Storefront on East Market Street seeks
‘persons of peace’ — but it’s not a church
By DAVE SCHULTZ
Steve Rhoades had a dream and God spoke to him. Absolutely, he says. No doubt about it.
The centerpiece of that dream was the building at 115 E. Market St. in Bluffton. He was familiar with Bluffton but he wasn’t familiar with that particular structure.
Yet almost exactly a year ago now, he was in a dwelling in Florida, and he had this dream. The building didn’t figure in any plans he or his wife, Stephanie, had after retiring from their careers in education.
“In this dream, God took me into a building and told me that this was the place we were going to do our ministry,” he said last week during an interview on the ground floor of the structure in question.
This was somewhat of a mystery to him. He had been active with the Christian Motorcycle Association, and there were plans that were going to take the couple to Germany.
Yet here was this building. It had a “for sale” sign on it, exactly matching his dream.
He made the trip to Bluffton. As mentioned, Rhoades was not unfamiliar with the city; for three years, while he and his wife worked with the CMA, they had a fifth wheel camper parked at the KOA facility on Bluffton’s west side.
Still, setting up a ministry in Bluffton was not in the plans. The couple had begun raising money for other tasks.
Such a direct message was not familiar to him — “I’ve never had this happen to me,” he said.
Yet he knew this was the building he was supposed to rent.
He called the number on the “for rent” sign and talked to his future landlord, Andy Shively. The building was still for rent. In fact, workers were doing the renovation at the time of the phone call. Would he care to stop by?
It depended on one thing — did it have a place to live upstairs?
It did.
“I am sitting there thinking, this is so unbelievable,” he said.
The couple was due to drive back to Florida, and Steve had to figure out how to tell Stephanie what had happened to him. About the time they hit Sarasota on their way to the Punta Gorda/Fort Myers area, he blurted it out.
In April, they rented the structure and moved in around May 1. The ground floor was theirs to remodel.
The Rhoadeses are receiving help from a number of people, including their home church — County Line Church of God on the Allen/DeKalb county line. The couple had taught in the Garrett school system; Steve served as the athletic director for a time and Stephanie is still doing some part-time teaching, motoring back and forth between Garrett and Bluffton.
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What Steve Rhoades wants to do is to teach the gospel to people who are not really comfortable in a conventional church building. While the County Line Church terms what’s in the storefront on East Market Street “a church plant,” Rhoades — who is working on a master’s degree in Biblical studies from Indiana Wesleyan University — is not comfortable with that term
“I don’t feel that we are competing with other churches,” he said.
What he wants to do is to make people comfortable with a relationship with God before they get comfortable in any particular congregation.
“We want people that do not go to church, that do not attend a church, that have had issues in the past with churches, that do not feel comfortable in church settings,” he said. “There are some great churches in this town and there’s not a need for a new church. What we want to do is to bridge the gap between those people who do not feel comfortable in an organized service but are still curious and want to know about God.”
He calls those people “persons of peace.” The gospel appeals to them, he said; they just have to find out more about it.
“Our mission is to make disciples who make disciples,” Steve Rhoades said. “We disciple people by building relationships with them. In the Bible it’s called fellowship; we call it building relationships. Call it whatever you want to call it. We want to be studying God’s word — which is called the apostles teaching — and share meals, and prayer.
“We are not a church, but when our people come to our meetings, they say we’re going to church,” he says with a laugh.
“Our goal is to be out in the community discipling people,” he continues. “Our other goal is to have this be a place where community people feel comfortable coming to learn God’s word. A third thing is using this facility, to teach people — Christians — how to disciple people.”
daves@news-banner.com
