Ross County Church Reaches Unchurched With Real Joy

By Stephanie Heading, managing editor

Pastor Tony Lambert has a heart for reaching the unchurched.

For the past 16 years, Lambert and the members of his church plant, Real Joy Community Fellowship, Chillicothe, have done whatever it takes to reach the unchurched in Ross County.

Lambert’s call to plant Real Joy came in an unusual way. The Lord used a canceled mission trip, a thunderstorm, and an unchurched mom and daughter on the run to make his will clear.

A youth mission trip Lambert was planning for students in the church he was serving  was canceled. He decided to do a home mission week doing block parties in parks in Chillicothe. 

During the home mission trip, a storm blew up. “We were an hour late getting to the parks because everybody thought it was a tornado, and actually, funnel clouds were seen,” Lambert remembered.

During the torrential downpour, the students approached Lambert wanting to know if they were going to go out.

“And I said, ‘You know what? Maybe someone is waiting for us so we’ll go an hour late.’ So we went down to one part of town that was more on the lower income side and we started setting up. And of course, we’re an hour late and nobody’s there,” he said. 

Then a little girl and her mother showed up. While the youth were with the little girl painting her face and giving her cotton candy and snow cones, older team members approached the mother, shared the gospel, and led her to Christ.

Lambert spoke with the mother. She was fleeing an abusive relationship. “I started talking to her and it just kind of broke my heart,” Lambert noted. He had been reading about reaching the unchurched and now it was in right front of him.

We set out to reach the unchurched in Ross County. And that’s what we did

“We set out to reach the unchurched in Ross County. And that’s what we did,” he said.

With a group of 30 people, mostly family, Lambert planted Real Joy Community Fellowship. He leased a building with one restroom and the church was born. 

However, the building had a few issues. “We had mismatched chairs and a building that didn’t have a ceiling in it. We had cobwebs all over the place and I’ll never forget the sermons of my preaching and snow coming down through the roof. And you’d see people get up and move their chairs.”

Real Joy wanted to upgrade the building so they spoke to the owner, who was a Christian, and asked about purchasing the property. “He gave us a fabulous deal,” Lambert said. “He said, ‘Please don’t tell my wife, because she’s going to kill me.’”

With a renovated and eventually expanded building, Real Joy grew to 163 people prior to the Covid pandemic. The church closed for six weeks during Covid then reopened with an additional service and new schedule.

Sunday school moved to Wednesday nights and Real Joy held two Sunday morning services—a first service for people 55 and older, and a second service for people under 55. 

“God blessed and he just blew the doors off,” Lambert recalls.

With continued growth, the leadership at Real Joy believed it was time to build a new building on nine acres of land that the church had previously purchased.

Securing funding for a new building was a challenge. The church needed money to build a three million dollar building and financial institutions turned them down.

“I believed God wanted to do this, so I went to the local bank here,” Lambert remembers. 

He sat down with the bank president, two vice presidents and the loan officer – all Christians. 

Oh, I’m ok with that. You know God. I believe God is going to bless it,’

“We don’t know why we’re going to do this,” they said. “But you’ve got to send us all your financials for the first year. I said, ‘Oh, I’m ok with that. You know God. I believe God is going to bless it,’” Lambert said.

God did bless and Real Joy moved into its new 850 seat building near a new connecting road that put them close to several busy roads. “We’re right on the major highway,” he noted.

In the first year in its new building Real Joy grew from 239 to 324 and the church has expanded its parking lot four times.

As it has grown, Real Joy has kept its focus on reaching the unchurched in Ross County with church events and outreach events sharing the gospel with anyone who will listen. 

One man who listened is Tank, a local tattoo artist and atheist. Through the witness of a member of Real Joy, Tank and his wife attended church.

“I’ll never forget when they slipped in at the 11 am service and slipped out as soon as it was over,” Lambert said.

About six weeks later, Lambert got up on Sunday morning and felt God telling him to change his message. “I switched the whole sermon to an evangelistic message,” he said.

During the invitation that morning Tank and his wife accepted Christ. “They got saved,” Lambert said. Tank now serves as a deacon at Real Joy and Lambert says 25 to 30 families and their children have accepted Christ through interactions with Tank. 

“I’m so glad he’s a deacon because he’s witnessing to people that we could never reach,”Lambert said.

Real Joy is reaching the unchurched, baptizing 83 new believers in the 2023-24 church year, and in September 2024, they baptized ten more.

As the church continues to pursue the unchurched, they are also living up to their name – Real Joy Community Fellowship.

“We have a Real God with a real son, Jesus Christ. He brings Joy into your life. And through him we have Community with one another and we have Fellowship together as a local church body,” Lambert said.

“One of our members said, ‘You know, if you look at the initials, it’s RJCF. Jesus Christ is always in the middle of real joy.’”

“One of our members said, ‘You know, if you look at the initials, it’s RJCF. Jesus Christ is always in the middle of real joy.’”