Heartland Pastor Partners with Lifeway

God has blessed Converge Heartland with people who have many talents, abilities, and connections. One of those people is Jon Reed at The Fount Church in Kansas City.

Jon became a part of The Fount while studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has been a part of the church for four years and now serves as the Pastor of Care and Equipping. Part of his role is the primary oversight of The Fount’s pastoral apprenticeship program where men train to serve in local churches as pastors. They currently have four apprentices. While doing this important work at his church, Jon is co-vocational and does all this while working another job (more on that in a minute)!

I met Jon in April 2023 when he and his wife Tina attended the Renewal Retreat in Lincoln, NE. Our initial conversations made it clear that Jon loves Jesus and his church. He is passionate about serving the local church so she can become all God desires her to be. On the way home from Lincoln, Jon talked with his wife about his desire to help strengthen and encourage churches in the Heartland full-time. Little did he know how God would bless him with an opportunity to do just that!

Lifeway recently went through some significant changes to focus on resourcing the local church. During that restructuring, Lifeway created a new position to facilitate a connection between churches and the company. They reached out to Jon to fill this vital role. He explained to me the shift Lifeway made this way: “Our customer is the pastor and the local church.  We closed our retail stores to focus on creating resources to equip and strengthen local churches.” God used Lifeway to fulfill Jon’s desire to strengthen and encourage churches in the Heartland. He now gets to connect with, listen to, and resource the churches he longed to serve!

Since taking the position, Jon has been asking churches how to resource them and their pastors for greater gospel effectiveness. Jon said, “We have 100,000 resources from communion supplies to curriculum to cruises. A church may only use 1% of what we have, but 100% of churches will benefit from something we’ve created.”

Jon told me about Lifeway’s love for the church and church planters! “Lifeway has a tremendous opportunity if your church is two years old or younger,” he said. “We offer one year of free access to all our digital resources for the whole church.”

They even have digital pathways to train leaders, disciple new believers, and onboard volunteers.

God continues to provide for the growth of his church. Converge Heartland has a great resource available to us. Even better, we have a Heartland pastor working hard to resource and encourage pastors and churches in our region

If you would like to connect with Jon to learn more, you can email him at jon.reed@lifeway.com.