Loving Christ, Loving His Church
Maddie S. loves the Church, and she loves her congregation. It shows in the ways she’s poured into The Local, a large congregation in Grand Rapids, and by her involvement in its church plant called Beloved. Maddie explains that she doesn’t “want to just show up to church on Sunday and worship for an hour and a half and then head home. The church is so much more than that!”
Maddie has served on the hospitality team and led small groups. In 2024, she signed up to be a “Local Guide.” Guides are volunteers from The Local who agree to be matched with newcomers, especially those who are young in their faith. Maddie explains, “One of my best friends was a Local Guide, and she told me, ‘This is a great opportunity. I think you’d be a really good mentor to somebody.’” Maddie was paired with a new believer named Ele D. When Ele joined the inVocation Fellows program, she asked Maddie if she’d serve as her mentor during the program year. That was an easy “yes,” Maddie says with a laugh.
“One of my best friends…told me, ‘This is a great opportunity. I think you’d be a really good mentor to somebody.’”
What motivates Maddie the most is her passion for discipleship. She says she is aware of how Satan seeks to discourage and dissuade new believers and feels “compelled in her spirit” to be involved in supporting and praying for them. She reports that she’s watched Ele enthusiastically seek to “shift every aspect of who she is to align with being a Christ-follower.” She’s loved witnessing Ele’s eagerness and has been encouraged by it. “Talking with somebody who is newer in their faith just kind of reignites something in yourself as well.”
Maddie says she and Ele have covered a lot of conversational ground over the past few years. Early on, Ele was curious about Maddie’s personal discipleship practices. “She’d ask questions like, ‘What does your quiet time look like?’ Maddie says, “or ,‘When you read the Bible, are you supposed to just start in Genesis and then just read it right through like a book?’ Her faith was new to her and she was really on fire, and it all felt kind of brand new.”
“I don’t want to just show up to church on Sunday and worship for an hour and a half and then head home. The church is so much more than that!”
Over Ele’s year in the Fellows program, Maddie describes, they’ve talked a lot about relationships—with family members, friends, roommates. Ele is in a new dating relationship, Maddie reports, “and she really wants to do that in a godly way.” The two have also talked how to discern God’s voice and how to communicate with other people in godly ways.
In recent months, Maddie says, she’s been talking more with Ele about Sabbath and rest. “I remind her, ‘You don’t have to do everything. Rest is good. Rest is from God.’”
Asked what her chief prayer for Ele is, Maddie says, “That childlike faith of hers is really inspiring. And I just don’t want that to fade. My constant prayer is that she’ll remain consistent and eager. That her intentionality in trying to listen to God, to seek Him out, would stay strong.”
