor of the church called “Calvary” that was launched in 1991. Then in the year 2003 we brought these congregations together to form the “LifeWay Church” that we know today. That story of Calvary’s launch and the 1990’s are an amazing story and Don needs to write this out as well. Don and others launched Calvary in a cabana apartment space in 1991 and it is a great story of Kingdom work and church planting in our city. Don was a fellow pastor in town, and I had great respect for him and Calvary but I did not know this church that well. This all changed in early 2002. Calvary Community Church had grown quite a bit and had purchased property in Federal Way and was looking to find a location to put a permanent facility for church use. It is a long and drawn out story but the current result of this property story is the 8.5 acres of land on the corner of 356th and 1st Ave south that we currently own today.
But it was a merger of Calvary and Palisades and my relationship with Don Turner that led to this and many other critical things we do today.
In the early 2000’s we at Palisades Church had pretty much established ourselves as a congregation with a building, and we were just beginning to dive into international work in Russia with Camp Yolochka and Bryansk (last week’s article). But there was a sense of unsettledness that I personally was feeling. The question I kept coming up with was “what does God really want out of us right here in our own town?” I had known Don Turner somewhat through the normal interaction of local pastors and considered him a friend and I had grown in respect for him and the ministry he led, but I really did not know him well. Out of the blue one day I got a phone call from Don and he asked if we could get together for a coffee visit. When we met that day for a multiple hour visit at the Starbucks Coffee shop near Lakota Middle School, he proceeded to ask me if we at Palisades were entrenched in the idea of remaining the same or were we ready after now 19 years of Palisades ministry to consider what else God would be able to do with us and through us. I was (and still am) always interested in next steps where God might lead us. Don approached the conversation from the standpoint that the core theological stance of our churches lined up well. Our basic approach to ministry lined up well. And our desire to reach the city lined up well. Our beginning heart for international mission work lined up well (Palisades was beginning a partnership focus in Russia and Calvary at the same time was beginning a partnership focus in SE Asia with an unreached people group). Would we consider a merger of the two congregations of Calvary and Palisades ‘for the only cause that mattered.’ I was totally intrigued by the idea. This would not be a merger out of desperation or survival, it would be a merger for the sake of mission. As part of this plan Calvary Church had begun the purchase the property on 356th street, with the opportunity to expand this and the plan to build a new church building there. Again, this property story is long and quite involved and actually pretty miraculous (Rik Budd from our church really needs to write this story down as he was involved and miraculous at every step!!). But we brought these two congregations together in the spring of 2003. We met at Decatur High School for most of our worship services for a couple of years. We had a plan to build a building on 356th which has obviously not happened (at least not yet — the story is not over!)
Over a 40-year period of time there have been obviously some lows and highs – some painful times and some glorious times. But I will tell you that my 13 years that I have served side by side with Don Turner have been some of the most enjoyable years in ministry. When churches who have been through mergers talk about those experiences most of them will say it became difficult if not disastrous mostly because of personal conflict with the leadership involved. This was never true in my relationship with Don. Every Tuesday morning at 7am he I would meet at a coffee shop NOT just for planning and problem solving, although there was plenty of that. But we discussed, enjoyed, shared ideas, and just talked in a way that brought unity to the church body. He and I are two different personalities and even had some different approaches to some parts of the ministry. But I feel it was very complimentary and we shared a same passion of wanting God to use us in any way that God chose. Very unselfishly. Very open handed. He and I had an agreement early on that neither one of us could leave the church and take another job unless it was on the mission field somehow. Don and I came together as partner Pastors until he called to step down as Pastor here at LifeWay in 2016 and he begin working on the mission field. When he left this official role as Sr Pastor at LifeWay he became the leader of a missions organization that has reshaped everything that we do in missions around the world for our church. He continues to lead the organization of Global Focus which helps churches in the USA and other parts of the world mobilize for the mission field around the world. I will forever be grateful to God for Don and his personal friendship to me, but his tremendous leadership in the life of Calvary/Palisades/LifeWay.
