Tim Mitchell is the new lead minister for the Community Christian Church in Linn. He’s quick with a smile, a joke, and a bible quote. Mitchell took the position of lead minister in June of this year but if he looks or sounds familiar that’s because he has been filling in as the minister for Sunday services since last summer.

“I was just kinda filling in the preaching role as a substitute teacher does,” Mitchell explained. 

He applied to be a part-time lead minister until a vaccine for COVID-19 was readily available. 

“They didn’t really have any programming going, just Sunday morning stuff, so I said you don’t need a full-time minister just yet,” Mitchell added.

Mitchell made the two-hour trip from Lebanon, where he lived with his family, once a week. He and his wife, Jenna, and two daughters, Diana and Zelda, moved to Linn in August. 

“I love Linn,” Mitchell says with a lot of enthusiasm. “I love State Tech. I love the public school here. I love how small the class sizes are for my girls. I know my kids are in good hands. My goal is to be here for 10 or 20 years.”

His one complaint is that there is no Taco Bell in town. 

Mitchell says that one of the first things that you learn in a small town is that everyone is related. Although he and his wife had never lived in Osage County, they found out recently with the help of the Osage County Historical Society that his wife’s grandmother is from Chamois. There are even relatives buried at the Ferguson Cemetery in the Chamois area.

“I’m related to you all too,” Mitchell said. “At least through marriage.”

Mitchell went to college at the Central Christian College in Moberly when he found out his friend was going there. He originally thought he would just go to school for a semester or two to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. While he was in college, he was the weekend youth minister at a local church and it was there that he realized God was calling him to a life of ministry.

Mitchell laughs when asked if he felt like he was called at a young age to be a minister. He remembers hating church as a kid.

“I was the kid in the back of the church talking to my friends about Saturday Night Live skits and my dad would be so mad because I was loud in church,” Mitchell remembers. “I loved Jesus but the idea of church was so blah.”

What Mitchell realized was that what happens on Sunday is a small piece of what church is supposed to be about.

“It’s supposed to be a community that loves each other and loves the greater community and changes it for the glory of God,” Mitchell said. “I like to relate to people. I like to goof off with people and I like to have fun and I was finding Christian people that I could do that with. I found this circle of people at bible college that were like, ‘we are not getting drunk; we are not getting high but we’re going to goof off and we are going to have fun,’ and that was my kinda people, and I feel like church should be that regularly. It should just be a group of people that are having fun together.”

Mitchell learned that to teach the bible he had to study it and he loved studying the bible.

He admits that sometimes preaching is hard.

“I’ll spend like 77 hours on one sermon and I look out and I know people are like this is a dud,” Mitchell said with a laugh. “But then someone is leaving and they say that was the best sermon. I don’t always know if they are lying or if something mystical happened.”

In August, the Community Christian Church hired Zack Kever as the youth minister. He was born and raised in Linn and is a recent graduate of the physical therapy assistant program at State Tech. Kever has been going to Community Christian Church for the last 10 years or so but it was encouragement from his wife that pushed him into the ministry.

Kever was working part time as a physical therapy assistant and was looking for something to add to his life.

“My wife, Ashton, kinda pushed me,” Kever said with a smile. “She said that I had always talked about taking more responsibility at church. So, I talked to Tim about it and I became the temporary youth pastor. Sorta a trial run.”

After finishing the school year out, elders hired Kever into a position that is somewhere between full and part time. 

Mitchell said that they had wanted to hire him full-time but Kever wants to keep his foot in the door with physical therapy because it is part of what he loves to do.

Mitchell and Kever admit that new leadership can sometimes ruffle some feathers, especially in a small community, but in the end, it’s is all about building relationships. 

“We are always trying to build rapport with people, so we can change people’s lives for eternity,” Mitchell said. “That’s our mission.”

One of the programs that Mitchell is most excited about is the new program for the State Technical students.

“The program is called ‘DIG,’” Mitchell explained. “DIG stands for we want to dig deeper into relationships with each other, dig deeper into your relationship with God, and dig into the food we brought.”

The program is held every Tuesday night that State Tech is in session and starts at 6. The program is hosted at Sue Gelven’s house.

“We’ve got a great group of people coming,” Mitchell said. “That should be one of our biggest missions in this community, to minister to the students of State Tech.”

The Youth Group will start meeting again on Wednesday evening from 6:30 to 8:00. Last year, COVID took a toll on participation in the weekly youth group but this year Kever hopes things will be different.

“We try to keep things as fun and engaging as possible,” Kever said. “We have games, lessons, music, and food. We have a good group of core kids.”

The group is open to kids from sixth through 12th grade.

“This is an extracurricular (activity) people should really get behind,” Kever added.

The church also has a men’s ministry that meets and they put together a monthly luncheon for church seniors.

The church took a group of 28 students on their yearly trip to Colorado this summer.

“We took a big group out there and had a ball,” Mitchell said.

As of now, Community Christian Church will not be resurrecting its very popular after-school program, “Team Kid.” 

“Since the school switched to four days per week, we’ve had to kinda abandon Team Kid,” Mitchell said. “It was very successful but we’re still brainstorming how to do something like that again. We’ll resurrect something soon but it will probably look different.”

Mitchell noted that sometimes ministry can be hard but he feels it is in God’s plan for him. 

Mitchell and Kever are working on a mission statement but for now, their goals are simple.

“For right now, I’d say our mission statement is to love God and love our community,” Mitchell said.