Russell Mckinney's Blog

Who In the World Is Russell Mckinney?

My name is Russell Mckinney and I am the pastor of Disciples Road Church, a non-denominational church located in Spruce Pine, a small town in the mountains of western North Carolina. Yes, believe it or not, Christianity does exist, even thrive, in places other than sprawling cities and megachurches (not that there’s anything wrong with sprawling cities and megachurches). The population of our entire county is approximately 15,000. For those 15,000, we have somewhere in the ballpark of one hundred churches. Needless to say, we are “churched to death” in these parts.

But the sad thing that I’ve noticed since I became the pastor of my first church back in 1993 is that, even with all of our churches, there seems to be a lack of fully committed, zealous, all out followers of Christ. Oh, we’ve got Bibles, buildings, budgets, and baptistries. We’ve got pews, parsonages, and people. We’ve got: Sunday Schools, prayer meetings, Vacation Bible Schools, revivals, Easter sunrise services, Senior rallies, Fall Festival Hallelujah parties, evangelistic crusades, missions conferences, fellowship meals, Christmas Eve services, youth pizza parties, fundraisers, and special singings. But I’ve looked around so many times over the years and thought, “I can find the casual Christians, but where are the actual disciples?” This isn’t a sinful judging of others. It’s just a reasonable question that naturally arises from an assessment of the state of things.

As evidence of how passionate I am about this subject, I will point you to the name of the church I pastor. At the Lord’s prompting, I stepped out in faith on the first Sunday of January, 2007 and started a new church. God had me name the church Disciples Road Church because the church was begun with the goal of producing disciples, not just church members. I left behind the comfort of my lifelong denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, and labeled the church non-denominational. The whole undertaking was both exciting and scary, but it showed where my heart is on the subject of discipleship.

It’s one thing to be a Christian, but it is something else to be a true disciple. It takes one life-changing decision to become a Christian, but it takes a never-ending series of decisions every day and night to be a disciple of Christ. The word “disciple” translates the Greek word mathetes, which means “learner.” Following Jesus Christ should be about learning. Hopefully, and prayerfully, this blog will be a tool to help Christians with that learning.

I’m not against blogs that report the news, confront the culture, or serve as web diaries. But my desire is that this blog will be a tool that will aid in the building of Christian disciples. I don’t have a master plan for what I’ll be writing. I’m just going to let the Lord lead as I go. I don’t mind saying that I feel a bit like Moses after God had commanded him to lead the Israelites from Mount Sinai into the land of Canaan. He said to God, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). I’m saying to God, “Lord, if You aren’t going with me into this blog, then I don’t want to go myself.” But He has assured me that this is His will and that He is going with me into this. That’s all I need to get me started. So, I launch out now, not knowing exactly where I’m headed with this, but fully trusting that God sure knows where He’s taking me.         

February 24, 2009 - Posted by russellmckinney | Discipleship, Personal | casual Christians, church, disciple, learner, learning, Spruce Pine, starting a church, western North Carolina