Our History The vision for New Church Specialties began in the heart of the Founder & Executive Director, Dr. Larry McKain. Knowing Larry s background is helpful in understanding how NCS has developed. On July 1, 1999, Larry launched the ministry NCS on a full-time faith basis. The first formal meeting was held in the office of Dr. Keith Wright on July 14, 1999. Dr. Wright assumed the role of Board Chairman. Marvin McKain assumed the role of Secretary. Dr. Elvin Powers agreed to serve as Treasurer. A Partner Agreement with Dr. Keith Wright and the Kansas City District Church of the Nazarene secured half of Larry s time and support for the first two years. The early days were not easy. Five months into the launch of NCS, there was not enough money to make payroll because NCS had no start-up capital. A miracle occurred in late November when unsolicited, a check for $10,000 came from Walt & Sharlyn Dixon of Ely, Iowa which allowed NCS to continue. The first 12 months of NCS were filled with Larry providing services to the Kansas City District and providing Coaching & Consulting Services to several other Nazarene Districts as well. A total of 28 coaching & consulting contracts were executed. When all the bills were paid, NCS was miraculously $848 in the black. In the first 18 months a total of $20,000 was given by Walt & Sharlyn which helped insure NCS early financial stability. By January of 2000, Larry had developed 100+ pages of church health & multiplication material and launched NCS on the Web at www.newchurchspecialties.org. The NCS website helped communicate who NCS was, as well as establishing its competency to serve a growing number of individuals and judicatories. Autumn Lew of Graphic Minion Studios was invaluable in developing both the web image as well as the NCS logo. In September of 1998, 10 months before NCS began, Larry started sending out an encouragement e-mail to persons involved in church planting he knew or had mentored. In July of 1999 it became a weekly encouragement e-mail called Insights, reaching 500 church leaders. By December of 2000, the list had grown to 1,840 people. During 2000, Larry continued to recruit a team of NCS potential coaches, wrote NCS Coaching Level 1 curriculum as well as developed the curriculum for New Church University. 1,500 color brochures were printed and by December of 2000, enrollment was 80. NCS could not afford to hire any full-time staff, so all the registration and logistics support of New Church University training events, NCS outsourced to Event-Fully Yours, an event-planning company located in Kansas City. The formal control of NCS was given over to a Board of Directors when the Board was organized on December 11, 2000. Larry was officially hired by the Board of Directors as the Executive Director on that same day. The following month, 16 Nazarene & Wesleyan District Superintendents attended the first New Church University, along with 142 other enrollees. Many described that first NCU as a genuine Godmoment. A powerful sense of spiritual anointing was felt by everyone who came. The district superintendents gathered during the second day and discussed both the financial challenges as well as the need for the long-term organizational stability of NCS. Out of that discussion, the idea of NCS Partnerships emerged and in less than 10 minutes, over $50,000 was raised which insured NCS a more firm future. Out of that first NCU, a number of the district superintendents also wrote personal letters of endorsement on behalf of NCS & NCU to their colleagues. The rapid growth of NCS and NCU caused Larry s relationship with the Kansas City District to change and in 2001 Larry moved away from his half-time role with the district. NCS will be forever grateful to the role that Dr. Keith Wright played and his generous, visionary support of NCS, especially during its beginning 24 months. In 2001, a number of people began helping NCS without compensation, including Denise McKain, Lonnie & Karen Bullock and a host of others. On March 14, 2001, NCS brought together a five person team of business leaders, including Keith Wright, Bobbi Abram, Bud Bennett, Steve Douglas,
Marvin McKain and Larry Ware. The purpose was to identify key steps in developing a long-range "business plan" for NCS. Everyone involved deeply sensed the hand of God was on NCS and its ministry. In 2001, Lonnie & Karen Bullock began the ministry of NCS Resources, shipping books, tapes, CDs, notebooks, shirts and other NCS products across the country. Lonnie also took over the ReFocusing Training Track at New Church University. Phil Spry, Dr. Dan Croy & Dr. Aubrey Malphurs rounded out the NCU presentation team. In July, NCS formed a partnership with TellStart & Founder Phil Spry that continues to this day. Led by Lonnie & Karen, NCS had its first booth at Nazarene General Assembly in July and by week s end had received visits by 40 District Superintendents and had collected over $10,000 in future registrations. By year s end, NCS had 16 active Partner Districts and had executed 40 coaching contracts beyond the work of the Executive Director, including 27 ReFocusing contracts & 13 planter coaching contracts. NCS had 15 active Senior & Associate coaches by the end of 2001. Insights weekly distribution grew to 3,014. People from 13 different denominational groups attended New Church University. The movement had begun. In January of 2002, Denise McKain began officially working for NCS about 10 hours per week as the Office Manager for the NCS Main Office. On May 1, 2002, NCS contracted with Lonnie Bullock to serve half time as the director of our ReFocusing & Coaching ministries and NCS Resources. Through a joint contract with NCS and his relationship with the Northwest Indiana District Church of the Nazarene, the NCS Munster, IN Office was funded through May 31, 2004. NCS is also deeply grateful to Dr. Lee Woolery of the NW Indiana District for his support of Lonnie & NCS during this time of NCS expansion. Lonnie joined the NCS full-time staff on June 1, 2004 and at the same time moved NCS Resources, Church Health & Coaching Operations to Mesa, Arizona. On July 1, 2002, Marvin McKain began working as the Chief Financial Officer(CFO) for NCS on a part-time basis. Marvin is a retired Executive with Rockwell International where he managed multi-million dollar budgets. In 2002, Phil Stevenson & Joe Knight were added to the NCU Presentation Team. Bud Bennett & Ron Richmond joined the NCU Coaching Team. Brian Kohagen joined to oversee the audiovisual needs of NCU. All of these people on the NCU Team served without compensation because of their belief in how God was at work and the benefit being provided to pastors and church leaders. On August 12, 2002, NCS hired Leanna Brunner for 20-25 hours per week to provide administrative support to the Executive Director. She served with great distinction in this role for two years before launching her own yearbook company. By the end of 2002, the number of NCS Partner Districts jumped from 16 to 35. The influence of NCS had grown to where 57 Nazarene Districts, 7 Wesleyan Districts and 1 Free Methodist Conference were endorsing the ministry. By the end of 2002, 774 more people had attended New Church University and the weekly Insights had grown to a distribution of 5,298. Back in November of 2001, NCS brought Phil Stevenson, Lonnie Bullock, Joe Knight and Dr. Lee Woolery together to plan the launch of NCS Parent Church Training. Phil Stevenson led the development of the curriculum in 2002 and in June of 2003, Phil was hired as a full-time Senior Consultant. His role was to assist with Church Planting and Parent Church training through a joint contract with NCS & Dr. Steve Babby of the Southwest Pacific District of the Wesleyan Church. Also in 2003, NCS hired Connie Vandersteen to oversee our Intercession Ministry. In 2003, the number of NCS Partner Districts grew from 35 to 44. Also that year, the Executive Director role separated from NCU and Lonnie Bullock became NCU Director. 734 people attended NCU in 2003, bringing total enrollment to 1,896. The number of denominational groups using NCU climbed to 18, NCS on the Web experienced over 830,000 hits and Insights grew to 6,540. In 2004, NCS had the honor of becoming the preferred provider of training for the Church of the Nazarene & the Wesleyan denominations and both denominations chose to become Denominational Partners with NCS. District & Judicatory Partnerships grew to 57. In September of 2004, NCS hired Jolyne Bartley to be Administrative Assistant to the Executive Director. As the ministry grew, NCS began seeking foundation funding because of the large amount of services NCS gave away to deserving church leaders. For grant purposes, NCS began tracking the amount of donated services back in 2002. By the end of 2004, total Donated Services & Scholarships had reached $251,780. During the period of 2002-2005, God also granted NCS favor with several key leaders and was able to secure monies from individual & organizational donors to cover both its scholarships and expanding operations. The sixth year of operation (2005) found NCS continuing to expand its Senior Staff. The hiring of Senior Consultants Bud Bennett, Rev. David Bennett, Rev. Larry Cook, Dr. Ron Greeno, Dr. Bob
Huffaker, Bishop Lindsay Jones, Dr. Charles Lake & Dr. Keith Wright have forever changed the future capabilities of NCS. In the midst of this growth, NCS said good-bye to Phil Stevenson when he was elected the General Director of Evangelism & Church Growth for the Wesleyan denomination. The seventh year of operation (2006) found NCS launching the first international New Church University, held in Naivasha, Kenya. NCS continued to expand its consulting capacity by the addition of Rev. John Anderson, Dr. L.D. Holmes and Dr. Jim Bearden. The coaching capacity of NCS was expanded greatly with the addition of Rev. Tim Gates as the NCS National Coaching Director. The book, Falling in Love with the Church was translated into Spanish and NCS selected Rev. Jose Cardona to lead the coaching, consulting and training efforts of Hispanic pastors. Our 8th year (2007) of operation brought greater expansion in NCS consulting capacity. Jon Coe began leading a Cowboy Church Ministries initiative, Dean Cowles began leading the delivery of the On-Site Salvation Army Kroc Planter initiative, Jim Dodson led in Discipleship & Assimilation Strategies, Dr. Franklin Dumond & Dr. Steve Gray were added as Senior Consultants to serve the General Association of General Baptist Partnership, Doug Hanner joined serving the Southwest Indiana District Partnership and Dr. Peggy Stark-Wilson was added to serve the South Texas District Partnership. The addition of all these staff members helped NCS multiply its on-site consulting days delivery to 1,052 which included 772 days to districts & denominations, 120 days to local church coaching and 160 days to local church servicing. Through the influence of Tim Gates, doors opened for Jose Cardona to deliver an NCU in Spanish in Quito, Ecuador with 80 pastors & church planters attending. A partnership was signed with Dr. Bernie Slingerland and the Mexico & Central America Region to serve the 7 countries of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama and 1,700 churches and 1,300 missions and new works there. Under the leadership of Rev. Ron Greeno, Transitional Interim Pastor Services (TIPS) training was launched Sept 17-19 and all six TIPS were placed within a few short weeks! In December Larry McKain moved into a new focus on NCS Development, expanding new clients and NCS International and Lonnie Bullock was selected to oversee day-to-day operations, becoming the Chief Operations Officer of NCS and the building of an NCS Senior Management Team. 2008 brought additional expansion through adding Dr. Dick Emery to our team, an outstanding Wesleyan leader and Mark Copley serving our Illinois District Partnership. Jana Starner was added to lead the Church Health Office in Arizona. Larry began developing the Organic Church Network & Master s Plan Network initiatives. The first Kroc Center Planters, Larry & Tracey Stevenson were assessed, trained and headed to Grand Rapids, Michigan where they began their ministry on May 15th. Another GREAT group of TIPS leaders were trained in March and many are now on their way to placement. The first ever, All-Staff Gathering was developed by Lonnie and the Senior Management Team and convened in April. Darrel Maclearn was added in May to head the Organic Church Network. Tim Gates joined the NCS Consulting Team full time, October 1st. Marlys Arnold was added as our Marketing Director, Leanna Brunner to head NCS Publishing and Dr. Steve Gray became our National NewStart / ReStart Director. Dr. John Ed Mathison became an NCS Senior Consultant and began establishing solid credibility with NCS among United Methodists. During the 10th year of NCS existence, we continued to grow and develop. We had an increase of 12 Staff members, while 2 of our Board Members left the team - Dr. Lee Woolery and Dr. Steve Woolery. Forty-two people attended our 2nd Annual All-Staff Gathering in March. Nine new TIPs contracts were signed this year, and we are thrilled to serve with the 11 Pastors who lead those churches in transition. Two national NCU's were held this year, as well as the introduction of our new "Local Church NCU's". Several of the training conferences began being offered on the local church level. We were thankful for the three new partners signed contract with us this year...arizona Light and Life Conference of the Free Methodist Church; Presbyterian Church of America; Horn of Africa Church of the Nazarene. NCS Executive Director, Larry McKain, became the TIPs for the South Church of the Nazarene in Lansing, Michigan. This was a year of change for NCS. It was a year marked by the continued growth and development of NCS as an organization in the midst of a challenging, economic environment. The TIPs program continued to grow and make a significant impact on churches across the United States. Ron Tyler retired in March, so we made some shifts in the leadership of the TIPs program. Since we moved away from national training events and more to local and regional training, the opportunities for coaching were less than in years past. We shifted the coaching emphasis from a broad brush approach to a more individual approach. We delivered 9 local/regional NCU training events with over 400 people attending. We continude to be committed to developing multiple services and resources to assist local
churches to achieve their vision and objectives for church health and church multiplication. Chief Financial Officer, Steve Douglas, resigned early in the year and the position of CFO has been left open. We anticipated selecting a new CFO during the annual meeting this year. The area of denominational and judicatory partnerships was one of our major adjustments in 2010. The income was down significantly from years past. Many denominations and judicatories are struggling through the recession with limited resources. We looked at some creative ways to offset the lack of resources on the judicatory level and still provide resources to pastors and churches that are in need of and crying out for affordable resources. We continued to explore and communicate why NCS is worth considering as a resourcing option. Both Larry Cook and Larry McKain made trips this year to Mexico and Central America to provide training and resourcing. The NCS Management Team spent three days in Orlando, FL at the NCS retreat center (also known as Tim s house) this fall to walk through the process we teach many of our churches of writing a quality action plan. In 2010, Executive Director, Larry McKain resigned in order to accept a pastoral position in Lansing, MI. In December 2010, Lonnie Bullock was selected as the 2nd Executive Director of NCS. In 2011, we continude to see our TIPS team develop and grow. We were blessed with 13 leaders who have answered God s call to the ministry of helping churches in transition. Coaching continued to evolve in our changing world. We continued to look for the right methods for getting the word out about coaching. This was our third year of moving away from National Training events to local church and regional training. We delivered 4 local/regional NCU training events with nearly 150 people attending. Darrell MacLearn did an outstanding job of expanding the ministry of the Organic Church. He worked ½ time with the Church of the Nazarene in developing the Nazarene Organic Church Network. He accepted a full time assignment with the Free Methodist Church in the Southwest to develop a network of Free Methodist Organic Churches. He relocated to Arizona. We had 6 church planters walk through our one day church planter behavior assessment system. We also conducted three assessment centers, with 20 planters in attendance. We made several international trips this year providing resourcing, coaching, encouragement and tools in several countries. We were able to provide these resources at no cost to the sponsoring country through donations and NCS provided scholarships. Bob Reed has moved into the role of CFO. This was a learning year for him as he has become familiar with the NCS accounting system. Developing and implementing an organizational structure that will allow us to accomplish the 2011 vision was foundational. This included a re-imaging/re-branding of the organization. We began to develop an online process to help match pastors with DS s that is denominational specific. In 2012, we continued to have an incredible group of gifted leaders serving as managers, coaches, and consultants with NCS. Our TIPS team also continued to develop and grow. We were blessed with 18 leaders who have answered God s call to the ministry of helping churches in transition. We added 5 new TIPS this year. All of our available TIPS were assigned or in final stages of being assigned. We delivered 7 local/regional NCU training events with over 150 people attending. Larry Cook continued the coordination of our international ministry. We made several international trips this year providing resourcing, coaching, encouragement and tools in several countries. We were able to provide these resources at no cost to the sponsoring country through donations and NCS provided scholarships. We had a list of over 125 people who have agreed to become NCS prayer partners. Our communications director, Darla Elliott, gathered prayer requests from the staff each month and sent out a monthly prayer newsletter to communicate with our prayer partners the needs of NCS. We developed and began to implement the rebranding strategy. The branding guidelines were completed, the web site colors were changed and we began updating the content. We completed the color and logo design. We designed a strategy and began to implement a donor strategy in 2013. We recruited 12 charter member Nazarene District Superintendents to finish the design of the system now called PastorMatch.com, to provide connections for pastors, churches, and districts who are searching for each other. It is hard to believe that 2014 marked the beginning of our 15 th year as a ministry. The past 14 years were filled with unexpected twists and turns. We started, stopped and adjusted often during these years. The one thing that remained constant was the incredible team of people that God continued to call together that allowed NCS to thrive. Tim Gates accepted a call to pastor the Goodlettsville, TN Church of the Nazarene. This new responsibility necessitated Tim resigning from the Management Team. He continued to serve as one our Senior Consultants, but in a limited capacity. We entered a new agreement with the Northwest Alliance of the Christian Missionary Church to supply TIPs for their churches in transition. We trained 3-5 of their leaders in January who will become NCS TIPS. We had a gathering in January for our TIPS for ongoing training and encouragement. Most of them cared for the expenses of their travel personally and NCS provided lodging and related expenses while on site. NCS continued to provide local NCU training weekends around the country, Church Planter Assessments, and various local church training seminars. We made several international trips this year providing resourcing, coaching,
encouragement and tools in several countries. We were able to provide these resources at no cost to the sponsoring country through donations and NCS provided scholarships. After nearly two years of development, we introduced PastorMatch.org at General Assembly for the Church of the Nazarene in June and the site went live in August. We had 31 Nazarene districts who were using the site at that time and we had over 100 pastors who signed up in the first three months.