foreword

Five years ago, Brad McKoy, walked into our house for the first time. Even though he was a stranger we were just meeting, there was something familiar about him. Shortly after introductions and topical conversation, our two year old son started having a tantrum. He threw the toy he didn’t want right in my face and yelled “No!”. I excused myself from the room while my husband, Josh tried to keep the conversation going. After a few minutes, they turned to watch the fit escalate. “Excuse me for a minute Brad,” Josh said as he walked over to our son. He picked up the little whirlwind of flailing limbs, risking a kick in the face, and took little Jack into the back room to put him in his playpen, saying very firmly, ‘No fits.” He walked out of the room, and left our son to sort out his feelings about being quarantined in timeout as a discipline for his fit. I searched Brad’s face to see his response to the awkward interruption. Would he be annoyed at the dramatic disturbance? Would he look down on us for having a son who had these kind of outbursts?

“He seemed to be more interested in how we loved our family than anything else. I have tears in my eyes as I think of how few people there seem to be who care about that priority like we do. He genuinely cared about our family. Why? As our relationship grew, we realized something about Brad: he carries the Father heart of God.
Brad invited us to come out to Grove City to meet the community of people he works with and disciples at AOX. In every conversation we had with them, we could see that each person had a clear understanding of their identity as sons and daughters. This type of confidence doesn’t happen overnight. Most of us carry a lot of baggage we need to get rid of before we can see ourselves as God sees us. I believe this happens through close, consistent relationship. As I looked into each of their eyes, I could see the time that Brad had poured into each of them- making sure they felt heard and understood, but no longer allowing them to believe lies about themselves.

“In this book, Brad talks about what it means to cultivate spiritual family. He talks about what it means to know who you really are as a child of God. He talks about how the transforming power of the Love of God flowing through us to others is the way the world gets changed. But what’s important for you to know as a reader, is that Brad doesn’t just talk about beautiful ideas. He lives them out.

His love is transparent, selfless, consistent, intentional, and beautiful. I’m not saying this to point out how great Brad is, although he is pretty great; I am pointing it out because this is what the heart of God is like towards His creation. Towards His children. Towards His son, Brad. And you can’t help believe in Jesus, when you encounter the genuine love of His followers. It is miraculous. Brad’s intentional, focused, loving pursuit of the few that God has given him to be family with doesn’t just transform the lives of those he touches directly. This love shifts the atmosphere of the coffee shop where spiritual family is simply living life together. Somehow, this love coming from the coffee shop pours out into the street and begins to fill the city. You can feel it when you see the ‘Welcome To Grove City’ sign.

The love of the Father for his sons and daughters will change everything. But Brad isn’t trying to change a city. He is just loving his Heavenly Father back. That love manifests Christ’s love to and through others. Relationships that come from this kind of love have consequence. The consequence is changed lives and a changed city. Love and community like Brad talks about in this book will ripple change through generations. It is the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
 
-Lacey Sturm, Author of The Reason, How I discovered a life worth living”

chapter one: the power of the focused few

“In 2002, my wife, Adriane, and I moved from Wilmington, NC to a small town in Western Pennsylvania to begin the process of planting churches for the unchurched. Our house in North Carolina was just a few miles from the beach, and the fact that we moved away from the warm and sunny south to come to the grey “frozen tundra” of Ellwood City posed a mystery to many of our new neighbors.
“Why on earth would you leave there to come here?”

We had a short list of answers depending on who asked. Sometimes we said how we loved the idea of experiencing all four seasons. Other times we talked about how Adriane didn’t like the crazy traffic of the growing city. And then there were those we told that we had moved because we felt like Jesus had invited us to.
There is another answer to the question about our relocation that is relevant to the story. When someone would ask me why I was willing to leave my home three miles from the ocean for the Pennsylvania winters, I would tell them, “To get away from the Hurricanes.”

“In the few years prior to our move, Wilmington had been a favorite destination for hurricanes and tropical storms. I still remember the direct hit we took in 1984 from Hurricane Diana. Over the years, we had several other close calls, which would send my family into “hurricane party mode.”
We would clean out the fridge of any desirable goodies, stay up late playing games by battery-powered lanterns, and get a few days off from school. From what I remember, South East North Carolina was spared from any real storm damage for twelve years. That all changed in 1996, however, when Hurricanes Bertha and Fran made their way to our region. They destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, causing millions of dollars of damage to my city. Hurricane Bonnie did the same in 1998, followed by Hurricane Floyd a year later.
T-shirts were made that read, “Welcome to Wilmington, NC - Choice of 4 out of 5 Hurricanes.” One local ice cream stand sold special shakes labeled “Bertha,” “Fran,” and “Category 5.”
So while I didn’t really leave my beloved hometown to get away from the storms, I was glad they were no longer a part of my life... Or so I thought.

By the summer of 2004, we were getting settled into our new life in Pennsylvania. Following the invitation to “be and do church for people who wouldn’t go to church” meant relearning how to do “ministry.” We had planted a small “simple church”1 made up of a committed core of 12 - 15 people and a growing number of new believers. We had started a “missions and relief agency” hoping that it would provide us with opportunities to show God’s love to people who were going through a hard time. We fed the hungry, prayed for the sick and hurting, and helped struggling families with utility bills. That fall, the remnants of two tropical hurricanes gave us an opportunity to do even more.

In all the storms I had experienced in North Carolina, I had seen the damage from a distance, in a way that had never directly hit home for me. Wow. Things were different now.

Flooding from the storms impacted over 300 local families, destroying dozens of homes in the process. Hundreds of our neighbors were temporarily displaced, and there was no set system to help them.
Prayerfully, I began calling pastors and leaders from the area to see if there was any way that our little “simple church” could help. The pastor of one of the largest Evangelical churches in the region invited me to a community meeting to help assess the total damage and put together a plan of action.

I remember the feeling that I had walking into that meeting. “God, what are these families going to do?”
Once inside, my pastor friend quizzed those in attendance about the extent of the damage in our corner of the county. Tears flowed as community residents described losing everything, many without a clue of where to go next. Some families had been sleeping in tents and cars, while others exhausted their life savings at local hotels. We had to do something to help them.

As the leader of a church of fifteen people, I felt helpless to make any real contribution, but was determined, along with the rest of our team, to do whatever we could. After all, we had moved twelve hours away from the beach to come to this place and show these people how much God loved them. Surely He had a way to meet their needs.

My pastor friend and I helped to form the Northeast Beaver County Flood Assistance Team (NBCFAT). The team consisted of members from several different local churches, and each congregation had a job to do. Our little tribe helped make up an assessment form to determine the specific needs of the families affected by the flood. We spent days and weeks walking the flooded out areas, talking to neighbors, crying with them, praying with them. Once we had the forms filled out, we worked with other members of the team to provide care for the families.
As the weeks turned into months, fewer volunteers were available to help coordinate relief. We ended up with a handful of committed volunteers from around the community, mainly members of my pastor friend’s large church and our small one. All of us were astonished at how God provided for people; tens of thousands of dollars worth of resources flowed through the NBCFAT! Drywall, furnaces, clothing and in some cases, new homes were given to help those in need. We even got to throw the affected families a party at the nicest restaurant in our area during Christmastime.

As we served refreshments, gave the kids presents, and provided gift cards to help parents have something to show for the holidays that year, my pastor friend pulled me aside to talk. What he said that night changed my life forever.
Marveling at all the activity in the room, he turned to me and said, “You know, it’s really amazing how much the Lord can do through a few people who live life intentionally.”

He went on to talk about the impact that our “little church” had made on a big situation.
“You guys have been able to provide more service and man hours than churches twenty times your size. There is a lot of power in a few people living with a focused mission.”
While I was honored by what my friend was saying, these were more than just nice words; these were words that changed my grid for success. Here was the pastor of one of the largest, most well-respected churches in the region—a church that had given generously and had been integral in helping hundreds of families—talking to me about the “powerful impact” that fifteen people could make. That if it wasn’t for our team going to fill out surveys with the families, the resources that their church had to offer would have had no place to flow.
Something changed in my heart that day. It was not that I had been trying to build a church that looked like his—I wasn’t—but I guess in some ways, I still thought that in order to be significant and successful, I needed to reach “critical mass.” I thought that bigger, by definition, was always better, stronger and more important, that is until I witnessed first-hand the impact that a small group of dedicated Christ followers could have on the world around them. That day, my heart started learning to value the culture of the few.”

Excerpt From: Brad McKoy. “culture of the few.” iBooks.