Edison Churches: Experiments in Innovation and Breakthrough

Innovation often brings failure―and that's okay. Using failure to learn, improve, and continue innovating will help keep the church alive in the twenty-first century. That's the message of Edison Churches, which shares the stories of ten faith communities that embraced innovation, learned from their experiences, and forever impacted both their congregations and their communities in the process. God is inviting us to participate in doing a new thing; Edison churches are leading the way.

Dr. Jesse Middendorf currently serves as executive director for the Center for Pastoral Leadership at Nazarene Theological Seminary. He served for twenty-eight years as pastor in the Church of the Nazarene, ten of those years at Kansas City First Church. He served as district superintendent on the Northwest Oklahoma district for five years and spent twelve as a general superintendent, retiring in 2013.

Rev. Greg Arthur is the senior pastor of Duneland Community Church of the Nazarene in Chesterton, Indiana. Following his time at Wheaton College and Denver Seminary, he served churches in Denver, Colorado, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In addition to pastoring, Greg serves as the board president of Free the Girls, a nonprofit that provides jobs for survivors of sex trafficking around the globe, and A Little Charity, which supports missionary work through job development in Mozambique. The joys of Greg’s life are his wife, Gretchen, and their two children.

Megan M. Pardue has been the lead pastor at Refuge Home Church in Durham, North Carolina, since 2013. She is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and a graduate of Southern Nazarene University and Duke Divinity School. In addition to pastoring, she teaches preaching at Duke Divinity School and co-hosts the weekly lectionary preaching podcast, A Plain Account. Megan enjoys growing a large vegetable and flower garden and raising chickens on her lot in the city. She lives in Durham with her husband, Keith, and their two children.

Rev. Josh Broward is the team leader for Edison Churches. After nine years as a missionary pastor in South Korea, he  served four years as associate pastor at Duneland Community Church of the Nazarene. In October 2017, Josh became  the director of missional development for the Church of the Nazarene’s Northern California district. He is also privileged  to serve on the advisory board for the Center for Pastoral Leadership at Nazarene Theological Seminary. He studied at  MidAmerica Nazarene University and Nazarene Theological Seminary, and he is currently pursuing a PhD in organizational leadership at Eastern University. Josh is loving life with his beautiful wife, Sarah, and their two precocious kids, Emma  and John David.