JEFFERSON CITY – Southridge Baptist Church here has already gained a strong reputation for service among its community, but for Pastor Ron Zamkus, the real challenge lies in changing the hearts of those who view the church as simply another organization.
One could be forgiven for mistaking Southridge for a small municipal operation given there’s hardly a quiet week that goes on there. Aside from regular church services, Wednesday night youth services and small Bible groups, many of the programs Southridge has opened its doors to are non-church-oriented like Missouri Consolidated Insurance Training and Council for Drug-Free Youth. This November many will once again fill its halls to cast their vote in the presidential election.
There’s no absence of activity inside the 30-year-old church building and its pastor wouldn’t have it any other way. Preaching the Word is nothing new for Zamkus, whose own ministry spans 31 years and seven churches. Furthermore, of all the churches for whom he’s pastored, he sees Southridge as the one with the most opportunity to impact God’s Kingdom.
But with the most opportunity also come the most challenges, perhaps the greatest of which is the marginalizing view many individuals have of church in general.
“We are the church,” he said. He added that Southridge is a building God has given them to use. The church is the crowd that fills it—a spiritual body with Jesus as the Head.
Which leads to the next obstacle. As Zamkus explained, Southridge at its very heart is a Christian church with a commission and a calling by God to convey the Word everywhere it can. So the question is how to bring new life to what more and more people perceive as an old idea … or how to be relevant in a culture that is increasingly apathetic to the good news of Jesus Christ.
The pastor said younger families prove among the most difficult to reach, with their hectic pace, busy lifestyle and the “What can the church offer me?” consumer mentality. The millennial mindset is something he feels very convicted to investigate. After all, if studies prove anything, the prevailing skepticism commonly associated with that generation isn’t going away anytime soon.
Thus after serving the community through religious and non-religious venues and aiming to spread the gospel to millennials, Zamkus is investing his greatest energy in something very close to his own heart—something that might qualify as the toughest challenge of all: revival. Recently he has experienced a personal renewal and now feels it’s time for the members of Southridge to follow suit. But banging the drum for revival all starts with the individual. Corporate, nationwide and worldwide revival is important, welcomed and much needed, yet impossible without that singular ignition. With revival more service and more salvations are sure to result and these are the kinds of fires he would like to see get out of hand.