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Pastor promotes taking the next step

By: Clint Cooper
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Mark Flynn

For the Rev. Mark Flynn, pastoring a megachurch is somewhat akin to connecting the dots.

The Christ United Methodist Church shepherd said part of his job is to help the church’s 3,500 members take the next step in their faith walk.

“Every individual is in a different place in their spiritual journey,” Mr. Flynn said.

Staff Photo by Patrick Smith -- Christ United Methodist Church pastor Mark Flynn stands in the sanctuary of his church, where about 1,700 people attend services each week.

Christ UMC is one of only a few megachurches in the Chattanooga area.

A megachurch, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, is a church with a consistent weekly attendance of 2,000 or more people. Other organizations classify a megachurch as one with more than 3,000 members.

Mr. Flynn, 44, was appointed to Christ UMC in 2006 after leading a church one-fourth as large for the previous eight years.

The biggest change, he said, is staff structure. At smaller churches, he said, he was heavily involved in hospital visitation, music preparation, counseling, preaching and teaching. At a larger church, staff handles some of those areas.

“My primary gifts are preaching and teaching,” he said. “I’m able to focus on those things.”

Cathy Turner, director of Christian education for Christ UMC, said while the church has grown in membership since Mr. Flynn arrived, it has more significantly grown within.

“Mark, from the first Sunday he was here, preached discipleship,” she said. “We have to figure out where we are (individually) and what’s the next step. That has come through so clearly.”

Mr. Flynn said there are plusses and minuses to megachurches.

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A megachurch can offer a variety of opportunities in which people can find their place of service and a variety of worship styles in which music and worship are tailored to different tastes, he said.

On the other hand, it’s harder for everyone to know each other as they might like in a larger church, Mr. Flynn said. And if individuals don’t take the initiative, they can become lost in a church with so many people.

“You can disappear,” he said. “You can slip through the cracks.”

Mr. Flynn said it is a danger for megachurches to try to rest on their laurels.

“It goes back to that constant challenge of pushing everybody individually and collectively to take that next step, to really focus on the journey image of spiritual growth.” he said. “There is always a next step. You never arrive at the place where you’ve grown enough.”

Christ UMC, he said, had taken in 54 new members since the first of the year, half of them on profession of faith.

“The growth means you’re constantly infused with new people,” Mr. Flynn said. “So you’re constantly having to re-educate, reteach your congregation basics, which is a really positive thing because it means you can’t really get away from those basic truths, basic ideas. ... You’re constantly being pushed to describe ‘Why does this matter?,’ ‘How does this work?’”

Ms. Turner said he also challenges the staff by having them study a book about the purpose and vision of a church. In turn, she said, he will often ask if there are things the church is doing that need to be changed and what the purpose is in doing certain things.

“He’s not reluctant to meet with small groups of teachers or leaders and hear their voices,” she said, “and he responds.”

Growth also fosters crowded facilities and the need for new buildings, Mr. Flynn said.

“We feel the pressure of needing more space,” he said. “We have a ton of children.”

By fall, Mr. Flynn said, the congregation will decide how they will take the next step on growth plans. These may include construction of a multipurpose worship space, youth ministry space and classroom space.

The Rev. J. David Tabor, senior pastor of Jones Memorial UMC, once selected Mr. Flynn to be part of a ministry convocation he was helping staff in the Oak Ridge area and today shares in a weekly lunch with him.

The Christ UMC pastor was then pastoring a much smaller church.

“He is a good person,” Dr. Tabor said. “He is always looking at how he could go and serve God and at how he could serve the church. He is doing a great job.”

Mr. Flynn, a native of Knoxville and a graduate of the University of Tennessee and Duke Divinity School, said he couldn’t do his job at the church if his ordained United Methodist minister wife, Annette, weren’t a full-time mother to their children, Anna, 16, and Mary, 13.

(She takes) very seriously the raising of our children as her primary ministry right now,” he said. “It’s only because she is in that ministry that I’m in this one. Raising children has got to be a priority.”