One of the things we love here at RTS Charlotte is church planting. In fact, we have just launched this fall the new Center for Church Planting on the Charlotte campus. It’s still in its infancy, but you can read the initial announcement here.
On this note, I am pleased that this installment of our Where Are They Now? alumni series features Chad Grindstaff (class of 2005 ). Chad is a church-planter in Cincinnati and is a great example of how our grads are planting new churches all over the country (and the world) .
Here is his interview:
1. What are you currently doing?
We are in the fourth year of a church plant in a suburb northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio.
2. Why did you originally come to RTS?
I came to RTS after a number of years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) and I very much liked that many of the students were second career. However, I also liked the pastoral emphasis and the care that the professors showed to their students in a smaller, more intimate setting of a campus.
3. Is there one thing that you learned at RTS that has come back to you as you have ministered to others? A phrase, encouragement or advice?
There are too many things to name, but one that I always remember and use often is that “not all biases are bad, only bad biases are bad.” It helps bring perspective to life, ministry, and how we approach others in humility.
4. What do you enjoy most about your current ministry?
I enjoy seeing what God is doing in peoples’ lives. Not only of those in the congregation through preaching, teaching, shepherding, and the community, but in my own life as God roots out idols and works in me to grow me to be more dependent upon him and his grace.
5. What has been a struggle in your ministry?
There is always a struggle of doing the work of ministry in my own strength. You get used to doing things (e.g. preaching) and it is too easy to forget that what I am called to is “prayer and the ministry of the word.”That call to prayer means that I am dependent upon God for all that he has called me to do.
6. If you could give any encouragement to a current student in seminary, what would it be?
Put yourself in places where the theology you are learning is being put to use in practical ministry situations continually. It is through that practical experience that it will be more deeply formed in your heart and help inform how you use your knowledge in a way that builds others up and leads them to daily dependence on Christ.