Dave Vance is Lead Pastor of Crossroads Church in Mansfield, Ohio. Under Dave’s leadership, Crossroads has made a tremendous impact on their community, being named one of the 100 Fastest Growing Churches in the U.S. by Outreach Magazine for the past two years. Dave has a heart for leading the church to engage fully in God’s mission and see their cities transformed. He speaks regularly at conferences and events and is the author of The Idol Called Grace: When Grace Becomes Greater Than God. Dave is married to his college sweetheart, Allyson, and they have four boys: David, Caleb, Jacob and Isaac.
Key Questions for Dave Vance
-What is your ministry context like in Mansfield?
-How did you help Crossroads balance discipleship in the church and outreach to your community?
-Did you have to make staffing or system changes at your church to change your mindset from consumer- to mission-oriented?
-What were the timeframe and steps of your campaign to reach your community?
Key Quotes from Dave Vance
“When I moved here, there was this language and lingo that really was negative…People were like, ‘Why would you move here?’ And then there was this mindset of people that wouldn’t actually affect or impact or even engage our city.”
“The struggle is, do [discipleship and outreach] have to be mutually exclusive? What I would argue to any church leader is to say, no, if you are deeper and you are discipleship-oriented, it then overflows to the outreach into the community.”
“Really it was a language change for us to say, if you really get the gospel…then it’s going to have fundamental impact in our community.”
“We had to put some action steps to the language we were now speaking.”
“Everything begins with questions. I think questions can bring clarity.”
“What does God see when He looks at our city? If our church went away, what would go away? Would anybody miss us?”
“Really the fingerprints of [London Metropolitan Tabernacle] led to an influx of growth in that church…and so we began to tell that story, to say, hey, could we go from being the cool kid on the block, the large church in town, to being a shining light in the darkness?”
