RE:GEN

Q&A With John Alwood from Infusion Church

Question: When did Infusion launch and what has been the result?
We launched Infusion on the 11th of January and the results have been good. In all of my 11 years of church planting, I can say that this is probably the most “solid feeling” launch I’ve had. Of course, it is difficult to gage off only 4 weeks, but we’ve had great attendance, lots of fun activities, and a real sense of community is already building. Several people have come to Christ, and we’re excited to have our first baptism in a month. The church has also taken shape multi-ethnically. We really didn’t do anything intentional to make this happen. We just prayed for God to make it that way, and in his grace, he did.

Question: What do you perceive as the greatest contribution that Infusion will make to the city of Escondido?
Escondido is an interesting city. It is so diverse not only socioeconomically, but also culturally and ethnically. The opportunities we have to seek our city’s prosperity are pretty vast. While we’re trying to focus this year on getting the church to a point of somewhat self-sustaining viability, we are also pouring into our Prosper Projects, too. These are projects where we get real intentional about following Jeremiah 29:7 where God says to not focus so much on prospering ourselves, but rather on loving and prospering the city where He placed us. The benefit is that in seeking its prosperity, God promises we’ll experience our own prosperity. We are working hard with local schools to plan upcoming clean-up projects where we’ll go in for a Saturday and basically do what they ask in the area of landscaping, cleaning, etc. We’re also partnering with a local elementary school to help mentor disadvantaged kids, of which there are too many in this area. These are not new ideas. We’re just being very intentional about doing them, and inviting our neighbors to be a part of these projects with us (so there is a lot of continuity in our strategy between our Prosper Projects and Echo). There are stats I’ve read that say if literacy increases and drop out rates decrease in a city, home values and the overall economy of the area increase. Our goal is to see each school adopted by a church in our city and see adults offering at least one hour a week to disadvantaged kids. We hope other churches in our area start doing the same. If we do this, we could see the entire socioeconomic disposition of our city improve over the course of the next decade!

Our weekend service, in terms of style, is pretty unique for Escondido, too. I have been hard-pressed to find a church within a 10-mile radius that is really focusing its efforts on reaching younger (teen-40) people. A lot of people genuinely seem to want to be a part of a young, small-but-growing church that is making an impact in the community, so I think there is definitely a niche we can fill in this city without worrying about doubling up too much on what another church is doing too much.

We’ve also started developing some really great relationships with other churches and organizations in our area who are doing a good job with mercy ministry. We’re not trying to be some independent force in Escondido, nor do we think it would be wise for us to try to impact the city all on our own. Rather, we hope to partner together with other Christians in this area to see the Gospel take root.

The opportunities to contribute to Escondido are many, and we’re focusing our efforts on loving our neighbors through Echo, and helping bless schools through our Prosper Projects.

Question: Describe your relationship to the ‘host’ church family, Community Reformed.
Our “host” church family has been great. I don’t know that have ever seen a more sacrificial, loving, and giving group of people. My fear in coming into this project was that the existing congregation (about 65 adults with an ave. age of 80) would be ornery, and we’d be doing nothing but butting heads trying to replant this church. Quite the opposite has been true. They have not only supported this project financially, but they have willingly let us renovate the property and buildings and have put up with numerous changes to their leadership structure, operations, and setting. The thing that amazes me the most is that they’ve put up with me! In fact, many of these folks have become some of my biggest encouragers, and I’m so thankful for their years of wisdom and their example of faith and steadfastness as they’ve waited for God to bring a change like this.

Practically speaking, we have also continued their traditional service, which meets right after the new service. Chuck Todd has been brought on as an associate and part-time pastor to focus on caring for this group of people and leading their service and specific ministry. He and his wife Dede have a deep and authentic love for the existing congregation, and they have done an amazing job not only giving them pastoral care, but also helping us through this reorganization process.

Our hope in the coming months is that there will be less separation between the existing congregation as well as the new, not only organizationally, but also in mission and purpose. Things seem to be moving toward that end.

Question: What do you see unfolding over the next year or so as Infusion grows?
We have a lot of goals for the next 12-24 months. Probably the most significant is that we hope to birth another church by 2011. We’ll hopefully start gathering a team for this in the summer of 2010. We also have the desire to launch a community-wide holistic recovery program this fall. I love programs like AA and NA, and the work they have done to help with addiction recovery. My philosophy, however, is that everybody is in need of recovery from something. With this in mind, we are developing a gospel-centered approach to recovery that says if you wake up in the morning, you are in need of recovery, and Jesus is the answer. We’ll keep putting a lot of emphasis and resources into our Prosper Projects, and recovery will be a huge piece in this.

We’ll also begin a church planter internship program this summer that will hopefully train up plant teams who can get some experience and training with planting so we can send them out to plant more churches in the next few years. Of course, we have also started a few people on a leadership development process that will become Infusion’s new leadership team.

These goals will have a cost, so part of our goal is to raise funds to see this happen by partnering with other individuals, churches, and organizations who would like to be involved in God’s work here in San Diego through Infusion.

We are all so grateful for the folks of the former Community Reformed Church of Escondido, who prayed for so many years for God to “do something among them.” God is answering their prayers, and now have the great joy and task of being a part of His work here in Escondido.

John Alwood is lead pastor and planter of Infusion Church. He can be reached at john@infusionchurch.tv.