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Valley Church does not have the word Methodist in its title, but digging deeper, people might just see the shadow of John Wesley outlining lead pastor Matt Bistayi.
Focused on creating a new worship community centered on the motto, “For God. For People. For Change.” the 38-year old is pounding the pavement in the Grand Rapids area to fester authentic Godly relationships, regardless of a person’s background or political stance.
Located just minutes from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, in the same building as Byron Bank, Bistayi and his wife Shellie seem to be right on the money with the principles they are using as they live out what Matt calls his “God dream.”
Opening the door of possibilities
When the Bistayi’s moved from Bronson, Mich. in July 2009, where Matt was a lead pastor, it seemed like a natural progression.
“This was natural, this was logical, it was a ‘God thing.’ That’s why it’s so hard for me to talk about, because how can you put something like that into words?” he said. “Sometimes I think my words mess it all up.”
His words have been the genesis of this new church as well though.
He started by creating what he calls his “mobile office” at Biggby Coffee, where he would pass out business cards and let locals know a new church was in town.
What he found out is the Grand Rapids area is quite “churched”, but many people are looking for new faith adventures and ideas.
One of the keys to getting a new church started on the right foot, in Bistayi’s opinion, is identifying a core group of people with leadership potential.
“You can tell early on who is committed and here for the right reasons…and you know, you can tell pretty early on who are the fruits and who are the nuts,” he said. “New churches attract different personalities and often they attract healthy people and unhealthy people. There’s nothing wrong with that, you just have to be aware of it.”
Bistayi said potential leaders are usually the ones excited about “getting grubby with ministry” and not worried about the so-called politics of the church.
“We can think differently; yeah you can be Republican, I can be Democrat or I can be Democrat, you can be Repbulican, Liberal or Conservative — let’s meet in the middle and just love each other,” he said.
Leading through encouraging others
Bistayi is not waiting to reach what is often referred to as the “magical number” of regular attendees (which is 120-150 in an area like Allendale, according to the UMC) to start making outreach a staple of the church.
Through what Valley Church has dubbed “house churches”, people are already connecting on a whole new level.
There are four groups of 10-12 people who meet regularly at someone’s house for a meal and discussion related to the Sunday messages. Bistayi also encourages them to do at least one outreach project a month together.
While the Grand Rapids area is full of blue-collar working folks there are plenty of reduced lunches being provided and there is a homeless population.
Bistayi said by fall he hopes Valley can implement some programs for lower income individuals and meet people’s needs the way Christ meets his followers.
“We’ve done a lot of outreach activities where we break up into groups and do things at a specific time,” he said. “One (time earlier this month we met on a Saturday) and one group gave away free donuts and fruit in downtown Grand Rapids, another group went to a nursing home and played board games and read to residents, and another group made a whole bunch of cookies and delivered them to like the fire fighters and campus security and stuff like that.”
By Bistayi’s estimation, more events and missions will naturally take place if people heed the four main initiatives of Valley.
“We have four covenants we kind of expect people to be living into and we encourage the community to live into. They are simply: being devoted to a daily time with God, being devoted in worship, being devoted in a ‘house church’ in community with others, and being devoted to making a difference and giving. You read some early Wesley, there you go right there — that’s some pretty Methodist ideas.”
Never settling
Plenty of progress is being made at Valley, where 80 adults and 30 children are regularly attending Sunday worship, and 115 people showed up for Easter.
But Bistayi doesn’t want this new congregation to get so comfortable with itself early on that it quits looking outside the walls of the church.
“Don’t settle. Healthy churches and healthy leaders always ask ‘Who else can we share God’s love with?’” Bistayi said. “Existing churches have boundaries and limits, new churches tend not to right from the get go — the trick is keeping it that way.”
One guy helping Bistayi keep things fresh is worship leader Darin VanderMolen.
Through some uncanny connections someone suggested Bistayi sit down with VanderMolen, who has seven years experience as a worship leader/music director, but had not been on board with a church for about a year.
After a breakfast meeting turned into a three-hour conversation VanderMolen essentially became Bistayi’s go-to guy. And it wasn’t because he necessarily fit a certain mold or could play a guitar riff that is capable of blowing somebody’s mind – it was because Bistayi saw the potential of someone who veritably wanted to be a servant of Christ with no limits attached.
“He’s just crazy, he’s a goof ball. I like crazy, goofball people who are in ministry. He’s willing to take risks, he’s totally genuine and authentic — Darin is Darin, period,” he said. “It was more vital for me to find somebody who was a genuine spiritual personality than it was to find a rock star. But Darren is a rock star because he is a genuine spiritual person if that makes sense.”
With the wheels turning and the head count growing, Bistayi just smiles at the fact he’s leading a 21st century church start with his parent’s sound advice in one pocket and the guidance of his wife, who is a full-time nursing student, in the other.
He jokes that he’ll give it his all until the day “the money dries up”, in regards to the seed money of the new church, but he’s extremely serious about just letting God take him for the ride.
“I think (I’ve) had two experiences. One is like wow, thank you God….and the other is wow, this is hard God, what do I do next?” he said. “It’s about figuring out how to keep the momentum going and for me that’s sometimes the biggest challenge
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