As a new church planter, Derrick Taylor found himself wrestling with how to acknowledge his leadership role at Net Community Church in Staunton while still serving in his long-time role as a state trooper.
“As I started the planting process, I consistently battled with the phrase, ‘I’m not a pastor; I’m a police officer,’” said Taylor, who had served 12 years with the Illinois State Police when he first sensed a call to ministry.
Taylor still serves as a lieutenant with the State Police, but he also pastors a church that has grown from a group of 15 people in 2016 to a congregation of 400 on Sunday mornings. “It’s been a wild ride,” he said.
It’s a ride many churches are voluntarily taking, as leaders and their congregations work toward effective, ministry-centered stewardship of their resources. Taylor has never accepted a salary from his church, allowing Net to contribute more freely and generously to their community.
“As we read the Word of God, we see time and time again that the key figures we study are connecting with the world through a common workplace,” he said, noting that Jesus was a carpenter and Paul a tentmaker.
“We need to embrace this model.”
God makes it work
Another Illinois Baptist file photo shows Pastor Derrick Taylor baptizing a young woman.
It was his day job that led Taylor toward church planting in the first place. He was called to respond to a domestic disturbance, where he was met with people living in terrible conditions. After he left the call, he said it was like God was sitting in the passenger seat of his car and telling him, “This is happening in your city.”
Then, a question: “What are you going to do about it?”
At first, Taylor’s answer was to pray for the people he’d met on that call and look for opportunities to join God in the work He was doing. But a sense that God had more for him persisted, and Taylor felt the Lord nudging him toward a higher level of service.
He and his wife, Ailee, went through the church planting assessment process, and he completed his apprenticeship at another Illinois church. In September 2016, Net Community Church celebrated its launch in a multi-purpose building owned by the local public school district.
Since then, Taylor’s church has moved into a new building—a former retail store—and taken over leadership for their city’s food pantry, the Staunton Helping Hands Center. They added Celebrate Recovery to their ministry. And they’ve grown in worship attenders and in leaders. Another pastor, Robert Semanik, joined the team in 2018, also serving in a volunteer capacity.
Semanik, who started attending the church a week after its launch, called Taylor “a following, servant leader.”
“He is a great example of following Christ and being a servant leader of everyone else.” When the church served at a summer barbeque festival in Staunton, Semanik recounted, they were tasked with emptying trash into a dumpster. It was all-hands-on-deck—including the Taylors—for the decidedly unglamorous job.
“God’s the one making this all work,” said Semanik, the church’s Care Pastor. “Everybody on the team has specific talents, and we all fit together and work together really well.”
Freedom in Christ
Net Community Church has seen 250 people come to Christ since the church started nine years ago. The church is reaching well over 10% of its community in Staunton. “God just continues to bring those who are unchurched or dechurched,” Taylor said, “some of whom have never heard the name of Jesus.”
The Net leadership team is a pivotal part of the church’s ministry, he said. A church planter may not have other leaders on his team right away, but Taylor said as churches grow, a pastor must surround himself with people who have diverse strengths and talents.
Getting leaders on board with a unified vision is also key, according to Taylor. At Net, Taylor operates with freedom and boldness to present the gospel without apology. Like the apostle Paul, the fact that he doesn’t accept a salary to preach means he is bound to no man.
“We preach the Word of God. We don’t apologize for it; we never will,” Semanik said. The church’s goal isn’t to create a club for people to belong to, he said.
“We’re here to make disciples for Christ. We want everybody to be a minister out into this dark world and be the hands and feet of Jesus. It’s not just the pastors’ and the leaders’ job to do that. It’s everybody’s job.”
Originally published by Lifeway Research. Reprinted with permission.