Although God reaped a steady spiritual harvest from scores of ministries and home groups in Xenos in 1996, the church once again failed to grow significantly in attendance. As expected, youth groups and OASIS saw good growth even though both were laboring in inadequate facilities. But the rest of the church, also in inadequate facilities, continued to see its growth frustrated. Strangely, we recorded many conversions through adult outreach ministries and at our baptisms, but these failed to affect attendance at our main meetings.

Not with standing this problematic situation, clear signs of health and vigor indicate that the church is well  and nearly ready to take the next step in fulfilling our mission. Class participation stood at record levels, with 1400 students attending. Giving reached a new high, exceeding our previous high year (1995) by 24%! (Note that much of this increase was the result of a large, unexpected gift). Once again, we had an operating surplus, which the Fiscal Support Team disbursed into needed ministry projects. Student groups have seen growth and have just begun using new facilities completed during the year. Most importantly, the Xenos Servant Team grew by 60 members, or 17%, for a total of 420 members. The Fiscal Support Team also grew by 115 members to 508 families, representing a whopping 29% increase.

In our work outside our own church, Xenos leaders published three more major book titles, and held three Death of Truth conferences. The first ever Summer Apologetics Institute was attended by over 550 paying students from central Ohio and around the country. The Xenos web site grew from 4000 hits per month in late 1995 to almost 70,000 hits per month in late 1996! Even without considering graphics files, this represents well over 25,000 text files per month being downloaded and examined by people all over the world.

Given these successes, we might well conclude that growth in attendance will follow shortly, and that God himself may well be holding the church in check until we are more fully prepared for growth. The completion of our building project and the preparation of numerous groups for planting new groups are monumental projects which should bear abundant fruit soon. We are totally committed to this central strategy for our progress at this time. Pray that God will continue to bless our efforts on his behalf with the spiritual power to do what only he can do--ignite an evangelistic revival.

Today we stand poised to accomplish the next phase of our mission: completing preparations to occupy our main facility for adults and children, while exploiting the newly occupied youth facilities.

EVANGELISM & MISSIONS DIVISION

1996 has been an exciting year in the Evangelism & Missions Division. In world missions, we made progress on several fronts. We commissioned and sent a team of missionaries to the northern Eastern Europe. We brought several other teams into the missionary accreditation process (Eastern Europe, Brazil, England and Taiwan). We introduced two new policies that will assist accredited missionaries preparing to leave: The FastTrack program will enable approved missionaries to quit their jobs to raise support full-time, and we committed to provide 10% of approved missionaries’ support from the General Fund. Finally, we moved our missions director, Mike Butcher, from part-time to full-time.

In the area of local adult outreach, we saw more than 1000 guests attend central teachings, Mom’s Network meetings, and/or Conversation and Cuisine events. We also planted one new adult group from the college ranks--the "20 Something" ministry team. And over 50 people were baptized at the Fellowship-wide baptism.

Urban Concern purchased and began reconstruction of the first house for our Housing Program. We established a "Home Ownership" program for South Linden residents. Renovation of a new facility entered the final stage.

On the negative side, central teachings did not grow. Delays in construction have forced us to stay in our current facilities until next fall, which has negatively affected central teaching growth. Our efforts to effectively follow-up guests at central teachings fell somewhat short. We have introduced measures which should help correct this problem in the coming year. Some of our expansion plans for missions had to be put off until next year: developing a training track, developing a short-term missions program, and visiting teams on the field. And due to leadership hardship, we had to dis-accredit the "Grace on Gray" ministry team (though the ministry will continue on an unofficial basis).

In 1997, the Evangelism & Missions Division will make preparations for growth. Construction of the Main Campus facility should be completed by late summer or early fall. At that point we anticipate significant growth in our central teachings. In order to show up in our new facility ready for growth, we will implement programs to enhance the follow-up and incorporate of central teaching guests and outfit the Main Campus for after-meeting fellowship and follow-up.

We also hope to plant yet another post-college outreach group, and advance plans to open up a fourth central teaching at the Main Campus and one on the west side of town.

We will continue to administer the fellowship-wide baptism, and we hope to baptize over 200 new people. We will cooperate in the production of the Summer Evangelism Institute. We will convene an extra-local church council with our groups from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Zanesville. And we’ll try to replicate our effective outreach through the Mom’s Playgroup and Conversation and Cuisine networks.

In missions, we hope to accredit and send the South Eastern Europe, Brazil and England teams, while also advancing our Taiwan team’s preparations. We will introduce a short-term missions strategy, a missionary training track, and a program for visiting teams on the field. Finally, we will be encouraging outreach groups in communities within an hour’s driving time of Columbus.

Urban Concern has marked 1997 as the year to "pause and polish" their existing programs. We will make organizational and administrative changes to enhance ministries already in place. We will add classes to the South Linden Bible Study and After-School programs. And we will do our part to ready two families for home ownership.

God gave us 23% overall growth in our junior high, senior high and college ministries. Though we are thankful for this growth, it was less than our desired goal. The inability to get into our new high school facility until late this fall hurt growth in the high school ministry. Most groups did well with outreach. We hope to continue this in 1997, while improving our follow-up of newer students.

The high school group moved into our new student facility in October, while the campus central teaching moved its headquarters to a leased facility on East 16th Ave. Both spaces are much nicer and give us room to at least double in size. Initial attendance records are promising! We also leased Building 9 in September of 1995, which helped OASIS squeeze 60 additional children into regular attendance. As a result the OASIS program grew by almost 60 children in 1996.

About 50 junior high students are now attending two new meetings during the 11 am Sunday and Tuesday central teachings. Initial responses to the new meetings have been favorable. 25% of these students do not attend the Sunday night Blow-Out meeting.

The "College & Career" ministry team (DeLashmutt) planted a post-college home group (Buterbaugh) in February. The Buck McCallum/Robinson home church, along with the Downs home church, combined efforts to plant a post-college group (Sullivan) this past October. The parent churches and the newly planted groups are all doing well.

We want to fill up our new facilities! With our new youth facility, we hope to see the high school ministry grow by 50 students. We will focus on outreach and training the students to invest in the lives of their non-Christian high school friends. With our newly acquired OSU campus facility, we hope to win another 50 students through the central teachings and home churches.

At Calumet Christian School (CCS), we are presently developing an expansion plan to accommodate the growing enrollment for the 1997-98 school year. Several different plans are being reviewed by the CCS board, who will also develop a 3-5 year expansion plan by mid-year.

The OASIS directors are excited about moving into our new facility, where the class room space will almost double. Therefore, volunteer staff recruitment will be a top priority this summer to insure readiness for the anticipated growth after the move.

This summer we hope to send fifty high school students on a ten-day missions project in Mexico, and thirty junior high students on a seven-day work project in Tennessee. The trips will also help accomplish our mission by forming lifelong attitudes of sacrificial giving among the participating students.

We will also launch the Real Life program in 1997. Real Life offers an alternative to Christian College education. This year we hope to enroll six extra-local students who will live in a college ministry house, take our course work (Christian Principles, etc.), attend a local college (OSU, Columbus State, Franklin U.) and be mentored by an adult member in Xenos. These students will spend three to four years here, after which they will bring their Xenos experience back to their local churches.

The net number of people in home groups grew by just over 40 people from last year. Some of these people joining groups recently became Christians. We now stand at 1158 people in Pastoral home groups (this number does not include college nor adult evangelistic ministry teams). This year, we added 5 new home groups, but 8 groups ended (mostly through some weakened groups merging with stronger groups). We now have 51 pastoral home groups.

In spite of last year’s small growth, general morale among home group leaders is some of the best we've had in half a decade or more. Many leaders are anticipating growth in their groups as they reach out through ministries like Conversation and Cuisine. Whereas a year and a half ago only a third of the home groups had cell groups (men & women study groups), most have them today. We have seen a number of leaders return to a personal discipleship paradigm. This is a good sign of health, but we need more happening here. Quarterly enhancement nights grew this year and have served our leaders well, invigorating them with the vision for growing and planting their groups. Our soon-to-be-completed auditorium reminded group leaders that possibly many new folks will need incorporation into home groups in the coming months. 21 of our home groups have drafted plans to plant their groups, and we anticipate more such plant plans.

The Servant Team grew by 60 this year and is at 420 deacons now. The flow of new deacons has been steady, and demonstrates wide-spread vitality in the church. Servant Team monthly meetings showed somewhat better attendance over last year.

The counseling department developed new biblical counseling and marital counseling class-work to equip people to effectively counsel each other. We knew that these classes would be popular, but even our high expectations were exceeded.

The need for more home groups will probably rise significantly as we move into the new building next year. We hope to plant 10 new groups in 1997, and 12-15 more in 1998. It will be crucial to develop Christian workers who are willing to trust God to help lead new groups. This is one of the greatest needs of the church for 1997, if we are to capitalize on the growth opportunity afforded by our new facility.

We will hire a full time Home Group Supervisor/ Incorporator to help new people find groups and to oversee new groups next year. Even so, we must rely heavily on more people in home groups who will make the extra effort to meet new people they don't know at central teachings.

The new Servant Team 2-year covenant will take shape early 1997, and the Servant Team will vote on what changes in the team. We expect another strong flow of new deacons this year to build on an already strong core of the church. Servant Team members, meanwhile, need to keep up on their commitments.

Katey Downs is quite busy with about as many clients as she can see in a given week. Because of this, the counseling department received the green light to hire another counselor on an "if-needed" basis.

Besides offering support to our own members, we hope to develop new inroads into our community by publicizing the DivorceCare series, single parents, new singles ministries, and men's and women's ministries.

We hope to build on the successful parent/child meal-Bible study concept by doing more events this year. This will help parents build better spiritual and relational bonds with their children.

1996 has been an exciting year in the Equipping Division. We met our goal of 1400 annual registrants and 6 course offerings per quarter in the adult education program. We currently have our largest Christian Principles class ever (130), up from the 100 we’ve averaged over the previous two years. This is a sign of spiritual vitality for Xenos, as many of these young Christians will become active contributors to ministry teams and members of the Servant Team. Enrollment in Challenge Groups remains high this year as nearly half of the Servant Team is now involved.

The Study Center has completed its move to the new facility. Along with an extraordinary view of our property, new furniture and a cozy fireplace, we also have greatly enhanced tools for study. Three Pentium computers, loaded with state-of-the-art Bible study programs, access the Internet and Windows 95 make the Study Center a complete resource for individual and group study. Study Center director Rob Dixon has expressed concern about low levels of use over the past couple of years. He is busily planning for growth in 1997, centering on the value of our new location and newly acquired resources.

Ministry NetWorking launched the first ministry fair this year. It was very well received, both by the 52 ministry teams that had a booth and by the hundreds of people who showed up to see what ministries Xenos is involved in. This is the last ministry fair Sherri Fojas will administer, as she pursues her career as a full-time mom. We wish Sherri well and thank her for her many years of distinguished service on the Xenos staff.

The Crossroads Project, Xenos’ apologetics ministry, had a very busy year. While we did not reach our goal of 4 "Death of Truth" conferences, the two that were held were very well received. We had numerous publications, beginning the year with the release of our multi-authored work, The Death of Truth (Bethany House Publishers) and 10 articles in Christian magazines and journals. The Summer Apologetics Institute far exceeded our expectations. People from nine states participated in the two week program that featured three prominent Christian apologists, William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross and Grant Osborne.

In 1997, the Equipping Division will build on the programs and services developed over the past two years. The adult education department has set a goal 1400 registrants in classes and one-third of the Servant Team to take a Challenge Group. After a year of intense study and preparation, Patrice McCormac will offer the Christian Principles course on Friday mornings. This will be ideal for stay-at-home moms, people working second and third shifts, and retirees.

The Study Center has targeted an ambitious 200 member growth for 1997. With the substantial support given to the Study Center by the Fiscal Support Team, we believe that the location and enhanced resources will be increasingly attractive to Xenos members. We are also putting some new programs in place that should attract interest both from within the fellowship and in the local Christian community.

Ministry NetWorking will undergo some changes in keeping with a church that is in the process of change. Rob Dixon will include NetWorking in his administrative role in the Equipping Division. He will oversee the same projects as last year, but will also develop an interactive information center for the new Auditorium, intended to make awareness of and connection with our 60+ ministry teams much easier.

The Crossroads Project will hold three conferences for 1997. Two are already scheduled. We will continue our research and publications on cultural issues that witnessing Christians need to understand. The Summer Evangelism Institute will broaden last year’s emphasis on apologetics to include some more practical tools for reaching our postmodern world. We have also shortened it to nine days, down from two weeks.

This year represented a mixed-bag of goal accomplishment for External Relations. We learned a lot and God has solidified our vision. We have made many new friends and contacts in the Christian community nationally, and God has been affirming this ministry through many of them.

We fell short of our goal to move 4,000 copies of The Death of Truth through sales or promotions, though we did move 3000 copies. This nationally published book became a lynch-pin to promoting our conferences, the Summer Apologetics Institute, and the Xenos name in general. The newly formed Contact Team was instrumental in book promotion and we thank them for their great work. The Death of Truth has done well enough nationally that Bethany House has authorized a second printing.

Our goal to hold 8 out-of-town Death of Truth conferences proved too lofty. The travel required for promoting and holding this many conferences was too time intensive to maintain. As a result, the elders approved a reduced goal of 2 or 3 away conferences per year. We held conferences at Kent State University, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago with over 170 attending each. We also held a mini-conference at Ohio State. We met the 1996 promotion goals for 1997 conferences by securing conferences in Denver and Lincoln (Illinois) for 1997. We also have strong leads on conferences in Dallas and Vancouver for 1998.

We exceeded the goal of providing logistical and promotional support to Crossroads' Summer Apologetics Institute. Over 550 people attended, compared with the goal of 200, coming from seven other states besides Ohio. Thanks to Sherri Fojas, Heidi Ann Klingler, and Carolyn Voelker who made this two-week conference hum with efficiency. We are also grateful for the many other volunteers who gave sacrificially to this ministry.

Response to our World Wide Web sites has exceeded our greatest expectations. The number of people accessing the sites each month has increased fifteen-fold--from several hundred in January to tens of thousands in December. We also increased the content of the sites four-fold. Site visitors have been consistently positive in their feedback, especially appreciating that we share our materials without charge. Book sales and conference registration have also been enhanced through this ministry. Jay Reilly, with the help of volunteers, has managed and modified these sites regularly.

In addition to helping other Christian workers through the above ministries, we also hope that through these ministries God will draw Christians to become involved in our programs here in Columbus. We desire to be known as a training center for Christian workers. Our 1997 goals aim to further both of these ends.

The Summer Apologetics Institute’s name has been changed to Summer Evangelism Institute. We plan to appeal to a wider range of attendees by providing more breadth in our topics. This year’s conference will also be accessible to working people since five of its ten days are weekend days. William Lane Craig has agreed to return, and other noted speakers have already been invited. Our new Office & Study Center building will host most of the SEI, and provide a much more appealing environment for learning. We will be thrilled with attendance similar to last year’s conference.

In 1997, we will begin an exciting new step in equipping Christians outside Xenos. The Real Life mentoring program provides Christian undergrad students an opportunity to be equipped for ministry while simultaneously attending a local secular college. Their involvement in our campus Bible study, Christian Principles classes, ministry house living, and access to an adult mentor will help them learn how to be a light shining in the midst of our secular culture. External Relations' promotions will hopefully attract six Christian college students into this program while attending a local college. Our promotions will also be directed toward bringing at least twice that many students in the fall of 1998.

We will hold two out of town Death of Truth conferences in 1997--at Denver on February 7,8, and at Lincoln (Illinois) on October 7,8. The conference has improved significantly by increasing its practical impact and interest for the lay person. Scheduling more conferences may spread our personnel too thin when we need to prepare for the upcoming move to the new facility.

The promotion of The Death of Truth will remain a key in External Relations' goal of acquainting the wider church with Xenos and The Crossroads Project. Its content directly relates to the conference ministry and to the type of apologetics and evangelism equipping we want to provide students in the Real Life program. We hope to move 2000 copies of The Death of Truth through sales and promotions. We will expand the Contact Team in order to accomplish this. We will promote the other Xenos-authored books in a similar fashion.

Our web sites will come under new management. ATGi (a local web access and development company) will manage the sites' incredible growth in size and activity by organizing, maintaining, and enhancing our content and look. As a result, our equipping and promotions through the World Wide Web should be even more effective in 1997 than the previous year.

The past year was certainly a challenging and exciting one. We faced the prospect of supporting on-going core programs and our church’s growing ministry in existing facilities--while building new ones. The single most consuming project for the entire division was the development and completion of our new Office-Study Center-Student facility. At year-end, we were finally situated in our new environment, ready to face the new year in more productive, spacious (and beautiful) work space.

Several individuals within the Operations division spent over half of each day on issues related to our building projects. We spent even more energy developing the legal agreements related to the signing of a commitment to sell part of our eastern property.

Operation’s Facilities Development and Maintenance Department worked incredibly hard to make sure we maintained high levels of service in our bulging existing leased facilities, as we made our transition out to our church-owned places. John Circle wore many hats in the facilities area this year; he was our "point-man" on our building projects and oversaw our meeting spaces. We faced an assortment of building challenges, including uncooperative weather and difficulty working with our chosen construction manager. We did learn a great deal about what we did not want our larger building project to be like. That experience has paid dividends as we started work on the Main Campus building in September.

Office management took a massive step forward as we completed some real offices, and as Cathy Kaiser took the reigns of creating an environment in which we can all work productively. Thanks to so many volunteers, the move came off very well, and now we are in a place were we can grow and thrive in God’s service.

Our Sound & Light department supported the myriad of seminars and presentations we give, along with the stage and sound at central teachings, retreats and many other events. In an organization that thrives on thinking on its feet, director Mark Grover worked to improve our ability to respond and to plan ahead. At the same time, the sound systems implemented for the office and study center consumed a large amount of effort. The design for Main Campus also required extensive input.

Media & Graphics (formerly Media Concepts) enhanced its ability to provide communication media within the church (through the Weekly Update and the Exchange), and to the external world. Chris Lang supported initiatives within External Relations and Equipping to present the Crossroads project through professional brochures and related publications. We also began to experiment in the use of digital media, with more to come in the future.

Maximizing our considerable investment in information technology continues to be a battle, with more time needed before these tools reach their real potential. Our systems director, Andy Ault, focused on the automated information tools the church needs to effectively administrate our work. Andy also headed up an amazing team of volunteers who helped wire and connect our office network in a very cost-effective and incredibly professional manner.

Our church fiscal controller, Alan Burkholder, headed the professional staff as they maintained our systems for financial accounting, safe-guarding our assets and reporting to management and the church. As a result, as in 1995 the Fiscal Support Team shared in the exciting task of deciding how to allocate $100,000 of "black-ink" to Christ-centered ministry. This sum was available because management spent under budget, and because collections were over budget. Accounting and finance retained excellent service while implementing new benefit programs and under-going a full external audit. The audit proved what we really knew all along-- we have an outstanding grasp of what it takes to manage and report on our finances, in full compliance with all applicable rules and regulations. We do not plan on having another external audit done in the near future, but we will maintain our high, professional standards.

Our division also continued to support our building campaign. Collections remained on-track, but efforts to involve more of our members in the campaign on a pledged basis were not as successful as we had hoped. We were also unable to focus much time or energy into increasing participation, as our resource remained consumed with the actual building project.

In 1996, our church administrative management worked to determine the proper balance between responsibilities of the executive administrator, the senior elders and the division coordinators. Progress was made in defining roles and responsibilities, but additional work remains.

In 1997, the Operations Division will focus on laying down a solid infrastructure for our future by providing a productive working environment for our staff and volunteers and enhancing the levels of support we provide to each department. We set forth many plans, especially at the Fiscal Support Team Retreat, that will require division assistance and funding. This work impacts each and every of the aforementioned departments.

1997 will certainly include intense activity on the final design and completion of our new Main Campus facility. The division coordinator will have overall responsibility for delivery of the facility. The Facilities Department will maintain a very active role in the development cycle and transition planning. Sound & Light will work almost full-time on the building as we enter the final three months of building activity.

In addition to the completion of our building project, we will also strive to sell a few out-parcels of our land. We have been contemplating this action since 1992. With the start of design for the Main Campus building, the elders decided to expand the design to fully meet our current needs for space, and to provide for some room for growth. In order to finance this expanded version of the building, we have moved more aggressively to sell some premium development property that has less value to us from our overall plans for the use of our land. A sale will be consummated in 1997 to bring in additional funds for our expanded project.

We will continue to meet on-going goals related to facilitating ministry in each of the other church divisions. This will be accomplished through each of the departments that comprise the Operations Division. In particular, we will focus on refining operating and usage guidelines for all of our facilities. We want to maximize the use of what God has given us, while still maintaining the integrity and security of our facility assets. This is a tough area to control, knowing that we have many excellent uses for the facilities, but limited resources to maintain and enhance them.

We also want to maximize the productivity available from our information technology tools. In this day of the internet and fast-paced technology evolution, we need to make the most of what we have already, and make smart decisions about where to invest. Better tools for staff and church leaders are key to facing the challenges of the growth we expect. Along with technology, we know that our staff needs to be supported materially, trained in job skills and motivated to achieve the goals set before us. Operations will support that need in 1997 through more focused full-time office management and improved human resource planning.

Our accounting department will continue to focus on timely reporting. We will also develop better reporting formats and tools for use by the division coordinators and their staff.

Much of what the division tries to accomplish will not be possible without the many volunteers who come forward to help. 1997 will see the formation of ministry teams in facilities maintenance, cleaning and traffic control. Of course, we will seek help for our huge move from the current Sinclair Road facilities. We will also pull together a human resource team to look at staff needs, help plan approaches to those needs. The office will also continue to seek out willing helpers, without whom we could not operate the office in a productive, responsive mode.

In 1997, we will refine the role of the senior elders in running daily church operations, and further clarify the role of the executive administrator. This process will involve time with the divisions coordinators determining needs and approaches to meeting those needs. The church’s board of elders will spend time looking at organizational issues and potential improvements fostered through changed roles and responsibilities. We will also continue to seek out input from others churches and related organizations. As we look toward the end results of our work in this area, we look forward to the creation of a much more effective organization. The organization will better leverage the gifting of administrative support, while freeing more of the senior elders’ time to share their gifting with the church and community at-large. Our effectiveness in this area will be measured in large part from the feedback we receive back our staff, and those we serve.

1996 giving proved to be the highest ever, and exceeded budgeted collections by over $100,000. However, apart from a large unexpected gift, giving fell about $60,000 short of budgeted collections. In addition, division coordinators met their goals while spending under their budgets by about $50,000. The December Fiscal Support Team retreat targeted an overall 1997 budget of just over $2.2 million. The following is a summary of financial information for 1996 and 1997.

1996 Expenditures and Budget Based on current (1/10/97) management projections

1997 Operating Budget Based on current funding / pledge projections