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Standing in the Puddle of Answered Prayer

An interview with Donna Barrett

WIM: Tell us about your call to the ministry and ministry experiences up to this point in your life.

Barrett: I was 19 years old, traveling on choir tour with my youth group when I first sensed God’s call on my life. I worked in a law office for 7 years as a paralegal. I was later hired as the bookkeeper at Highway Tabernacle (Assemblies of God) in Youngstown, Ohio. Through a chain of events, I prepared for ministry through Berean (now Global University) and became an associate pastor to youth. Ten years later I received a call to become the associate pastor at Bethel Temple (Assemblies of God) in Parma, Ohio, where I served for 7 years. When the church went through pastoral transition, I served as the interim pastor.

Through a process of seeking God’s will during the transition, God began speaking to me about planting a church. Russ DeBord, who had previously served as the church planting director with the Ohio District of the Assemblies of God, became our senior pastor. He took our whole church staff to a church planting boot camp. I came away from there with a clear direction that God was leading me to plant a church.

WIM: How did previous ministry experiences prepare you for the role of church planter?

Barrett: In looking back, I can see it was what God was up to all along; I just didn’t know it at the time. As a paralegal, I worked for a Christian attorney with a general practice. He helped new churches become incorporated, gain tax exempt status, adopt bylaws, etc.; so I saw that “legal” side of church starts. While I served at Highway Tabernacle, my senior pastor Jay Alford was very active in parenting new churches and coaching pastors. Part of his help to new church planters was to give them a one-year invitation to our weekly staff meetings. I contributed by setting up bookkeeping systems, taking our youth group to canvass new communities, and attending open houses or launching celebrations. I got to see the inner workings. At that time, I never dreamed in a million years I would ever be involved in planting a new church.

God continued to prepare me during my years serving at Bethel Temple in Parma, Ohio, as the associate pastor. In that number two role, I was given a lot of opportunities without the responsibility of senior pastoring. At one time or another, I found myself involved in almost every area of the church—youth, missions, pastoral care, children’s ministry, music ministry, finances, etc. It gave me a broad exposure to ministry. At the time, I didn’t understand what God was up to and sometimes I didn’t like the ever-changing portfolio. But now I see how it prepared me for what I’m presently doing.

WIM: Tell us about your journey into planting Rockside Church in Independence, Ohio.

Barrett: I developed a burden for business professionals during my years in the secular workplace. At the time, my faith didn’t translate well to them, and I struggled to know how to share Christ in their context. I wanted a church plant that was an “on ramp” for business people to find Christ and love His Church.

Within a half-mile radius of Rockside Church are 35,000 business professionals. We looked at every barrier that keeps this “people group” from church and looked to remove those barriers. The medical profession is the primary occupation in our county. Some of the obstacles they faced when looking at a traditional church included the length of services, the location, and the dress expectations. Some would look at our schedule and say, “I can’t get away 2 ½ hours on Sunday morning, come back Sunday night, and get my family to church every Wednesday.” Feeling they couldn’t live up to the expectations, they either chose another denomination, viewed themselves as “losers” spiritually, or just walked away. We decided we wanted to eliminate as many barriers as possible that were not essential to being biblical in order to help people connect to an Assemblies of God church sensitive to their needs.

As a result, we are very time conscious. Our Sunday morning worship experience lasts 90 minutes. We provide several Journey Groups that meet in homes and offices throughout the week at various times. One of our core values is “simplicity.” We foster strong communication through use of the Internet and e-mail. Some of the Journey Groups happen over lunch break.

WIM: What role did faith play as you embarked on this adventure?

Barrett: Missionary Ken Patrick so inspired me on a missions trip we took to Bogota, Colombia, a few years ago. Ken took our team on a tour of a Bible college under construction. He said, “This is our chapel.” All I saw was a concrete slab, but Ken saw through eyes of faith what was not as if it were already there. I wanted to have faith like that missionary.

In embarking on this adventure of church planting, I didn’t know if I would get approved. I didn’t see any women as examples in church planting. I didn’t know single ministers who were lead pastors. I didn’t know if I could do this. But God just kept opening doors and making a way where there seemed to be no way.

A real crunch time of needing faith was when we were trying to find a place for our church to meet. I looked at some 28 properties or so and nothing was looking possible, let alone hopeful. I was told prices for commercial space per square foot were higher in the Rockside Road region than any other place in Ohio. Real estate owners/developers would literally laugh at me when I told them I wanted to lease office space for a church and what we wanted to pay. Zoning and parking issues were also obstacles. I didn’t know what God was going to do. What He told me was to continue to “show up and speak up.” Every property I inspected was an opportunity to meet one more person and tell our story one more time. It was so hard to not be able to see what God had as the solution.

Here’s the amazing master plan God was up to that I could not see at the time. On the Sunday the new church plant was announced at the parent church, Dr. Joshua T. Fischer was a guest in the audience. An Assemblies of God layman from Dallas, he had just been transferred to open a Cleveland Branch of Indiana Wesleyan University where he would serve as regional dean. Over the next few months, they would build a new, beautiful two-story office building on Rockside Road. It was completed just in time for our church to lease space and launch our first service in that building! He hired one of our core group members as administrative assistant and eventually brought his family to Rockside Church as members where Josh plays drums in our band and serves on our advisory board. What a complex plan God had in His heart to meet our needs by crisscrossing all of our paths when we didn’t even know what was going on! We are standing every day in the puddle of answered prayer.

WIM: Where do your eyes of faith see Rockside Church in the future?

Barrett: We want to see Muslims in Cleveland find a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We want to reach lost, unchurched people. We want to be a church of influence in our region to help people experience abundant life. We’re presently a part of an ecumenical prayer initiative with the other churches in our city with hopes to raise the spiritual “water level” of our community among all of Christ’s followers for a spiritual awakening bigger than any one church building can contain. We want God to trust us with resources to strongly support missions and be a sending church to empower unlikely candidates for ministry. All of that will take a divine move of God and eyes of faith on our part to see that happen.

WIM: Do you have any words of encouragement for women in ministry?

Barrett: Well, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We don’t see a lot of examples of women pastoring churches and pioneering new works. We hope for opportunities that don’t yet have substance. So that’s when we close our eyes, and pray to God, and ask Him to give us eyes of faith to see what He has in His heart. Then we open our eyes and move forward in that faith!

WIM: What are some of the challenges and joys you’ve encountered as a woman church planter?

Barrett: It can sting when religious people say a woman shouldn’t pastor and imply that we’re antibiblical for obeying God’s call. But just as David tuned out the voice of his brother on his way to slay Goliath, you have to tune out voices of discouragement along the way. It’s a lesson better learned sooner than later, to lock your gaze on God’s call and let nothing or no one deter you.

As for joys, in my 21 years of full-time ministry, church planting has—without a doubt—been the most fulfilling and funseason of all! Just a few weeks ago, we baptized 13 new converts in the community indoor swimming pool. It is such a rush to be up close and involved in the process of lost people finding Jesus. That night was stepping on home plate for our entire congregation. There’s nothing like it!

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