On their spiritual journey, Shaunna and David Sturgeon are having to resist the temptation of more is better, such is the success of their four-year-old small group ministry they have named The Watershed.
The couple has been intentional about keeping under the radar, until recently using their home as a meeting place.
Two things have blown their cover.
Word has spread of their unconventional worship format and David was recently appointed campus pastor at Waypoint Church, 329 S. First St., the former home of Bible Fellowship Church.
David’s role at Waypoint is more administrative. He has no theological training. The church, which is regarded as a satellite church, streams its sermons from its headquarters in St. Charles, Mo.
For more than 20 years, David, age 45, has worked at Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant in Burlington, the couple’s hometown. They moved to Iola in 2018.
Shaunna, age 43, graduated last weekend from Wesley Seminary, based in Marion, Ind., and has been ordained. Wesley is an evangelical Christian theological seminary founded in 2009 by the Wesleyan Church denomination and Indiana Wesleyan University.
She grew up Southern Baptist while David’s faith didn’t blossom until he was, oddly enough, a student at the University of Kansas where he became associated with the Campus Crusade for Christ student organization.
Both David and Shaunna are KU graduates with degrees in education, though neither has pursued that route career-wise. They have four children; two in college, one in high school and a second-grader.
As young parents, the couple became involved with Lamont Wesleyan Church in Lamont, about 25 miles southwest of Burlington, and its “church planting” philosophy of creating small churches in rural areas.
From there, the couple became involved with Wesleyan’s Radiant Life Church in New Strawn.
When they moved to Iola, the couple said they initially considered “planting” a church here but what they considered its downsides have convinced them otherwise.
“First off, as newcomers, we didn’t want to siphon off from existing congregations,” Shaunna said. “We didn’t want to be the shiny new object in town. All that does is ‘rearrange Christians.’ There are always people who are going to bounce around from church to church, and we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to honor the local churches in town. They’ve been here a lot longer than we have.”
And on a more practical side, the couple didn’t want to take on the expenses of a physical building and hiring staff.
The couple began to consider a different church model not only to keep their costs down, but also to target a younger demographic, specifically those between ages 18-34, who tend to shy away from traditional churches, and also suffer higher degrees of poverty.
“There are a lot of young adults really struggling here,” David said. “That’s also an age group that isn’t necessarily going to be interested in walking into a traditional church building.”
