The Neighborhood, the State, the Nation, the World: The concentric reach of one South Texas church making disciples who make disciples
Editor’s Note: The following feature story originally appeared in the spring 2020 issue of Southwestern News (pgs. 28-33). The mission efforts recounted herein took place before COVID-19 restrictions limited community involvement.
“We’re from West Conroe Baptist Church. We’d like to pay for your groceries today.”
Stop at any grocery store in Conroe, Texas, and you may hear this refrain from members of West Conroe Baptist Church. People from the congregation are known throughout the community for such “random acts of kindness,” and a number of citizens have had their groceries paid for by such generous, servant-minded individuals.
Other members of the Greater Houston community have done their laundry for free because a kind-hearted congregant from West Conroe handed out quarters at the laundromat. People in foster care as well as the homeless have received socks, water, and snacks via “blessing bags” from the church’s sewing team.
People are being clothed, stomachs are being filled, needs are being met, and prayers are being uplifted for the people of Conroe by West Conroe Baptist Church. All this is done for the purpose of starting spiritual conversations that lead to Gospel presentations, that the lost members of the community might become disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus.
The mission-minded congregation’s efforts extend not just to their neighbors, however, but to their state, their country, and beyond.
“If you came to West Conroe and were in very many conversations, you would hear our people say something about taking the church outside of the walls,” says Senior Pastor Jay Gross (‘80, ‘86). “That was a vision I shared with them about 15 years ago, and that’s their vision now.”
People not just in Conroe but also in Idaho, Montana, Utah, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and East Asia have benefitted from the church’s mission focus through financial support, mission trips, church planting, and prayer, not to mention “random acts of kindness.” The church has embraced the vision first handed down by Jesus in the Great Commission, and, as Gross says, “they not only are excited about ways of taking our church outside of the walls, but they find ways. They discover ways. They start ministries.”
Mission DNA
As multiple members of West Conroe’s pastoral staff testify, the church’s passion for missions begins with Senior Pastor Jay Gross.
“Church planting is part of our DNA, and that comes from the pastor’s heart,” says Kay Robinson (’94), minister of missions. “A church takes on the personality of the pastor, and so it starts with him, and the church has graciously accepted that, and they’re excited about it.”
Chris Stanley (’01), minister to adults, agrees, explaining that Gross’ passion “is to carry out the Great Commission by discipling the church body to be obedient to this command of Christ.”
Gross surrendered his life to ministry when he was 10 years old, and from that early age, he has had a passion for missions. Initially planning to become a medical missionary, Gross says his time at The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was a turning point for him, solidifying the path he would ultimately take.
“It was there that I really zeroed in on the fact that I’m going to be a pastor, and it gave me the nuts and bolts—the theological foundation,” says Gross, who earned his Master of Divinity in 1980, and his Doctor of Ministry in 1986.
He adds that the institution’s “mission DNA” is “obvious.”
“You can’t go to Southwestern, to the Hill, one day without experiencing that mission atmosphere,” he says. Five other members of West Conroe’s pastoral staff attended Southwestern Seminary, and all similarly testify of the institution’s impact on their spiritual formation, particularly with regard to missions.
Gross began pastoring West Conroe in 1998. Seth Tarver, who grew up in the church and now serves as a church planter in Utah, recalls that, when Gross was first hired, he brought an “evangelistic mission mindset” that “brought life” to the congregation.
“Not only did the church grow, but the church’s Gospel impact in the community around it and other places just took off,” says Tarver, whose church plant is supported by West Conroe. “So, West Conroe is a very mission-minded church that gets behind not just evangelism in their community, but seeking to grow evangelistic efforts strategically in other parts of our nation that are hard to conduct ministry in.”
This missions emphasis was a major draw for much of the pastoral staff. Stanley, for example, recalls this emphasis being shared with him during the interview process. Upon hearing about it, he says, he and his wife, Pennie, “knew we had found our new church home.”
Similarly, Minister to Students Jonathan Cofer (’16) says of his first exposure to the church, “If I was going to go anywhere, I wanted to go to a church that focused on [discipleship and missions],” he says. “So for me, that [aspect of the church] was huge.”
Executive Pastor William McGregor is the newest member of the pastoral staff, having begun at West Conroe in November 2019. He says that in 25 years of ministry, “I have never seen a church that is more committed to missions.”
In McGregor’s first three months on staff, the church had already conducted three mission trips. “So that says a lot right there that I think is encouraging,” he says.
Branching Out
Beyond their community efforts, West Conroe’s focus is church planting and strengthening existing churches.
Several years ago, for example, a local church was declining almost to the point of closing its doors. After hearing of the church’s need, Gross stood up on Sunday morning and said, “Today, at the end of the service, when we have the decision time, I’m going to invite some of you to leave the church.”
The congregation laughed, but Gross explained, “We need some families who are willing to go to this church for a year to invest their time and their gifts, their service, in revitalization.”
At the end of the service, 17 people came forward.
“All but two of them have stayed,” Gross says. “It turned from a one-year thing into a permanent thing. In fact, two of them are serving on staff at the church now, and that church is thriving. And our church, they just rejoice in seeing something like that happen.”
Over the last 10 years, West Conroe has also invested in the United States’ Mountain West. They have assisted church plants in Idaho and Montana, and most recently, they equipped and deployed, and now continue to support, church planters in Utah.
This Utah mission stems from the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Send City initiative. When Gross learned of these specific areas of spiritual need, he felt that West Conroe needed to “branch out into that” and plant a church in one of those locations.
In consultation with Southwestern Seminary professor Travis Kerns, then the Send City missionary for Salt Lake City, a mission team later journeyed to Utah, where they prayed for God’s direction. Regarding whom the church could sponsor to plant a church there, they sensed God placing one particular name on their hearts: Seth Tarver.
Tarver not only grew up in West Conroe but was licensed and ordained for ministry by them. When West Conroe’s leadership began thinking of him for the church planting task, Tarver was studying toward an M.Div. at Southwestern Seminary and pastoring a church in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.
He and his wife, Beth, had no sense of a calling to church planting, but at Robinson’s encouragement, they traveled with a West Conroe team to Utah, where they also received some mentoring from Kerns. During the trip, they “caught a vision,” Robinson says.
Tarver recalls telling his wife, “I really feel like God’s put this people, this town, on my heart.”
West Conroe hired Tarver on staff as its church planter intern for a year while he went through NAMB’s vetting and equipping process. The church then deployed him and his wife, along with partners Brian and Leslie Swiney and Stephen and Emily Eenigenburg, to Logan, Utah, in the summer of 2018.
“You can’t get much better than what West Conroe did to prepare us,” says Tarver, who pastors the church plant Riverwoods Fellowship in Logan. “They took care of all of our needs and, at the same time, the responsibilities were minimal at the church. It was mostly, ‘We want you to prep for church planting.’”
West Conroe has continued to support the church planting team through prayer, encouragement, financial support, and multiple mission trips each year. As Gross explains, “that [church plant] is our baby out there.”
Tarver admits, “I don’t think we would be doing as well as we are right now in Logan if we didn’t have the type of love, support, and discipleship that West Conroe gave.”
Kevin Ezell (’88), president of NAMB, says he is grateful for churches like West Conroe, who “put so much skin in the game.”
“Church planting can be a lonely assignment, and it is incredibly encouraging to a missionary and his entire family when a church becomes personally involved,” Ezell says. “It lets members from the supporting church see firsthand how God is working through the missionary and through the support they are providing. It also lets them see specific needs that might not otherwise be met.
“We are praying for many more West Conroe’s in the future.”
‘Never Underestimate’
As West Conroe continues to invest in their own community and in the Mountain West, they also regularly deploy mission teams internationally, and have even adopted an unreached people group in East Asia.
Though the fruit of their labor is not always visible—particularly across the globe—the church’s emphasis on missions is having an indelible influence on the members throughout the congregation.
Jonathan Garcia (’16), associate minister to college and young adults, says that, for the church’s young adults specifically, the church’s focus has given them “a missional perspective.”
“We are thankful to have opportunities to go across the U.S. and even overseas,” he says. “We are even more thankful for how the missional initiative of our church influences how young adults consider their lives to be missional and Kingdom-focused in virtually everything they are part of.”
Cofer says the church’s student ministry has been similarly impacted. During a DiscipleNow weekend this January, for example, students ventured out into the community to ask how they could serve and pray for people they came across in Conroe. At the conclusion of the weekend, Cofer says, the students “didn’t talk about a lot of the fun things; we just talked about what they got out of serving others.”
“So for our students specifically, [the church’s missions emphasis] really helps us to not focus on ourselves, but to focus on other people and being able to share Jesus as we’re focusing on those other people,” Cofer says.
Garcia encourages fellow believers to “never underestimate how God can shape hearts, transform minds, and change lives with the Gospel.”
“He can make such an impact through churches that love Him and share His heart for everyone to know, follow, and cherish the Lord Jesus,” Garcia says.
On a personal note, Gross concludes that mission work “is a joy.”
“It’s a joy to be able to serve,” he says, “and a joy to know that God lets us be involved with His Kingdom work.”
