On a quiet stretch of West Jefferson in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, First Christian Church lives by a single sentence: "Uniting with Jesus to find and restore the lost!" That motto is more than a tagline. It is the frame for everything the congregation does, from the Sunday preaching to the kitchen where volunteers prepare thousands of servings of food for the hungry of Northwest Arkansas.
Sunday Rhythm on West Jefferson
The Sunday schedule is built around three anchor points. Bible Study Hour begins at 9:15 and runs until 10:15 in the morning, with elective classes for children, youth, and adults meeting at the same time. At 10:30 the Family Worship Hour starts and continues until 11:45. The building on West Jefferson fills again in the afternoon and evening for Sunday Night Live, an umbrella for ministries that meet outside the morning service. GriefShare and The Garden kitchen work are both rooted in that afternoon and evening rhythm, and the leadership encourages families to keep the whole day open so they can live out their faith in creative, practical ways.
The preaching is expositional. Sunday teaching lets the Word of God speak for itself - the preacher works through Scripture passage by passage with accuracy, passion, and application, then trusts the Holy Spirit to apply the message to the needs of those in the pew. Special series such as Living Vertically have walked through spiritual disciplines from Simplicity to Silence and Solitude, and on through a sequence of prayers - Calling Out, Inward Transformation, the Prayer of the Forsaken, Prayer of Examination, Prayer of Tears, Prayer of Surrender, and Prayer of Adoration. Presentations from the series can be downloaded, and DVDs of services can be requested through the church office.
The Four Acts 2 Distinctives
Everything the church organizes is meant to flow through four distinctives drawn from Acts 2:42-47: Instruction, Fellowship, Worship, and Expression - surrounded on every side by prayer.
Instruction means the church is committed to making disciples, which the leadership describes as uniting with Jesus to find and restore the lost. Each Sunday carries an expositional teaching of the Word, and elective classes during the Bible Study Hour give adults room to dig deeper.
Fellowship is cultivated through small groups for ladies and men. Youth groups are described as being in the development stage.
Worship is summarized as adoration of the risen Christ.
Expression is the chance to compassionately serve others, both inside the church family and out in the community.
Prayer wraps the whole frame. The leadership quotes Oswald Chambers: "Prayer is our holy occupation. It is the work!" When the church prays, they say, they see what God can do. When they don't, they see what they can do - and they have seen what they can do.
Extreme Missions: From the Block to the World
"Extreme Missions is the core of First Christian Church." The church describes its work in those exact terms, and the description does not soften the language. The name is built around Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission, which the leadership reads as a co-mission - working with the Savior who promised to be with His people day after day, attempt after attempt. The program carries three concentric circles of engagement: local, regional, and global.
The local layer runs through Sunday Night Live. The Garden kitchen, GriefShare support, and FC United, the youth ministry, are all part of this afternoon and evening rhythm. FC United's outreach work happens around Siloam Springs - supporting New Life Ranch, working in The Garden, and working toward adopting its own people group to serve across the street from the church building.
FC United also travels. Summertime mission trips for high school students focus on ministering to the needs of more than seventy children at Mama Carmen's Home in Guatemala. The church has adopted Mama Carmen's Home as its people group, and on a combined-Sunday-School morning the adult classes have heard from Devin Chance of Life of Hope Ministries about the home's work. That same Sunday the congregation gave approximately $1,200 to provide needed medicines.
The internship track is another way the church invests in its young adults. Internships are aimed at college-age men and women with three goals: disciple young adults by encouraging their faith, train them for ministry, and send them out. Interns work alongside their leaders in tailor-made ministry, use their gifts and field of study, and can apply for financial help with summer missions trips. In some cases the work is honored by John Brown University, where the college defines the requirements and the church serves as mentor. The church has a presence at the annual JBU church fair to recruit.
Missions are also underwritten by the church. Ten percent of general fund offerings goes to missions, and the congregation supports missionaries and ministries through Partners in Missions, a Faith Promise program where families prayerfully pledge what they trust God to provide over the coming year.
The Garden: A Hunger-Relief Kitchen
The Garden is the church's most measurable expression of local mission. It is a hunger-relief partnership between First Christian Church, JBU SIFE, and World Garden Restaurant, run out of the church's own kitchen on West Jefferson. The idea is simple: high-quality ingredients that are no longer marketable (a close sell-by date, a few brown spots starting on bananas) are redirected to address hunger instead of being thrown away. The food is prepared by volunteers and delivered in bulk to Hunger and Thirst Ministry in Siloam Springs. Organic waste is given to local gardeners for compost.
The Garden kitchen launched in late 2009 with Rick Boosey of World Garden Restaurant and Charles Greathouse of JBU SIFE working alongside church volunteers, and it has grown quickly. By week 62 of operation the project passed the 30,000-serving mark, with one week alone delivering an estimated 374 servings of food. The kitchen turns out special holiday meals - 578 Christmas dinners were prepared in a single December day one year - and prepares a Valentine's Day dinner for Hunger and Thirst Ministry each year, with lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and dessert for around seventy attendees.
Elder Joe Walenciak oversees The Garden. He was elected to the Elder Board with the specific assignment of developing and engaging the church in the mission of uniting with Jesus to find and restore the lost. Day-to-day coordination is handled by JBU students Glenna Pittman and Kelly Parker.
Children and Youth
XtremeKids is the children's ministry on Sunday mornings. The program is built so that children are not just taught but sent out on Extreme Missions projects of their own.
One of those projects is the TeddyCare Project. Periodically the church holds a Teddy Care shower, and the bears collected are distributed by XtremeKids to children who are in the hospital with serious illnesses, accompanied by encouragement cards the children have written. The poster bear for the project is Teddy, and the first batch of bears and cards was sent to Arkansas Children's Hospital after the project was formally approved there. September is highlighted as Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, and the timing of the bear showers often lines up with it.
Mission Possible is the local expression of the same idea. Plans within Mission Possible include gardening around the church grounds, baking cookies for shut-ins, performing at local soup kitchens and rest homes, and other service projects in Siloam Springs.
FC United is the youth ministry. It works alongside the XtremeKids track, supports New Life Ranch, and serves in The Garden kitchen. Its outreach is both local and global, with summer mission trips for high school students going to Mama Carmen's Home in Guatemala.
Shepherding: A Flock and a First Responder
Every member of First Christian Church is in a flock overseen by a Shepherd or Shepherd Couple. The shepherds watch out for their flock members and serve as the first responders to needs - the people a member calls when life presses in. A quarterly newsletter called the Shepherd's Staff keeps shepherds and members connected.
GriefShare: Walking Through Loss Together
GriefShare is the church's grief recovery ministry, run under the Sunday Night Live banner. It is a friendly, caring group led by people who understand what grieving feels like and want to walk beside others through one of life's most difficult experiences. The leadership describes the journey from mourning to joy as one that should not be walked alone, and the group uses the national GriefShare materials and seminars. Participants can sign up for the next session by calling the church office, and the program is part of a network of thousands of groups meeting throughout the United States, Canada, and over ten other countries.
Days of Prayer: First Thursday of Every Month
Prayer is treated as the work of the church. Monthly Days of Prayer are held on the first Thursday of every month, with monthly prayer guides, updates, and testimonies shared in advance. Three prayer postures are emphasized - an Open Heaven through Worship and Adoration, an Open Heart through Humility and Submission, and an Open Hand through Joyful and Sacrificial Giving.
Days of Prayer are flexible by design. Participants might invite friends to join them for a neighborhood prayer walk, come into the church and pray in the quiet of the Prayer Room, or fast through lunch and use that hour for prayer. The leadership keeps a "Prayers for the Journey" guide in circulation that moves a person from inviting the Lord in, through recognizing their relationship with Him, committing their way, relinquishing what they carry, and finding contentment, all the way to a settled devotion to Him.
Pastor Dean Boyer
Dean Boyer is the senior pastor. A Long Beach, California native, he knew from middle school that he would be in full-time Christian ministry. After high school he attended Liberty University, majoring in Bible and minoring in Greek and Theology. He later earned an M.A. from Butler University and a D.Min. from Faith Evangelical Seminary.
Pastor Dean has served in the leadership of five churches in California, Taiwan, and Washington, and with Della, his wife since December 19, 1975, spent eleven years in Taiwan as a sponsored missionary with OMS International. He has also worked in Christian school administration and as an interim assistant professor of education at John Brown University. Hobbies include reading, writing, cooking, and gardening, especially roses. He has traveled to eight foreign countries including China, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Austria (a favorite), Hungary, Germany, and Hong Kong. For a summer he worked at a Southern California television station alongside the late Jake Hess, James Blackwood, and other gospel music artists.
Pastor Dean's stated legacy is short: "He knew God. He loved God. He walked with God. He believed God. He lived and died for the Glory of God," anchored in 2 Chronicles 16:9.
Other ministry leaders include Jim Rye as Director of Worship Ministries and Stacey Ausherman as Director of Children's Ministries.
Visiting First Christian Church
The church building sits at 1405 W. Jefferson St. in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. The office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and can be reached at (479) 524-5526. Church email is fccss@cox-internet.com, with a second address at siloamspringsfirstchristian@gmail.com. A welcome letter from Pastor Dean is available online.
Whether you come for Bible Study Hour at 9:15 AM, Family Worship at 10:30 AM, or the wider Sunday Night Live rhythm of The Garden, GriefShare, and small groups, the door is open and the kitchen is warm.