Christ Central (Durham)
It all started when…
Christ Central Church was founded as a mission church in Durham, North Carolina in 2014. From the beginning, pastors Daniel Mason and Timothy Price had a vision to plant churches … once the congregation passed 250, that is.
But then attendance surged past that number within the church’s second year, and no one was ready for planting so soon. By the time a push toward planting began years later, the church had grown so much that the organizational challenges felt overwhelming and planting well seemed impossible.
CREATING A NEW CHAPTER FOR THE CHURCH
In 2021, when lead pastor Daniel Mason contacted ALIGN, the church wasn’t sure what kind of help to ask for. After a thorough Insight Month, however, the recommendations were clear: a new administrative role was crucial, and so were several other projects designed to create new and needed clarity.
Over a six-month season, Will Gray served as Interim Executive Director, refocusing Daniel in his gifting and chairing a search committee for a longer-term Executive.
The ALIGN team also completed several significant projects during the same stretch, including:
Identity Deepening, to make the church’s identity more practical and actionable
Planning with the church’s Session, to create the church’s first multi-year, proactive plan
Workshopping with the staff team to capture key processes in Playbooks
Empowering how staff members get led well (through our resource The Team Member Journey)
Executive coaching using ALIGN’s approach to Rehumanizing Leadership
During these interim months, we also partnered with Lead Pastor Daniel Mason to
strengthen how Session meetings were prepared and run,
establish weekly “Same-Page Meetings” between the Executive and Lead Pastor,
and work 1-on-1 with each staff team member to begin unlocking their best work.
Meanwhile, God had been preparing Timothy Price, one of the church’s other pastors, to be the best possible fit for the new role of Executive Pastor. In February 2023, the Session promoted him, and approved additional months of coaching to support his move into the role.
“I felt immediate relief and lift through the work with ALIGN, knowing that there were newly designed ways I could hand things off and refocus in my gifting. ”
“There’s been so much practical upgrade to our organizational health & strength that we often catch ourselves saying, ‘Wait, I think Will would remind us of X right now.’”
“Somehow, ALIGN was able to help us connect the dots among all the passions our church has pursued for years now. I’m eager to lean into the progress we made together.”
“It was such an encouragement to have someone care about our church’s administration as much as I have. And ALIGN always helped me feel valuable to the work.”
“We expected — because ALIGN had come recommended — that we’d have good results. What we didn’t expect is just how much extra we’d gain on the Session level, and how we’d become good friends too.”
