God-Sized Vision for Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Utter Most Parts of the World

As Christian Life Center's former pastor, Stan Tharp, was flying home from a missions trip to Africa, he recalls sensing the Lord giving him, what he describes as, a “God-sized vision.”

Taking the missions model found in Acts 1:8, Tharp began to sketch out a new church strategy that would impact Christian Life Center (CLC) and local, domestic, and global evangelism efforts.

Today, CLC defines these four strategic areas, based off the New Testament scripture, as Jerusalem — CLC’s church ministry, Judea — a local missions strategy, Samaria — a domestic missions strategy, and Utter Most Parts — a global missions strategy.

Now in, what the staff call the “3.0 version,” the church is breaking giving and volunteer hour records year after year.

In 2023, CLC reports giving over $3 million to support the work of the Church around the globe. Overseeing these outreach efforts is Jordan Moore, the church’s outreach director.

Moore describes his position as a job in which he gets to “work really hard to give away large amounts of money.”

Tharp states that the entire God-sized vision was designed to enable the church to use their spiritual muscles for more than show.

“Spiritual muscles of the church aren’t for posing,” he says. “We don’t have big muscles in the church to flex, God gives them to us to work; they’re to go do work.”

And the work is vast.

“We define Jerusalem as where someone attends, connects, and serves. Jerusalem is the local church and what we invest into our own ministry and congregation,” Moore says.

According to Tharp, the mission for this part of the strategy is to continue to be salt and light.

Judea, the local area missions strategy, is what Tharp defines as “church multiplication.”

Christian Life Center is so passionate about seeing a healthy, local church in every community that it has decided to forego becoming a multi-site church and, instead, designate funds each year to help support church planters get off the ground.

“We want to support these church planters with real resources, and we were so honored to help get four churches planted in 2023,” says Moore.

Another way the church invests in the community is through regular service projects. Last year, the church took on 142 unique projects, including its city-serve day which it calls Love Dayton.

To serve those just outside of the church’s immediate reach, what it refers to as “Samaria,” Moore says that CLC intentionally invests in other local churches who are in need of support to continue bringing Christ to their own communities.

Last year, they were able to assist New Lebanon Assembly of God after their basement started taking on water.

“This church is in an area of great need of a strong local church,” says Moore, “and they really need a loving, Pentecostal church in the area so we felt led to invest in them.”

New Lebanon said of CLC, “This church is pouring not only into the local community but around the world with their God-Sized Vision.”

When another small church in the area needed a new roof in order to keep operating, CLC was quick to offer assistance.

After learning of the need, CLC gifted them the funds for a new roof and committed to helping support them so they could keep their doors open.

“We want to share our resources and efforts so that, in collaboration, we can see the Kingdom advanced to every neighborhood,” Moore states.

As for the Utter Most Parts, Christian Life Center has a burden and a passion for global missions. Seeing missions efforts increase and advance around the world is something Moore says is at the top of the church’s priorities. The goal is to “not let the sun go down on a place that they are not helping to bring the gospel.”

One unique project the people of CLC have dedicated themselves to is a project they call ICBC (In Community, By Community). This project, based in the small, landlocked country of Eswatini, Africa, is bringing hope to one of the world’s most hopeless places. Moore states that it does not take long for someone who starts attending CLC to hear about Eswatini and the work being done in the country.

Started in 2008, the ICBC mission builds churches and digs wells in several communities each year. But the team also ensures stability for each church planted. “We don’t just build and leave,” says Moore. “We have indigenous pastors and partners on the ground. Each church has a preschool, a sustainability project, and a well.”

So far, CLC has helped build 39 churches, 37 of which are self-sufficient, and wells, with a goal to increase that number to 60 by the year 2030. Sixty is the number that the church feels is a number of “safety.” When met, this goal will ensure that there is a church, a preschool, and a well within walking distance to every child in the country.

Moore reports that the life expectancy in Eswatini is very low and most homes are child-led, meaning a child, whose average age is 11 years old, is raising his or her siblings. To help ease the large burden on these young head-of-households, CLC also packs and ships rice meals to the country each year. Last year, the congregation’s volunteers, which numbered 1,840, packed 700,000 individual meals for the country.

“The cool thing is, over the last four years, we have started to see the life expectancy of the people of Eswatini increase,” Moore says, a claim backed up by the World Health Organization.

Moore says that the people of Christian Life Center are do-ers, not just dreamers. One attendee shared that she takes personal pride in what God is enabling the church to do for the Kingdom economy.

“Through the generosity of the church, we are seeing the forces of darkness pushed back. This is something we celebrate at every turn,” says Moore.