In the first act of Cristie Sharpsteen’s life, her real estate career and motherhood took center stage.
And yet when she turned over her business to her husband to spend more time raising their two boys, the prospect of returning to the workforce made Cristie feel overwhelmed, under skilled, and behind her peers.
She could never have predicted what would come to define her second act: using her talent in playing and coaching pickleball to guide struggling congregations to the next iteration of themselves through our New Beginnings program.
Finding purpose again with DCEF
With her career on the back burner, Cristie shifted her attention elsewhere, taking on positions at her local Disciples congregation in Kansas City, MO, including Board Chair and Sunday Worship Leader. As she witnessed the highs and lows that laity and clergy experienced striving to create God’s kindom on Earth together, she began to understand the importance of lay leadership.
Eventually, Cristie came to provide marketing support for her pastor Rev. Donna Rose-Heim, whose husband, Rev. Bill Rose-Heim, is a former Area Minister in the Mid-America region. When he learned of Cristie’s faithful service, he knew that it could benefit the wider church, so he directed her to our team at Disciples Church Extension Fund (DCEF).
Through New Beginnings, facilitators assist communities of faith in imagining a new direction for their ministry. Despite her reservations about being the only facilitator on the team that wasn’t ordained, she has inspired pastors and places of worship since 2012.
In fact, faith communities often find Cristie’s approach a delightful respite from what they have encountered in the past. She credits her unique format to her other passion—pickleball.
Why pickleball?
Although the sport was invented in 1965, pickleball has experienced a resurgence in the last few years. Like tennis, it involves anywhere from two to four players competing against one another by hitting a ball over a net until one side is unable to return the ball. But unlike its more popular sibling, pickleball is more accessible to a wider range of people due to the smaller court size and the lighter weight of the paddles.
“The atmosphere is very communal. Before I began playing, I had a small number of friends from high school, work, and church—all from my hometown,” Cristie recalls. “After I started though, I became friends with people from Bangladesh, India, and Brazil. There are women from different generations, too. It’s a diverse group of people, like the church should be.”
She took up the sport recreationally in 2016 and three years later, she became a certified Pickleball Professional Registry Instructor. Then, she joined the Kansas City Stingers, a National Pickleball League team, the first pro league for the 50+ age group.
Her competitive drive to win informs her strategy with Disciples trying to answer God’s call in this age of challenging congregational life.
“I really want the pastors and lay leaders that I work with to be the most successful, because it matters to me,” Cristie emphasizes. “I don’t want to visit them and just give out information. I want them to decide what’s going to help their churches thrive in the future.”
From the court to the church
So how does she guide core teams to clarity and a vision for the future? Cristie focuses on removing the barrier that prevents them from developing new skills. In pickleball terms, her coaching philosophy is founded on the belief that once a student sees a shot being performed effectively or has even tried it themselves, then that shot is simply a dormant skill that needs to be nurtured.
“There’s a huge difference between trying to make something happen versus simply letting out something that’s already inside of you,” she clarifies. “I think a lot of churches are doing the former by trying to recreate what was successful for them in the 1950s, instead of figuring out what ideas are brewing inside of their members’ heads today. My job is to partner with them to identify those ideas and see if we can create something meaningful.”
For Cristie, collaboration is key. In a pickleball match, she found that there are no leaders—when you play with a supportive teammate, they turn toward you instead of toward your opponents—and the church could learn a thing or two from this lack of hierarchy.
“In the sanctuary, all the chairs point to the pulpit, but I could probably grow faster in my faith if I faced the other members and knew how prayer or Bible study was working for them,” she says. “After all, when we’re with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, we’re co-creating.”
Cristie adds that the church’s structure places pressure on one individual—the pastor—to provide some kind of spiritual relief or revelation every single week. This binary dynamic extends to how it builds and maintains relationships with the public.
“The church thinks it has all the answers when a lot of the time it’s the other way around,” she explains. “When we minister to the public, it sometimes feels like it’s at or to them instead of with them.”
As a coach, she has felt a similar expectation to always be right and never fail, but when she gives lessons, she makes sure that her students know that she makes errors or mistakes as well.
“Your self-worth isn’t dependent on the game,” Cristie points out.
Can the church experience a second act as well?
Cristie often brings dried out Zinnia blossoms on the weekends that she provides leadership training to congregations looking for a new insight into their ministry. These annual flowers die during the winter, and yet an individual seed, when buried in the ground, grows into a plant that produces multiple blooms.
Using this story of revival, Cristie urges her congregations to not give up.
“When you feel like you can’t go on anymore, that’s when life actually begins,” she concludes. “That’s what happened for me with pickleball. I’m almost 56 years old, so I thought I’d be stuck playing cornhole or something for the rest of my life, but here I am competing in one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. I’m having a rebirth, if you will. That’s possible for the church, too.”
“We’re poor predictors of our future selves. Church, just say ‘yes’ to God, open your heart, and see what’s in there!”
Is your congregation disconnected from its neighborhood or in financial trouble? New Beginnings can help you find a different way forward.