The 109 congregations
of Heartland Presbytery are the spiritual homes for 24,656 Presbyterians.
These churches welcome new congregations that are in union with
other denominations. Kaw Prairie Community Church of Lenexa,
Kansas, was received by Heartland Presbytery as a union church
with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in November
2006.
At its start in 2004 with forty Lutherans in an elementary
school, evangelist Dan McKnight and others spent the summer
knocking on doors and marching with the worship band in area
parades. Meanwhile, Central States Synod of the ELCA and Heartland
Presbytery drafted a constitution and agreed to locate the church’s
facilities on land the presbytery owned. By spring 2007, 250
were worshiping each week, and the church had conducted a capital
campaign to build a facility.
With a “casual-on-the-outside, serious-on-the-inside”
attitude, Kaw Prairie lowers the barriers for seekers looking
for Jesus while raising the bar for disciples serving him.
One of the church’s primary outreach tools is a Christmas
Eve Family Barn service. In 2004, members found a barn they
could use and turned Christmas Eve into an outreach event. With
an average attendance at worship of eighty a week, they planned
for about one hundred at the barn. As it turned out, 325 people—and
the Kansas City NBC affiliate—showed up. It was too crowded
to have Communion or even to take an offering! Each year attendance
has doubled, reaching 1,300 over four services in 2006. As with
all Kaw Prairie ministries, it’s lots of work, but the
goal—changing lives with Jesus’ love—is worth
it. |
