Church of the Open Door
Church of the Open Door is one of the largest churches in Leavenworth, Kansas.
A non-denominational Bible church,
Church of the Open Door serves as a healthy Bible-believing church in the Leavenworth community.
Although today it is seen as a large, thriving church,
a hundred years ago, Church of the Open Door had very humble beginnings.
Church of the Open Door was founded in July of 1916 by five men,
Robert Cartwright, Henry Last, Isaiah Langham, John Derrider, and Herbert Stelling.
Many of these men worked for the Great Western Stove Company,
and several of them were members of a local church.
These men founded the church out of a concern for the local youth.
They saw roaming the streets on Sunday mornings.
They desired to offer a place for these children to have an opportunity to learn about God.
There was a small building formerly known as Friends Church for sale on Randolph Street.
And so in July of 1916, these five men joined together to purchase the one-room property at 1017 Randolph Street,
agreeing to pay $66.66 a month for the property.
Ministries thrived from the very beginning.
The original Sunday school class grew rapidly.
Each Sunday, more and more people attended,
and the original five charter members quickly realized that they needed to have a more structured Sunday service.
It was at this point that Robert Cartwright was officially named the first pastor of the Church of the Open Door.
Robert Cartwright served as pastor for four years, but resigned for health reasons.
So in 1920, Henry Last, one of the original five founding members, was named as pastor.
When I think about the pastors of the Church of the Open Door,
the first one I remember is Pastor Henry Last,
and he had a real heart for the children running around in the neighborhood,
and he would try to get the kids to come to Sunday school and of course do them, reach the parents.
During Pastor Last's tenure, the Church continued to serve the local community.
After 32 years of ministry, Pastor Last went home to be with the Lord,
and Walter Jones was named as the third pastor of the Church of the Open Door.
While Walter Jones was pastor, the Church continued to grow
and eventually added six more rooms onto the back of the Church, a furnace room and a restroom.
During this time, the Church also began having regularly scheduled evening services and prayer meetings.
Also during his pastorate, the ladies of the Church of the Open Door began a cradle roll ministry,
bringing mothers together to celebrate the birth of new babies.
Walter Jones served as pastor for eight years,
and in 1960, his brother Howard Jones was named as the fourth pastor of the Church of the Open Door.
During his time as pastor, two of the leaders began a weekly ministry
in which they would drive several of the local youth to Youth for Christ in a big purple bus that became well known in the community.
They also started a prison ministry, built a fellowship room, a kitchen, pastor's offices, and brick the outside of the Church.
On March 3, 1963, the Church held an official ceremony dedicating the new Church editions.
During the ceremony, Pastor Jones acknowledged the sacrifices and hard work that went into this new edition.
He dedicated the Church for worship and prayer and praise, for preaching of the Word, for the salvation of the loss,
for the protection of the family, for the guidance and challenge of youth,
for the promotion of Christian education, and for the suppression of evil in all forms.
After serving as pastor for 28 years, Howard Jones retired.
In an article run in the Leavenworth Times, Pastor Jones articulated his heart for ministry
and noted that while it would be tough for him to retire, it was time for someone younger to hold that position.
So in 1989, David Jones, Walter Jones' son, was named as the fifth pastor at Church of the Open Door.
It was during David Jones' pastorate that Church of the Open Door made a big move.
After more than 75 years on Randolph Street, the Church came together and decided that it was time to move to a new location.
They had outgrown the building on Randolph Street, and after much discussion and prayer,
decided to purchase a piece of land on New Lawrence Street, now known as 20th Street Traffic Way.
We didn't have room down at Randolph for the little kids to have their ministry in the evening,
so the Lord gave us a place where we could.
The Lord just laid it on my heart that we needed it to move,
and so he gave me a vision that if we look, he would supply property out here when there was nothing but pastor.
I got a whole stack of pictures of work from the beginning to the end, you know,
from having a gold shovel, dirt removed and things, you know, and from the land of the concrete slab.
If God leads, God wants you to do something. He's going to provide.
On a chilly Easter Sunday morning, April 3rd, 1994, Church of the Open Door held its first service at the new location.
The service was conducted on a concrete slab that eventually became the current fellowship hall.
The first service inside the building took place in August of 1994.
The church met in this building for two years while the main sanctuary was built.
The first service in our current sanctuary was held in September of 1996.
In 1996, David Jones retired from the ministry, and Steve Gardner was named as the sixth pastor
just before the dedication service for the newly constructed sanctuary, which was held on November 3rd, 1996.
During Gardner's pastorate, Church of the Open Door started an Urwana program, which continues at the church today.
Every week, kids from age 3 to 18 come to the church and learn about God and His Word.
In 1998, Steve Gardner stepped down from his role as pastor.
And in 1999, our current pastor, Dr. Damian Efta, was called as the seventh pastor of the Church of the Open Door.
We first came to the Church of the Open Door in the spring of 1999.
We were missionaries in Poland, and so had all of our correspondence was really done over just the mail system.
And in the early spring, I traveled out for, I think it was three weeks to get to know the church,
the church gets to know me and to determine whether or not they would call me as a pastor.
And Jenny joined about halfway through that trip, and so we were both here for a couple of weeks.
And some of our earliest memories are just being in the houses of some of the people from the congregation
and just getting to know the people, and it was a friendly environment to be in.
Shortly after, it was decided that the church would add an education wing on the west side of the building.
In 2001, Pastor Efta cut the ribbon on what now serves as the church's education wing.
In 2005, Pastor Efta started the Tyrannus School of Theology.
I started the School of Tyrannus, I think somewhere around probably 2003 or 2004,
something in that area would be my guess.
And it really was an outworking of my experience on the mission field, and what other people have done in other parts of the world
is the church that we worked with on the mission field had what you would call a local Bible institute for training of people.
More in-depth studies than Sunday school would be, but more accessible than going away to a seminary or a Bible college somewhere.
So I came back with that kind of idea or vision in mind, and shortly we started the same type of thing here.
Wanting to take those primarily adults, matter of fact, almost solely adults, who wanted to be able to study deeper than they could
in a Sunday school class or a Bible study, but didn't have the ability to go down to Calvary Bible college or some other Bible college.
And so we started to offer classes here in the church.
In 2008, Pastor Efta began the discipleship program for the development of spiritual leaders.
The idea of developing leaders for the church, take men who are finishing up in the seminary,
bring them in for three or four years to get leadership skills and then send them out to pastor churches.
And we wanted to take that one step further into preparing people for the ministry who wouldn't be full-time pastors.
So we began an intentional 36-week leadership development program where we do theological education, we do ministry education,
we do ministry experience, practicums, and try to expose people to what it means to be a leader in the church.
Over the years, the Church of the Open Door had a number of associate pastors.
And one of them was Jay Licky.
So my wife, Emily, and I, we had been in California for the last four years.
This was 2005. I had been going to seminary at the master's seminary, and I had just graduated there in 2005.
And so we were looking because this was the first full-time on-staff position that I had in a church.
And so I wanted to be under a guy that could kind of disciple me and I could learn and grow under.
And Damien wanted that as well. And so that was one of the real matches that we were looking for and this church really had, was that fit.
In 2012, Jay Licky was sent to Pastor Church of the Open Door's first church plant, Open Door Fellowship in Bacer, Kansas.
Pastor Andy was brought on as the new associate pastor in 2012 and is still serving in this role.
I came to Church of the Open Door after answering a job ad that the church posted at Southern Seminary.
Megan and I were actually looking at jobs that were closer to Wyoming because that's where her family was.
I received a call from David Hoppus. He was the first person I ever talked to from Church of the Open Door over the phone.
And he told me about the position. I applied because it was an associate pastor position over the youth.
I had an interest in working with youth, but also having some leadership responsibilities in a church.
And he informed me over the phone that it was actually youth and music.
And so that was a bit of a surprise. I have a music background, but I wasn't thinking along those lines.
He asked me if I wanted to keep my application in and I said yes, yes I do.
And so I began having some conversations with them.
I had a really good conversation with Pastor Efta with Damien and he encouraged me and told me that if I came to Church of the Open Door
that they would prepare me for longevity in the pastor. And that really hit home with me.
I had pretty quickly determined that Church of the Open Door is where we wanted to be.
In 2015, in light of a growing congregation, the church decided that the sanctuary needed to be expanded.
The addition took six months to conclude and added over 100 seats, with the new capacity being increased from about 290 to 410.
The first service in the newly expanded sanctuary was held on October 25, 2015.
Currently, plans are underway for a new fellowship hall with classrooms.
Church of the Open Door has seen many additions and changes over the years.
But one thing remains the same, and this is the desire to make Christ known through faithful ministry.
We included the missionaries as part of the ministry, the active part of the ministry.
When they were available, they were here. They visited the church. We heard from them.
We just didn't send missionaries out and forgot about them.
We were involved with what they were doing and how they were getting along, and in their support, very actively so.
Church of the Open Door has been a missionary sending church from its inception.
Around the same time they purchased the original church building, they also agreed to support a missionary by the name of Mr. Fisher with the Gospel Missionary Union.
The passion that Church of the Open Door has for missions carries over to the local ministry as well.
Over the years, Church of the Open Door has had a great impact on Leavenworth and surrounding communities.
Awana is a ministry that reaches the local youth with the Gospel.
Every week, more than 80 children and youth between the ages of 3 to 18 come to the church to learn about God and His Word.
Club M is a ministry geared at ministering to moms in the local area and the Fort Leavenworth community.
Currently, the Evangelism ministry is on track to reach the entire city of Leavenworth by fall of 2017.
To date, we have reached over 6,000 homes in the Leavenworth community.
Church of the Open Door's largest-scale evangelism effort is the yearly production Walk Through Bethlehem.
In December of 2009, the church put together its first annual presentation by turning the fellowship hall into first-century Bethlehem.
Walk Through Bethlehem is a unique ministry here at the church that reached out to the community.
It was kind of an outreach.
The first night, we had just over 200 people, probably about 210 people walk through.
The second night was a Saturday night, and we had about the same number.
And then the third night, we actually had a 50-mile-an-hour blizzard.
So the snow was blowing sideways. It was crazy.
We couldn't open the doors on that one night with the blizzard.
We had about 285 people walk through that night.
Seeing all the cars and everybody coming in is a nice feeling and makes you think that we're doing something good for the city and for the area.
One thing I like about Walk Through Bethlehem, that some other Christmas programs that tell the story of the birth of Christ don't do, that we do with Walk Through Bethlehem,
is we tell the whole gospel story, not just the birth of Christ, but also His death burial and resurrection.
And we think that's really important to understanding the whole salvation message.
And without that, really, it's just a baby that was born in a faraway place.
This event with props, costumes, and scripts takes scores of volunteers to execute.
Each year, the event grows in popularity, with over 1,000 people coming through in the three-day production.
Music
A number of years ago, the elders sat down to not to create our core values,
but to articulate them as they are related to God, the church, scripture, and evangelism.
Because we have a high view of God, we value these things.
Because we have a high view of the scripture, we value these things.
The same with a high view of the church and a high view of evangelism.
These are things we value.
And so we put those things down in a written form to make sure that we didn't drift from them.
Church of the Open Door has left its mark, not just in the Leavenworth area, but around the globe.
Faithful study and preaching of the scripture, corporate worship, unwavering adherence to the biblical mandates and instruction,
and a passion to reach the local community and the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ are essential in the life and longevity of the church.
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God by His grace has kept this church around for a hundred years, and maybe by His grace.
And if the Lord tarries, it'll be another hundred years.
Not a lot of churches are a hundred years old and still true to the core values of the founders.
The greatest testimony of this church and of its founders and of its those who have been a part of it for a hundred years
is that it hasn't drifted, it's still in the same place.
If it's still here a hundred years from now, that will not have changed.
That it will still be faithful to the Word of God, it will be proclaiming it, it will be standing on truth,
not moved off of the rock that is Christ because of the whims of culture.
We hope to leave the church stronger than when we came.
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