A Conversation about Easter and Vision at HeavenEarth Church with Pastor Ross Stackhouse

What would it look like to start a community that was really,

it's for the people like Jesus would be for.

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

I'm Ross Stackhouse, the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the start, our heart has been to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

We want to meet people where they.

Are and know their stories.

Because in every story, there is God's story.

And this podcast, podcast is just about that.

It's about inviting you into the stories of the people of Heaven

Earth Church.

So let's turn to the story.

Hello, good people, and welcome to the Heaven Earth Church

podcast.

This is the church who is looking to make a lasting impact

in our community.

I'm Brad Butler, the producer of the podcast.

I'm pleased that we have here with us the lead pastor of Heaven

Earth Church, Ross Stackhouse.

Ross, so let's have a conversation, my man.

Sounds good.

Thank you, Brad.

Thanks for doing this for us.

Well, here we are, Ross.

It is a holy week, and so we just completed Palm Sunday and Easter

succumbing.

So kind of tell me what's going on with your heart.

How's it with your soul as we come up upon the Easter of 2026?

You know, I have thought the last several years that a lot of

my work, what I'm trying to do, revive the ancient roots of the

Jesus movement for, for people now and why I love this time of year

is that when you look at the very first movement, the epicenter

of Christianity was the resurrection of Jesus.

And that might, for some people, they're like, duh, of course

it's.

It was or is.

But a lot of the Christianity we've experienced in our neck of

the woods has made it about, you know, the crucifixion, the cross

of Jesus, and how, you know, the good news is that Jesus shed

his blood for your sins, which is certainly a part.

His death is obviously a monumental part of our faith.

You know, it's.

It's huge.

But again, when you look at the event that sparked this wildfire

of Christianity and the thing that the, these, these guys and gals

talked about, it was about the fact that he had.

They swore they had seen a vision of him raised from the dead.

And for them, that.

That made the light bulb, the light bulbs come on, that, you know,

God's glory is coming to this earth, and this new creation is coming

to this earth.

And Jesus says, as the scriptures say, he's kind of the

first fruits of this new harvest.

And so that's why for us, that we talk about here, this big mission

of big good news.

Big good news.

I love that.

So how you see this, you talk about the resurrection, the illumination,

the big event, the big good news.

Yeah.

Tell me how that is coming to play in the manifesting itself here

at Heaven Earth Church.

What are kind of things you've seen happening here?

Well, you know, I was just looking at the impact report again

that we put together for 20, 25, and just things that you said

it.

You know, we want to make a lasting impact in our community.

And in case folks don't know, that's our abbreviated mission statement.

We have three pillars that go with that.

We say we want to do that by building relationships with all kinds

of neighbors.

We want to help people experience freedom from their burdens,

and we want to help people know Jesus and live like him together

simply.

Our mission is that we look again at the first movement.

And the basic idea is that when Jesus came through a city or

a village, it was never the same.

You know, there was life before he showed up and then and

life after.

And so, like in our impact report, we are holding ourselves

accountable.

Is that happening with us?

So you're taking these four areas and see what kind of impact

is actually being.

Right.

Right.

And so you can.

Let's go through those.

Yeah.

So we talked about in the impact report, like, we.

We had events in the park this year at.

At east park, where we're just.

We're trying to go to our.

Our neighbors and meet them on their turf and build relationships.

And so we had a couple of nights in the park of Pumpkins in

the park event, and we had obviously a lot of our folks there,

but we also met new neighbors there.

And just trying to be a presence of kindness and joy in the.

Was an exciting thing we did last year, But I was even reading,

like, things that, you know, they aren't huge numbers, but we

had a couple of members who took flowers and fruit from people's

gardens down to the mobile home community where they live a

Sunday after church and just pass them out to everybody there

as a part of our garden team initiative.

So they're building relationships with their neighbors

there, and we're also, you know, blessing those folks with.

Yeah, exactly.

But then when you look at that second pillar of helping people experience

freedom from their burdens, that's big for us because there's

a reason we put it that way.

It's.

We want to go beyond charity.

And don't get me wrong, charity matters, like organizations

need funding and money to do what they do.

But we also want to be an ongoing presence through partnerships

with or organizations in the community.

So we, we do the, we fund stuff too.

Like so we give 5% of what comes into our church and day to

day operations we give back out.

Right.

We give another 6% of what comes into the state and global initiatives

of the inumc.

But we also did things like, you know, we partnered with United

Way again to, to as part of their Christmas angel project.

We do that.

Um, we continue to work with, we've.

Had pretty good participation.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

And we've, we continue to work with Spaces for All, which is the

5:1c3 nonprofit that our church started in 2021 to grow.

Its mission especially is related to affordable housing.

Spaces for all started the Johnson County Housing Coalition

a couple years ago and that's really picking up steam.

The housing coalition that's run by one of our members, Amanda

O.

Has a new program with Franklin Union, Edam Township to

remove barriers to housing.

We're getting ready to enter into a service contract with the

city of Greenwood to, to do an owner occupied rehab program.

We're talking with another church to potentially acquire some

property to build to add to what's called our residency rental

program.

Because we said like, hey, we want to make a lasting difference

with housing issues here.

So it's not just within the body, the church building and people

here, it's in the community and very tangible brick and mortar

things as well.

Yep.

Yeah.

And as far as our vision going forward, our board has worked to

make that partnership focus even more clear and intentional.

So coming up this year we've identified four focus areas that

we're really going to zero in on throughout this year.

So in April and May we're really going to work with organizations

primarily Upstream Prevention, to focus on mental health and recovery.

In the summer we're going to do food insecurity.

So we're reaching out to folks like Inner Church, Food Pantry, potentially

the school corporation to see like how can we work with that.

And then in the fall we're going to focus really on that housing

issue.

So we're going to work with Spaces for All in that sort of quarter.

And then at the end of the year we really want to spend our

energy and, and resources on youth initiatives.

So.

And we're going to, it's not just a board initiative.

We're going to phone those.

Well, let's, let's break those down a little bit.

You've got initiatives that are helping with food, you Got initiatives

helping with housing, you got issues helping with mental health

and other.

And relationships.

Yeah.

So it seems like you're looking to kind of do the full.

The full body of the church here.

Yeah, yeah, we.

We wanted to.

A few of us sat down, Jill Bevins, Jason Baker and I, and we

really just kind of thought, like, obviously there's so much that

we could do, but how do we focus on a few areas and really do

what we can to be a part of a lasting impact?

And those are the areas that we identified.

And so, again, like I said, for mental health and recovery, we're

going to keep working with upstream prevention, and obviously

we're going to continue to try to build Recovery Church.

And then we're going to, like I said, work with a couple pantries

to invest there, and then in the fall, work with spaces for all.

And then at the end of the year, just look at several opportunities

for youth initiatives.

But the goal is that not just that we would give funding to those

organizations, but that we'll bring their executive directors here

to talk to our people and also help our people go there and plug

in and serve.

So true partnership, right?

Right.

An integrated partnership, not just a, you know, we drop in a few

dollars or a few volunteer hours.

Right.

Is it integrated?

Yeah, that's right.

Leadership system.

Yeah.

Because, you know, that second pillar is we want to help people

experience freedom from their burdens.

Right.

And then one of our core values, one of our five core values,

is we want to bless the community through partnerships.

And so when you think about those two things, they really hold

us accountable like that.

That's what we want to be about.

We.

And.

And we want to show some fruit on those in those areas.

So I think there's another.

You've touched on two of the pillars here.

What was the next one?

The mission statement.

Right.

Yeah.

So we.

We talk about we want to build relationships with all kinds of neighbors.

That's pillar one.

And then the second one is experience freedom from their burdens.

And the third one is just helping people know Jesus and live

like him together.

Okay, how are we doing on that one?

I think we've done.

We're doing a lot better.

We.

So in 2023, we developed kind of as a deeper dive of our core values,

we developed five discipleship essentials.

And these are the things we said.

If we develop some tools and environments where people spend time

with these essentials, we think that's going to help them grow

spiritually and emotionally, such that they bear fruit of discipleship

or Apprenticeship with Jesus.

So this past year, we implemented our Discovery Learning

communities.

So we did what we had now called discovery 1, 2, and 3, and

we had close to.

It was about 15 to 20 people.

Unique people go through at least one of those experiences.

And we had a decent chunk of people who did all three.

Discovery one, you know, was about, you know, discovering more

of your story and kind of the core values of Heaven Earth Church.

Two was getting into our essentials that we just talked about.

And three was what's called a rule of life workshop, where it helps

you identify your values and build a schedule that aligns it with

your values.

We had 14 people come to that on a Friday night.

So sound like people are hungry for this type of intimate

relation with Jesus going deeper.

I think people are hungry for stuff that actually matters.

You know, I. I think especially with the pandemic, I think

what we saw after that was a lot of people withdrawing from a

life of just doing stuff to do stuff.

Right.

I don't.

I think it helped people notice or feel that the things they

were doing, perhaps more out of a sense of obligation, they maybe

didn't like it.

They certainly didn't love it.

And so the pandemic was like, why am I.

Why am I going to go back to that?

Is it worth it?

Yeah.

And so that's.

That's kind of a burden that we carry, I would say somewhat gladly,

is that we want to create environments and communities here

that are worth being a part of.

And so that's why we actually refined the Discovery Learning communities

for this year.

We just redid Discovery one, and we made it even more of an experience

for people to discover where they've been with faith, where they

are now, and where they feel called to go.

So it was more about self discovery and faith.

Can you give me an example with.

You don't have to get the details or personalities, but have

you seen people change?

Have you seen people illuminate in this process?

No doubt.

I mean, there's no doubt about it.

We.

I mean, I think of one person in particular who, you know, she

just came out of, you know, some church experience where I might

describe it as more sort of.

Yeah, very heavy obligation environment.

Some might call it, you know, legalistic, and was really kind of,

by this person's account, just was becoming disillusioned and kind

of burdened by that environment, and then has come here

and has felt a new sense of freedom, but also excitement and

hope about.

About depth and a new way.

Interesting way you turn that phrase, an excitement and hope about

depth.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah, she.

And she inspires me.

Like, her stories about what she's saying inspire me.

But, you know, even after the Rule of Life workshop, you know,

somebody texted me and saying, like, I didn't know how much I needed

that.

And I think that's.

I think that's true for a lot of people.

Like, we.

We experience this a lot here.

Like, there we have a fair amount of people who, like, they

know what they don't want anymore, but they're having a hard

time discovering what their soul does want now.

And what.

And you're like, what is God for me now?

I know I'm not there, wherever there is now, but what's next?

What's next?

How do I find that and how do I go deeper with that?

So how are you doing that?

How are you helping people take the next step?

Well, that's why we.

We didn't want to create like, a, you know, A to B to C to D kind

of thing.

But we did want to.

Jesus didn't always resolve people's confusion because sometimes,

you know, as teachers will tell us, as we've all experienced,

like, sometimes confusion can help you.

If you think of the four rooms of change, something I talk about

a lot, denial, confusion, renewal, you know, that.

That confusion can help.

Jesus didn't always get to sort it out.

Yeah.

Unravel things to put it back together.

Yeah.

There's bad confusion that's not necessary, and we want to get

rid of that.

But.

But one thing Jesus always did offer people was a sense of direction.

You know, they might have not known exactly why, but, you know,

you see, if you watch the Gospels, he's like, okay, we need

to go across this lake over there now.

And then it was like, okay, now we're going to go back across

the lake to our villages.

But once we get there, you know, we're going to go over to the

coast to ty, and we're going to run into some lady over there.

And then in, you know, like, Luke, chapter nine, he's like, he

set his face on Jerusalem.

We got to go to Jerusalem.

Now, there was always kind of a.

A sense of momentum and trajectory, and we're trying to help

folks with that with the discovery learning communities.

But even with our Sunday morning conversations, people may

not know this, but every single series we do is aligned with

our discipleship essentials.

But one other thing about that is, months ago, I just started trying

to pay attention to what people were giving me about feedback

about what they wanted to Talk about.

And so our series are built off of that too.

So for example, that we just did.

A series of responding to the, to the need.

Core value one, we want to meet people where they are.

Right.

So I don't want to have a conversation on Sunday that people

aren't wondering about.

So the reason we just had this series, the Prayerful Life, a conversation

for beginners, experts and skeptics, is because we had a couple

of people like, man, I really want to try to understand prayer

at this point.

Again, it's like, I know I'm not there with prayer anymore, but

I'm not sure where I am now with it.

They're in that messy middle.

Yeah, yeah.

Have we touched yet on, on the fourth pillar?

Well, that really, that's just, there's kind of the umbrella

which is making the lasting impact and then the way we see ourselves

doing that is relationships, helping people experience freedom

and then basically the discipleship pillar.

So those are the three.

Yeah.

So we touched on these four pillars and kind of the, the doctrinal

foundations of the church and practicalities of where we stand

in terms of, you know, are people's needs being met, are we

having a vibrant worshiping body, Children's ministry, youth

ministry, small groups, Kind of give us a breakdown where we're

at on all that.

I think that's always a work in progress process.

You know, we're, I think we've made a lot of strides in all those

areas.

You know, we, we don't see ourselves as like a, a program based

church, like, because, because I've been in part of a bigger church

and you can fall into this trap of having a lot of activity,

but it's not necessarily meaningful activity or productive

activity.

Or you can have these program areas that are kind of each doing

their thing, but they're not really united in this camaraderie

or this shared mission.

So that's how we try to do what we're doing here.

We try to work from the inside out with like a shared sense of mission,

some camaraderie around, some essentials and core sort of convictions.

But yeah, also people are like, hey, what do you have for my

kids?

You know, and we literally had a first time person on Sunday who

she, she came by herself without her kids because she wanted

to do her homework.

And as a parent, man, like I, I get it.

I really appreciate that.

And so yeah, we've, we've really stepped up our game with what

we do for kids church.

We like for example, we've, we've experimented with a couple

of different, you know, learning tools.

And now we do something from Spark House called Whirl.

And our kids.

The kids it as this really interactive video.

But, like, you.

You have fun, but you also, you really learn some stuff.

I just had someone call me this morning, and on the ride home,

the kids said to a grandparent, like, I want to go back

to that church.

And so.

And they want to come back for the right reasons.

Yeah.

It's not like we just got entertained and they gave us candy.

Like, it was fun and safe and meaningful.

They're learning.

Yeah.

And then on the youth side, and.

The parents need to know that, too.

These kids are getting something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The you.

On the youth side of things, Emily has really invested in what

the.

What that group does every other night on Sunday nights.

Like, again, it's very safe place of belonging.

But also they're.

They're digging into substantive matters of faith on their

terms.

And Emily's really working to cultivate that with the help of her

husband, Adam, and also Ellie Howard.

So, I mean, I really feel good about the culture that we're building

here for.

For people of all ages.

Well, it's.

I think you've given a pretty good synopsis here, Ross, of kind

of the.

Kind of the doctrinal kind of where we're at on that and kind of

the state of the church ministries here.

Let's.

Let's do a little vision casting.

You know, tell me.

Tell me what God's laying on your heart about what's next.

I know heaven or church has been around for whatever, seven or

eight years now.

And I know that you're always thinking, you're always praying,

you're always thinking kind of what's next?

What's God laying on your heart about what's next in the vision

Future, meaning forward.

Well, so from the very start, truly, when I look at, like, there's

a picture here of almost a. I guess I'd say, like, primitive vision

diagram for us or strategic vision.

We always dream that we would not be.

We never have wanted to be a megachurch.

Those are fine.

You know, for some people, that's really helping them.

And we just.

We didn't want to be that.

We wanted to be almost intentionally small.

You know, our vision is we want to be a neighborhood of friends

who bring heaven to earth.

So what we've talked about is almost being a small church that

multiplies.

Okay.

And so what that looks like, we think is, you know, like you said,

we.

We had to kind of relaunch if you will, in 2020, 2021.

Because that really interrupted a lot of our momentum.

But so for the last five years, four or five years, we've

been kind of working the soil, cultivating something that has, that

can last, but also prepares us to maybe now grow to the point where

maybe our.

The number of folks that are engaged weekly, you know, Sunday

gathering in person, Sunday online recovery church groups, gets

to 100, 150.

And once we get to that point, we would maybe discern, and I'm talking

in the next two to five years, we would look at, hey, is there a

core group of people that can start the next thing?

So kind of a church multiplication strategy.

Yeah.

We don't want to become one big thing of like a thousand people.

We would rather really kind of keep like a.

A family of folks here that are just.

That are really involved in this mission and then we help another

group of people, you know, replicate that.

And then it'd be really cool in 10 to 20 years maybe to have like

that.

That multiplication continues.

And we don't even.

We're not even controlling the, the kind of the.

The next iterations of that.

So it all would be related and integrated, but that have its own

sense of its own life force.

Yeah.

As it were.

And well, that.

That's good.

Our.

Ultimately, it.

It's pretty simple for us.

We want to help people rediscover or discover.

Like, I. I've said this probably every time on here, like

the electricity.

Electricity of Jesus, the dynamism of Jesus, the healing power

and love of Jesus after all this religion.

Yeah.

And just like find him on his terms and experience the vibrancy

of his spirit dwelling within after all the religion just like

get back to those simple things and just do the stuff that

he's doing.

I believe if we do that, everything gets.

Everything doesn't get easy, but a lot of things get better.

Yeah.

Sounds a little bit like Acts 2, 42 and following.

I mean.

Yeah.

Pretty much reminds me of a. I'm an old Christian rock dj.

There was a song when I was doing that called I'm Not Religious.

I just love the Lord, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, that's.

I mean, maybe we'll have to do a series of episodes like Jesus after

the Fall of Christianity.

There you go.

Like, I mean, because that's.

That's really what's happening in, in the west and in America is

that Christianity as an institution is in.

Is still in a very relatively steep decline.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Well, it goes to that chaos a little bit, yeah.

Out of chaos can come form formation.

Right.

So we'll see what happens here.

Well, let's kind of bring it around to this, Ross.

We're saying here that Easter is coming, but to get the Easter,

you got to go through Good Friday.

Right.

So what are some Good Friday moments?

What are some of the challenges before us that may be

things to be mindful of, be discerning of?

That's a great question, I think, for the cultural moment we're

in.

Is that what characterizes it is that our tension is increasingly

burdened, our attention spanned is increasingly tapped.

Are our opportunities to engage in a multitude of things is

continuous.

There's this phenomenon mentioned in the book, the ruthless

elimination of hurry called continuous partial attention.

I think one of our struggles to experience meaningful things now

is that we're always going to be struggling against continuous

partial attention.

Always distractions, always fragmentation.

Yeah.

So that is something that is, I do believe is unique in our time,

is that we will struggle almost to stay with or persevere

in a community or experience almost because our brains are being

rewired towards continuous partial attention.

But we know, everybody knows this at a core level, that the best

things are the things with which we're steadfast, the things

with which we kind of balance desire and discipline.

So, like, I'll talk.

I talk about this often.

Like, if we're only waiting till we feel like to do something,

we're never going to do it and stay with it.

But on the other side, if we're all, like, if we're just leveraging

all discipline, well, that's not sustainable either.

Then we're going to burn out.

So we kind of have to have the discipline that helps us experience

the good fruits of something.

So it raises up our desire and we're raising.

We're kind of growing in desire and discipline.

I think that's a big challenge for people in our time.

Huge challenge.

Well, you got to have discipline in order to get things

done.

But you have to.

Have to delight as well.

Exactly.

So many people do not have delight in their life.

And I think that's what when we say at heaven or church, that

intersection of heaven and earth coming together.

I think that's part of what this is all about.

Right.

Where they're not separate.

Heaven and earth are not separate.

They are intersecting.

And I like that.

Yeah.

I mean, ultimately, you could almost refront, like, some folks

have heard the word discipleship so much that they roll

their eyes.

I don't blame them.

But then there are other folks who are like, honestly, I don't even

know what that means.

Discipleship is essentially having a growing sort of undivided

attention towards Jesus.

And that's when you say that out loud and then you put that next

to continuous partial attention.

You see right there, the tension.

I think there's a little bit of tension between devoted and divided.

Yeah, for sure.

So we could do that.

Well, Ross, let's bring it around to this.

We're talking about Easter coming and some great opportunities

here in the church and some challenges, to be sure.

Our culture is certainly a challenge.

But what's your word to a person maybe kind of checking out

heaven, Earth church today or checking out their walk of faith

and how might somehow come in alongside heaven or church or have

our church come alongside them, how that might be a part of

the opportunity or journey there.

What would you say to that person or that family that maybe

having that conversation?

Probably the word from this Sunday.

We looked a lot at this word from the Gospel of John, chapter

John 15 · chapter mention

15.

He uses the word that is often translated abide almost a dozen times

in that one chapter.

Right.

And that's a bit of a.

It's not a word we use a lot is abide.

But it kind of means to.

It's used a lot of different ways, but it means to, like, kind

of stay the course with something.

It means to endure.

It means to dwell in something.

It means to plug into something, to stay connected.

You know, Jesus says, those who abide in me, the father prunes,

so they bear more fruit apart from me, you can do nothing.

And so I would tell folks, abide, like endure.

Try not to just skim the surface.

Like, let yourself experience the beautiful fruit of diving in

deep and staying the course.

We see that with folks here all the time.

I've seen it before.

People are almost surprised about what happened when they went

from just kind of a tenuous connection to making the choice to

be more consistently engaged.

And that's when the life change happens.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's a choice.

Like, we're going to do everything we can to create, you

know, communities and opportunities for folks to go from,

you know, just connected to engaged or even connected.

Engaged to committed.

But at the end of the day, like, each of us has a choice to

do that and to persevere in that.

Well, that's awesome.

Well, some great things here.

And I just want to.

We want to encourage people if they're having that conversation

in their homes, among a married couple and their family,

come check out heaven or church Right.

Yeah.

Come check it out and.

And give yourself the.

The joy of diving in deep.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for being with us today, Ross Tack.

Thank you, Brad.

Heaven Earth Church.

Let's just give just a couple of details.

If you do want to check out Heaven Earth Church, our physical

location is on Main street in Whiteland, Indiana.

What's the exact address?

309 East Main Street.

Right across from Whiteland High School, 9 East Main Street.

Right across the street from Whiteland High School, near the intersection

of Highway 31.

The main service is at 9:30am Eastern Time.

You can always check it out on YouTube as well.

And the website is heavenearthchurch.org and it's a

pleasure to be with you.

You can always find out more about the church at the website,

all kinds of details.

And I might also add that Ross and Pastor Emily are very available

as the other folks in the church for your questions or just

to find out more.

This is a group of people who I think that one of the things we

say is said about having our church, if you feel like you don't

fit in church, you fit in here.

I do think that's true.

My experience, yes.

So people can check it out on their own terms, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

Good.

Well, thank you for being with us.

My name is Brad Miller, the producer of the podcast.

This is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

We invite you to check out a church that has a mission to making

a lasting impact in our community.

We want to thank you for spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church.

And you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact,

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more.

More information about our church or you're interested in the

next step, you can go to heavenearthchurch.

Org.

Otherwise, we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven

Earth Church podcast.