On the other end of the vocational spectrum is John Stillman, a nuclear engineer who spends three days a week working at Argonne National Laboratory in nearby Woodridge, helping ensure the safety of nuclear reactors around the world. He also serves as preaching pastor at Crosswinds, the Plainfield church he and Schultz planted more than four years ago.

Schultz and Stillman were both lay leaders at Friendship Baptist Church in Plainfield when the church called Odis Weaver as pastor in 2004. In an initial meeting at Friendship, Weaver said he believed God’s vision for the church was to start new churches. Stillman was at the meeting, and had a sense of what God was calling him to do in the future.

“In my heart, I thought, ‘Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to be doing,’” Stillman said.

Several years earlier, he felt a call to ministry, but didn’t feel led to leave his job as an engineer. Instead, God pointed him toward teaching and leadership roles at Friendship.

At the same time, Schultz was serving as a Sunday School teacher and outreach leader using his gifts to plan evangelism events. He felt God calling him, too, but knew he had to surrender to serving however God would lead before he could begin a specific ministry.

The specifics started falling into place soon after Weaver came to Friendship, when the church held an On Mission Celebration. Several North American Mission Board missionaries shared their stories, including a bivocational church planting strategist from Michigan. After the service, Schultz and Stillman knelt in the church parking lot to pray about the calling they both felt.

Over the next months, they met and prayed with Weaver, who helped them share the vision for a new church with the congregation at Friendship. Five families committed to help plant Crosswinds, and the core group began meeting in September 2005. At Christmas, they held a worship service at a local coffee shop, and the next month, celebrated their first public worship service in a growing section of Plainfield, four miles from Friendship.

“New churches reach new people,” Schultz said, explaining the mindset that helped the two congregations, one established and one brand new, partner together to reach unchurched families in their community. In the beginning, Crosswinds’ average Sunday worship attendance was 45 people; now, they regularly see 110 people each week. The church’s growth represents at least 35 new Christians; in other words, nearly one-third of the people attending Crosswinds accepted Christ and were baptized in the new church.

More than four years later, both Schultz and Stillman are bivocational pastors, balancing their jobs with the work God has called them to do at Crosswinds. Schultz averages 10-15 performances a month, although during the summer, nearly every day is scheduled with shows at corporate events, festivals and amusement parks. Balancing performing with his role as Crosswinds’ outreach pastor is a “constant decision,” he said, but one that allows him to uniquely identify with his church.

“There’s an influence that happens, and also an integrity of being able to be in the workplace and say to the congregation, ‘I know what you’re going through. We all have to have a job. We all have to make a living. And we all have to do ministry.’”

The pastors have found that some of their job skills are transferable to their roles at Crosswinds. Schultz, a natural initiator, designed the structures for many functions of the church, like worship and children’s ministry. He also works to develop leaders to carry part of the ministry load as the church grows.

Stillman uses his gift for analysis, which he calls “the gift of spreadsheets,” to manage budgets, timelines and projects like the recent remodeling of the church’s new meeting space. As Crosswinds’ primary Sunday morning preacher, his pastoral role allows him an opportunity to express his creativity, and to fulfill a commitment he made to God that he would always be teaching His Word.

Recently, Crosswinds moved into a new space located near Route 59, a main highway that runs through Plainfield. The building offers room to grow and more visibility among their neighbors, who are the focus of every ministry effort.

“People come because they’ve been treated with kindness, and this is a place where needs can be met,” Stillman said. “Where we are right now, we have an even greater opportunity to minister to our community.”

For more information about Crosswinds Church, go to xwindschurch.org.