Every spring, Wesleyans gather to attend the Exponential conference. This year, that conference was held in Orlando, Florida, between March 18-20 with 618 Wesleyans in attendance. This gathering often serves as a context for inspiration, connection and (for people like Reverend Ryan Sims) calling.
When Rev. Ryan Sims first attended Exponential, he was the assistant pastor at Christ Wesleyan Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the time, there was some tension in his spirit between what he was presently doing, and the initial rumblings of a calling toward something else. Since finding The Wesleyan Church (TWC) through an Upward Soccer league, and receiving his call and later ordination, Rev. Sims has served churches of all sizes. Before Exponential that year, he was applying to district superintendents and large churches for senior or teaching pastor positions, when God called him to stop participating in those searches.
“I remember God saying, ‘Withdraw all your candidacies, because if you go to these places, you’ll believe you’re qualified by something other than your dependence on me,’” Rev. Sims recalled. But that only increased the tension in his spirit. He was sure God was stirring something else in his spirit, but less and less certain what that something else was.
Around that time, Reverend Ken Klein (then senior pastor of Christ Wesleyan Church in Greensboro, North Carolina) invited Rev. Sims to go to Exponential with some other Wesleyans, and he accepted. During the Wesleyan pre-conference event, Dr. Ed Love (now executive director of Church Multiplication and Discipleship for TWC) concluded a talk by saying, “Stand up if you feel called to church plant.”
At that point, he made eye contact with Rev. Klein, who looked over knowing Rev. Sims was feeling called. “Ken jokingly mouthed ‘Don’t do it, brother,’ but we both knew in that moment that I was being called,” Rev. Sims remembered. “I hadn’t talked with my wife, or my kids, or figured out how any of this would look; but when I stood up and said ‘yes,’ that act of faith helped a lot of the tension in my spirit go away.”
When Rev. Sims talked with his family, his wife said, “I already knew it; I sensed that this was what God was preparing us for.” The journey that followed led Rev. Sims and his family to plant C4 Church before eventually merging with First Wesleyan Church to create One Church in High Point, North Carolina.
That merger has required Ryan to exercise his family’s calling (serving alongside churches in the transition from homogeneous to multi-ethnic) with all the facets of his own pastoral experience (serving as a church planter, leader within an established church and leader within church transitions).
What Exponential has provided — as both a catalyst for Rev. Sims’ call, and ongoing nourishment for him and his team — is an emphasis on sending as a major metric of success. That’s been needed for their church, as the past few years of One Church’s life have been full of various sendings, as members of their team (from youth pastors to sound technicians to other ministers) have felt God call them through One Church into other ministry contexts.
Because One Church isn’t a congregation of thousands, they feel each of these departures. But rather than seeing these as losses, they hold these sendings as central to their success. As Rev. Sims considers other congregations’ posture toward sending (even when it causes discomfort in the short term), he reminds leaders that multiplication is their role.
“We know we’re a center to build up and send out people who serve,” reflected Rev. Sims. “As believers, we never know the power of our ‘yes.’ But what we do know is that our ‘yes’ will matter for eternity. Fear of losing can get in the way of sending, but you won’t know the power of your ‘yes’ until you get out of the boat. Fear says, ‘what if,’ but faith says, ‘even if.’”
For more stories of faithfulness in the church, visit wesleyan.org/news, and to engage with Rev. Ryan Sims’ work as multiethnic catalyst for The Wesleyan Church, visit wesleyan.org/cmad.
Rev. Ethan Linder is the pastor of discipleship at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana, and contributing editor at The Wesleyan Church’s Education and Clergy Development Division.
