Westside Family Church Oral History

Abstract

Oral history interview with Brad Mann and Jason Morris conducted by Emily Stratton in Lenexa, kansas, on June 27, 2013. Brad Mann is the Speedway Campus Pastor and Jason Morris is the Online Campus Pastor for Westside Family Church. Westside Family Church is a well-established Southern Baptist affiliated church based in Lenexa, Kansas. Beginning as Quivira Rd. Baptist Church back in 1976, but in the mid-1990s, church leadership began to re-vision the church and begin implementing new approaches to running the church. As a part of this transitional period, Quivira Rd. Baptist underwent the name change to Westside Family Church and began some serious expansion planning. Throughout the later 1990s and continuing into the present, the church has undergone numerous building relocations in order to accommodate for a rapidly growing congregation size. At the same time, the church also began transitioning into a multi-site church model, establishing a few other campuses outside of Lenexa. Today, the church operates four primary campuses: Lenexa, Speedway (a campus located near the Kansas Speedway, better known today as the Legends shopping area), Lansing Prison (there are three sub-campuses there), and an online campus. Both Brad and Jason have been instrumental partners in establishing Westside’s multi-site operations. Questions focus primarily upon the logistics of shifting an independent single-site church into a multi-site church, and how each of Westside’s current campuses function (including the Lansing Campus). The end of the interview focuses primarily upon Jason Morris and his role with the Online Campus—a new, if not cutting edge, approach to running church in an age with incredible technological capabilities. This interview was conducted for the Religion in Kansas Project as part of a summer fieldwork internship funded by the Friends of the Department of Religious Studies.