Venture Church Network, otherwise known as Conservative Baptists of America, is comprised of approximately 1,000 conservative Baptist churches throughout the United States. Conservative Baptists of America was started in 1947 as a missionary organization. It was founded to support missionaries who believed in the scriptures as gospel. Their mission is to plant churches and send missionaries all over the world. While the United States has 1,000 of those churches, they have 4-5 times that number worldwide, especially in Africa and East Asia.
James Gleason joined the Pacific Northwest Region of Venture Church Network as the Regional Executive Director four years ago. Prior to joining, he was a full-time pastor of his local church, which he joined thirty years ago. He started out as a Youth Pastor and became a Senior Pastor and held that position for 24 years. During that time, his church planted five more churches, and he started coaching pastors and coming alongside church leaders. When Venture Church Network started looking for a new Executive Director, they wanted someone with pastoral/coaching experience and asked James to fill the role. His first day at Venture Church Network was the day that COVID-19 led to shutting down his state. As a result, his first two years were spent scrambling to help churches figure out what was up and what was down and navigating through the new reality that COVID-19 created.
At Venture Church Network, MissionInsite from ACS Technologies is an essential tool for gathering demographic information on the areas surrounding the churches that comprise the network. When he first started as Senior Pastor, he had to gather demographic information manually.
“I did the hard work of trying to assemble as much demographic data as possible through radio stations and newspapers. I had to figure out what our community looked like by talking to people. That was really hard work, and it was only partial information.”
– James, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Region of Venture Church Network
In 2007, the church changed locations, and he needed to start over by collecting demographic information about the new area. He discovered MissionInsite reports that would pull the information for him and give him a more complete look at his new area. Then, about eight years later, the landscape of his area radically changed because Intel had many of its computer chip plants in the area. As a result, the community’s makeup included many people from Asia, Costa Rica, and the Middle East, and new data was needed to reflect the new people, so he purchased another MissionInsite report. Four and a half years ago, he realized that it would be useful to pull that report anytime globally, instead of paying for it each time and purchased MissionInsite, allowing him to pull reports anytime and help multiple churches he works with.
“I’m coaching eight pastors on revitalization. One of the things we discussed last month was engaging and exegeting your culture. I did a MissionInsite Executive Report on every one of the churches and walked each pastor through it for an hour. Here’s what your demographics look like, here are some of the things you should be thinking about, and here are the questions you should be asking.”
– James, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest
The most significant impact of walking the pastors through the MissionInsite Executive Report, a demographic study of the community within a one-mile radius of the church, was seeing the “Aha” moments. They had no idea who their community was made up of and had no idea the church no longer reflected the community’s makeup because 50 years ago, everyone looked like them.
“Get your leaders and say this is who lives here by percentages. What do you think about that? It’s always the moment of fear. And I say, where do you fit? Are you in one of these groups? If not, go right to your group. And then let’s see. Do you fit the community anymore? Because the church has to reflect the community to reach the community. Those are the biggest things, the “Aha” moments that using MissionInsite gives us.”
– James, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest
James says that you need to understand the community, especially church planters. They need to know their community even more than the long-standing churches because those are the people they will be reaching out to.
MissionInsite allows you to have a complete picture of your community, providing you with the who, what, and where that helps ensure your ministries are making the most impact and that your church is relevant in the changing community landscape.
To learn more about Venture Church Network, Click Here
To learn more about MissionInsite from ACS Technologies, Click Here
Stacey Smith
Stacey joined the ACST team in 1998 in the support department and joined the marketing team in 2021 as an Associate Marketing Coordinator. Today she runs the ACST Ministry Champions program, which involves all references, reviews, and testimonials for all of our products and services. When she isn’t at work, she is spending time with her husband, two teenage daughters and furbaby Copper.
