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https://heavenearthchurch.org/

This conversation centers around the vision to be a church that make a lasting impact in our community by building relationships with all kinds of folks, helping people know and live like Jesus together.

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Show Notes:

HeavenEarth Church Podcast

https://heavenearthchurch.org/

Guest: Evan Fruits

Host: Dr. Brad Miller

In this episode, Dr. Brad Miller welcomes Evan Fruits, a founding member and board participant at Heaven and Earth Church in Whiteland, Indiana. The conversation offers listeners an inside look at the church’s history, foundational values, and community impact, all woven together through Evan Fruits’s personal journey and unique perspective. Whether you’re exploring faith communities or simply curious about what makes Heaven and Earth Church distinctive, this episode provides honest, firsthand insights.

Episode Summary

The episode begins with a brief introduction to Heaven and Earth Church, contextualizing its mission to create lasting community impact. Evan Fruits shares how he became involved during the church’s earliest days, emphasizing the collaborative spirit that led a small group, meeting in a living room, to grow into a vibrant congregation.

The discussion moves into Evan Fruits's personal history—growing up in Whiteland, his family, career, and the importance of local ties. As a financial planner and father of two, Evan Fruits offers a real-world perspective on balancing demanding careers, raising young children, and maintaining close family connections.

A significant portion of the episode dives into the unique leadership style and values at Heaven and Earth Church. Evan Fruits describes open, honest, and even at times challenging conversations that take place among the board and leadership, ensuring decisions are both collaborative and accountable. The episode highlights the church’s nontraditional approach to finances, partnerships, and worship—underscoring a commitment to transparency, inclusivity, and practical community service, especially through initiatives like Restoration Way, a weekly event addressing mental health and dependency.

Top 3 Takeaway Points

1. Radical Community and Belonging

A central theme is the church’s dedication to genuine community. At Heaven and Earth Church, everyone is noticed and valued, regardless of background or beliefs. The congregation strives to ensure that anyone attending—whether lifelong local or newcomer—feels seen and welcomed. As Evan Fruits describes, “Even if you don’t necessarily believe in all the things that you’re supposed to believe in as a Christian, you’re welcome here and you have a community” 10:12.

2. Collaborative & Transparent Leadership

Heaven and Earth Church is characterized by a collaborative culture where honest debate is encouraged. Board and staff make decisions together, openly sharing information—especially regarding finances and key opportunities. Pushback is welcomed, and transparency is the norm, contributing to a sense of trust and stability within the community 13:13. This ensures that no single voice dominates and that the church can pursue its vision with integrity and practical accountability.

3. Making a Lasting Impact Through Partnerships

The church’s focus on partnership and community service is exemplified by initiatives like affordable housing through their nonprofit arm and offering space to organizations such as Resources for Hope. These partnerships extend the church’s reach beyond Sunday worship, actively addressing tangible needs in the broader community and cementing their commitment to serving others 19:08.

Listen and Learn More

Tune in for an inspiring, transparent conversation about what it means to build a church centered on acceptance, collaboration, and meaningful community engagement. For more information, visit heavenearthchurch.org or consider joining an upcoming Sunday service or Wednesday’s Restoration Way event.

Hello, good people, and welcome to the Heaven & Earth Church podcast. This is the podcast for the church, which has a mission of making a lasting impact in our community. We are located in Whiteland, Indiana, near the intersection of US 31 and Main Street, right across the street from Whiteland High School. If you'd like to get connected up with us, you can do so at our 9:30 AM Eastern Time worship experiences. And on our Wednesday night Restoration Way event, which is often— which has an orientation towards mental health issues and also issues of dependency. So we hope that you'll join us here. You can always find out more at our website, which is heavenandearthchurch.org. My name is Brad Miller.

I help produce the podcast. And one of the things we love to do here on the Heaven & Earth Church podcast is talk to people who are part of the community here at Heaven & Earth Church. And such is the case, as we have with us Evan Fruits, who is a part of the church congregation. We're going to get to know him a little bit today. Evan, how we doing, young man? Doing great.

It's a great day.

Awesome. Glad to have you with us here on the podcast. Hey, let's just start here, Evan. You've been a part of the congregation here at Heaven & Earth Church for some time now. Tell me just a little bit about your history with the church here.

Yeah, actually, I'm one of the founding members, as they say. So I joined Ross as he was launching the church. And so this was back in 2018, 2017, where my wife and I were living up in Castleton and we were moving back home. We were building our house down in Bargersville. We were moving back home where our family is. and wanting to get reestablished in a church. We had both gone to different churches in the community, but wanted to make one of our own, and so it just so happened that the church we were attending in Castleton was United Methodist Church there, and our small group, one of the guys was like, hey, I know somebody who is a pastor starting a church in Bargersville. I think you guys should meet, see if you guys have like interests, and so I did, so I met with Ross.

at a coffee shop and kind of went through both of our journeys, what he's trying to do. And, you know, kind of from there hit it off. And, you know, we were— our first meeting was in Ross's house, just a group of probably 5 or 6 of us and grew from there. And here we are today. Here we are.

That's awesome. We're referring to Ross Stackhouse, the founding pastor. So the timeframe we're talking about is around 2018, around there.

Yes, around there.

'Cause that's when the church launched. It's also, for just perspective-wise, I was a part of the group of clergy that helped that to happen.

Right.

Here around this area back in that era, kind of a recipient of all that kind of thing. So I'm a retired United Methodist pastor who served in Greenwood near here in that era up until 2019. But Evelyn, you mentioned that you're from this area. We're in Whiteland. Are you from this area, Bargersville or somewhere around here? Tell me a little bit about growing up. Where'd you grow up?

Yeah, born and raised here in Whiteland.

Oh, really?

Yep. Lived my whole life from the day I was born and went to Whiteland High School, graduated in 2006. Then I went to college and stayed up north for a little bit for work-wise after my wife and I got married, but then moved back down here shortly after.

By up north, you mean the northern part of Indianapolis area?

Yeah, the northern part of Indianapolis. Yeah. Yeah. And her fam— my wife's family's from, uh, Johnson County. She went to Franklin High School. Okay. Born and raised here too. Um, and so, yeah, now we live out in Bargersville, out in the country.

Yeah. Um, Franklin School District, Bargersville. Okay.

All right.

Um, live on a farm out there.

Okay. Well, tell 'em a little bit about your wife and family.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Angela and I, um, we got married 15 years ago last week.

Well, congratulations.

Um, celebrated that last, uh, on, on Thursday actually. And we have 2 little boys. We have a 5-year-old boy named Ellis and a 2-year-old boy named Emery. And all of our family is local too, which is amazing. I always tell my friends who move away and they have kids that they're not very smart because we couldn't do it without our family. My wife and I both have intense jobs. So we rely on our family a lot to help take care of the boys and Yeah, it's really nice.

Makes a big difference though, doesn't it? Well, you mentioned it. Give me, I want to get one cool fact about your wife and your 2 kids.

Well, we are a very active family, so we enjoy being outdoors and sports is a part of our lives and hiking. And so we just, we like doing adventures. hiked in Vermont. We just got done hiking in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. So, we really like being outdoors and experiencing life together.

That's awesome. So, my wife and I love to do the hiking thing too. We've been all over the country doing things. Vermont among other places and West Coast and so on. But, that's awesome. You mentioned you have kind of an intense career and your wife does too. Just give us a word about that, whatever it is. That you do?

So my wife works in the tech sector. She works for the big tech company Cisco.

Okay.

She's on the software cybersecurity sales side of it. So, but she works 100% from home, which is nice. She has to travel every once in a while to visit clients. Her company's headquartered out in San Francisco, but thankfully she's able to work from home. But she's, you know, she's working a lot. She's, you know, has to work. There was times in our marriage where she was working 80 hours a week.

Oh my.

Now we, with the boys, we don't, can't do that as obviously as much. So about time management there. But no, she's awesome at what she does. And then I am a certified financial planner. I'm the president and own a boutique investment firm in Greenwood called Kuhn Financial. It's been there over 20 years and I took over the firm for the founder. about 5 years ago. And so, yep, just manage, um, uh, high net worth individuals, um, assets and also small nonprofit endowments as well.

Awesome. So, sounds like you both have busy careers, you're parenting, you got 2 little ones, you got a lot going on, and yet you're quite involved here in the life of Heaven and Earth Church. Tell me a little bit about what you're involved with, some of the things you've been involved with here at the church.

Yeah. Yeah. So I've been on the board now ever since we established one. And kind of seen, you know, a lot of our adaptation from the beginning. Right. And just really, I think I'm obviously with my, you know, finance skills, I help a lot with the backend of the finances.

Yeah.

That we have here. And then, you know, really to be honest, it's too, I'm, I try to be there for Ross as a sounding board for him. Um, we've become really good friends through all this too. And I, I think we have a good relationship where him and I don't agree on everything. And we knew that from the start, which I think is great because, you know, I'm not just somebody who, and he's not, not somebody who's gonna just say what we want to hear. We're gonna kind of give ourselves the, you know, the each other the honest opinion of what we think is best for each other in the church.

Yeah.

Um, and sometimes that's disagreement. But we never had any, these disagreements are good disagreements.

So what I'm hearing you say, you can have some disagreements without being disagreeable or being at odds. And a part of that, in my understanding of leadership, is if you have a greater vision that you can follow, kind of, if you can have a pretty good alignment on the vision, overall vision, that can help you with how you get there.

Yeah.

And how you get there is some of the things that can be challenging at times, especially with a— especially in the cases of a church plant. I'm a former church planter myself. And so there are certain things about, you know, you're growing something brand new from the ground up, and then you're also dealing with the dynamics of growth and sometimes of challenges, of decline or COVID and things like that which come along. And so you said you've been with the church kind of from the beginning and have this background in church life. I assume that you kind of saw, whether you participated intimately or not, you were at least aware of how church life kind of worked in your involvement prior to coming to Heaven and Earth Church.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about how would you kind of explain or interpret for people maybe checking out Heaven and Earth Church, kind of how we do things here in somewhat of a collaborative manner or a manner of of try to give and take and listen and learn, that type of thing. What's your understanding of how that's evolved and shaped and where we're at now in that?

Yeah. And I think the start of the church, obviously Ross had the vision and what— and I, that's why I came on board is because we wanted to have a community. And I mean, I think a lot of churches say they want to have a community and they do, but it's more so like they, members just go on Sunday, then they leave without talking to anybody. Somebody, you may go on, somebody might go to on a Sunday morning and no one know that they're there.

Right.

Um, and I think that's a, you, you get that a lot at churches, right? Because you, a lot of that could be on the person too, because they have to be willing to get involved and stuff too. There's some onus on them, but We wanted to have a place where when someone's not gone on a Sunday that we notice, and when someone's there, we notice. And I think that has always been kind of the key piece of this church is like, okay, hey, regardless of who you are, what your church background is, where you've come from, even if you don't necessarily believe in all the things that you're supposed to believe in as a Christian, like, You're welcome here and you have a community and we will talk about it in an open conversation on Sunday like we do. It's not just a pastor preaching. It's a conversation every Sunday.

The conversation part of it, it becomes integrated into the DNA of the church, the worship experiences, in other aspects of the church, there's a conversational back and forth nature, which I think a lot of people have appreciated.

Yeah.

Does that play out in the behind the scenes of the administrative part of things, the decision-making? Is it a collaborative nature? Sometimes in church leadership, there can be kind of a top-down type of thing. The leader says, this is what goes. Tell me kind of how it works out when you're on these board meetings, when you're on these administrative meetings, and there's some decision to be made. A year or two, we added staff, for instance. Those are decisions that were made. How's that playing out? Is there a collaborative nature, or tell me how it's working out behind the scenes.

Yeah, it's the same. It's very collaborative. I think everybody on the board feels that they have a voice. We have good conversations, and obviously there's not a whole lot of big issue things that we're arguing about. There's never any arguing, but it's Everybody still feels comfortable that if they have an opinion, um, if they disagree on something, that they can vocalize it. Yeah. And we can have a conversation about it. And so, and then Ross, of course, he and, and Emily, um, they, you know, help lead the discussion, but, you know, they're not dictating the whole conversation.

It, it is definitely everybody having input into that. Yeah.

So if somebody needs to push back on Ross or Emily, our 2 pastors, Their job is to cast some vision and bring ideas. But if somebody needs— is pushback, is that okay?

Yeah, absolutely. And we had an example of that within the last 12 months where there was a big opportunity brought to the church, to Ross, without getting into the details of it. But it was something that was a bigger opportunity than what we have had in our past. And so it was going to be a, if we went through with it, it was going to be something that was a big change. Um, not bad, not, or good. It was just something that we needed to talk about as a board.

You know, I think it would've meant, it would've meant an impact on the resources of the church. Is that, is that a fair thing to say?

That's fair.

And I think I'm aware of what we're talking about.

Yes. And, and, and I think at the beginning Ross was, um, I would say more so in favor of this. And, you know, in our conversations though with the board, like we had those meaningful, like everybody expressed how they felt about this and how they felt it would affect the resources and the vision and all that. And, you know, as a whole, you know, we decided to kind of go against that. And, but we did it in a way again that it was not combative. Ross understood, and I think he later was thankful that the board pushed back because it probably wasn't the best decision as we look back on it now. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate that. I just think sometimes you'll need to understand when somebody's checking out our church, there are certain people that are just going to look at kind of how's the worship experience and how's this, but some people have been kind of burned by church on these type of matters, on these leadership matters where some leader has been kind of manipulative or something like this. and there's not been kind of proper accountability or interaction. Another area in the life of the church that sometimes people get a little concerned about and react to is finances in the church. And you mentioned earlier, not only in your career, but here at the church, you've been involved with that. And for instance, one of the things here at Heaven and Earth Church, we don't take an offering, like there's no passing of the offering plate.

Yeah.

like in many churches or anything along that line. We do have online giving and some other opportunities there. In some churches, that would be considered very unusual to have this practice. Just tell me your understanding about the finances of the church in terms of your understanding of how we are accountable to one another and to the congregation and to the other entities we're a part of, denomination and so on, and how that works in terms of transparency and other things like this. And also, If we're able to do okay with our resources in order to not only sustain, but to grow our mission.

Yeah. And one thing I like about how Ross is and how the board is, we are very transparent on the finances. You could ask us anything you want to about the finances and there's no secrets of anything. Ross has been very open at the beginning of his career here that, you know, letting people know how he was paid and all that. So that's not a— it's not some kind of like secretive thing that's gone behind the scenes.

Yeah.

You know, giving-wise, we always knew with the kind of— with the church that we were trying to do, we were going to have to do things differently to fund the church, meaning that it was not going to be fully funded by just the congregation giving. And so from the beginning, especially Ross taking the lead on this, we applied for a lot of grants through community foundations and different things giving that are for different purposes that the church is doing for like recovery church and that we have going on. And so we've done a really good job of supplying Um, or we're getting those monies that weren't just from the traditional giving from the congregation. Um, but as, as time gone on, right, as the congregation grew, we were hoping that we would get a little bit more from the congregation too, from a, like a, just a, not necessarily from a like, oh, we need tons of money, but also just a good spiritual practice. Like we have people engaged.

Spiritual practice.

That are giving.

Good stewards and so on.

Yeah. And it, and it's not, it's not anything big. But just knowing that we have increased that, that people are feeling just motivated and like they are just appreciative of what the church is doing, that they are willing to give some of their treasures to the church so that we can manage that well. And I think one thing that, you know, we do really well is again, using those resources very efficiently and mainly in all helping the community here, whether it be the church community or the community that we live in, as far as making sure some of that is given out to that.

Well, I think that's an important point to make, and certainly is not only biblical and theological and stewardship, these type of concepts, but I think a lot of times, let's see what you think, Evan, people are sometimes leery of church. One of the things they want to check out to see if you're really living out the gospel rather than just talking about it and wanting to hit me up for a donation or something like that. It has to do with credibility.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'd like you to speak a little bit about that in terms of— there's a big emphasis here at Heaven and Earth Church on partnerships, kind of within the body and into the community. In fact, one of the mission statements that we make here at the church is we exist to make a lasting impact in our community. I'd like you to say kind of take that part of our mission statement and go with it for just a second in terms of, is that true? Are we making a lasting impact in our community? And if so, how are we doing with that? And then explain a little bit to people who might be listening about how these various partnerships are working, 501(c)(3) and that type of thing. Can you just go with that for a minute?

Yeah, absolutely. Ross talked about today at church how about 4 or 5 years ago, we started a 501 called Spaces for All, Heaven and Earth Spaces back then. But it was designed to partner with other good community members to provide affordable housing, affordable, even just space for nonprofits. So we're doing that right now. The basement of our church is given to a great nonprofit that's been here for a while, Resources for Hope. who does great things for foster families, and they're known community-wide. So that's just like an example that we're doing that right here in the bottom of our church, allowing that organization to have that space for a very, very cheap rate that they wouldn't otherwise be able to have.

And there's, I forget exactly how many, but we got a number of partnerships with community organizations that meet here.

Oh yeah. And I think the one thing that I really enjoy hearing when I— because being in the community like I am from my job, you know, I serve on multiple boards.

Yes.

In the community, really involved with things like United Way. And when I talk to executive directors from some of these other community nonprofits is they know who Heaven and Earth Church is. And they know that we are a church that gets involved, which is really cool because we are not that big. And we have some really big churches in our community that do some great things, right? But the fact that we're kind of thought of first on some of these things is really awesome to hear. And it's awesome to hear for me too, that then I get to tell people that, hey, yeah, I'm involved in that church. Yeah.

Well, and I just think just from my perspective, that is very biblical, very much a part of the— and it's also integrated into the DNA of of the church. We talk about some of the values and the spiritual foundations, the five emphases of the church, and we don't have to go into those here, but that's kind of built into the teaching of the church is how we are to be involved and engaged one another spiritually or one another in terms of our physical needs, any number of things. Evan, have you ever seen kind of around here at Heaven and Earth Church what you might just call a God moment when you just Something just cool happened. You just kind of thought, well, that is just kind of a, something cool is going on there that just can only be of God.

Yeah. I mean, tons of instances, but I guess I'm not going to speak to just one moment, but more so, I think one of the most impactful things that we do as a church is the recovery church that we have every Wednesday. I forget what we just renamed it. We rebranded it.

Restoration Way.

Restoration Way. Just rebranded within the last month or two. But having that group meet every Wednesday and seeing that the transformation that people are having in there too, that is something that, you know, I have no experience with that, with the things that they have gone through. No real personal interactions at all.

Yeah.

Like family or anything like that. So like, it's been a lot of learning for me on that. But I think that's the coolest part is about seeing what God is doing with that group. It's just awesome.

Yeah. Well, I agree with that wholeheartedly because what becomes evident, whether you and I have experience with people with dependency issues or mental health issues, things like that, it is obviously a need in the community that average church is looking to meet. And it kind of leads me to Another one of our statements that's made around here quite a bit, I think it's on the website and so on, and people often say something to the effect of, if you feel like you don't belong in church, if you feel like you don't fit in church, you'll fit in here.

Yeah.

Well, tell me, in your observation about what has happened here, because you've been here since day one pretty much, is that true? And if so, how is it true?

Or maybe an example, have you seen Yeah, no, I think it absolutely is true. And I think it just all leads to people being comfortable coming in, that they don't feel ashamed for what they have done in the past or what they may know or not know about Christ. It's very, again, it's just the community that we've developed here that we are open to just having people of all backgrounds come here and just experience Jesus together. And we, again, I think that just goes into our congregation with different backgrounds of church, but also socioeconomic backgrounds. And I mean, it's just from the bottom to the top. I mean, you can just, there's just no fit that says, okay, hey, this person fits here. It's just such an eclectic group. Which just makes our church so cool.

So from your experience, if people want to come and check out Heaven and Earth Church, they're going to find a place to, uh, they're not going to feel out of place or rejected or anything like that. They're going to be embraced.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's kind of where I want to kind of bring us around to with you. We, we use this Podcast as a tool to help people check us out before they come check us out.

Yeah.

And so what would you, you know, let me rephrase it this way first of all, and then I want to come back to this question. The first part of the question is, in your life, you said you grew up around here. So, you know, if you have friends or neighbors, family members, or someone who's having some issue in life, if you're a financial planner, you've dealt with people from time to time with financial issues, for instance. I'm sure that's the case. But if somebody comes to you and says, you know, I've got some issue in my life, relationship issue, health issue, finances, other things like that, and they're kind of turning to you for some advice or help in anything like that, would you feel comfortable inviting them to Heaven and Earth Church as a part of the process of being helpful to them?

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. And I think a lot of that too is that there is no— we're not a high-pressure church, right? I mean, it's people come as they are, right? Just like as the worship song, right? Come as you are.

Yeah. Right.

Um, and you know, we're, some are dressed nice, some are in shorts. I'm in shorts today. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter. We don't, we, it's, there is no, there's no judgment here.

Yeah.

Um, and I think that's where I, why I really think that me coming across anybody who is at any point of their spiritual journey, from the beginning to the end, there's a place here for them.

Awesome.

And I think that rang true for me because I never been a part of a church plant.. Like I, growing up, was always part of a bigger church.

Right.

And so I was more, and I was more focused on getting fed spiritually than maybe seeing what I can do to help others. And it's been the complete role reversal for me now where I've been focused now on feeding others spiritually. That's awesome.

That's awesome.

But I think you can accomplish both here.

Yeah. Well, let's just kind of leave it at that then. It just— what I mean by that is just this final comment from you, I'd really like to say, just kind of speak to the person then who may be checking us out, you know, through the podcast or whatever here. What would you say to them about what they— if they're going to come and check out Heaven and Earth Church, what are they going to find here? And What kind of expectations can they have?

Yeah, I think coming here, you know, I wouldn't have a whole lot of expectations. Yeah. You know, because I mean, we don't fit any mold, right? So I think you might be really surprised on just walking in here on Sunday, the type of people that you'll meet. And again, you'll meet a variety of backgrounds. And I would say that Just like any church though, I would say this, like, don't just come one Sunday and think that you've made a decision on something, right? Or that you understand what's going on. You gotta give it some time. But I will say that I think that we do a good job because we have a smaller congregation by design, right? We're not trying to grow this thing to be a 1,000-member church. That's not the goal.

We have a smaller congregation, so you will be welcomed. You know, you will have people come and talk to you, but not also overwhelming enough that like, you know, if you want to come in and just kind of check it out and not be real, real involved that first Sunday, that's fine too. Sure.

Well, I think, and I believe that's kind of a comforting word for a lot of folks, that there's not going to be a lot of high pressure here, but you can come and you can interact with people like Evan Fruits, His family, other people here are part of our congregation here at Heaven and Earth Church. And just want to thank you for being a part of our conversation today, Evan. And if people come and check us out, check out somebody like Evan. You can find me too, but Evan, his family, or other people to check out. So let's just kind of leave it here with this. We're here at Heaven and Earth Church on Main Street in Whiteland, Indiana. We're right near the intersection of US 31. Our main worship service experience, which is a very interactive worship service, is at 9:30 AM Eastern Time every Sunday morning.

We invite you to check it out online, on the podcast, and the YouTube channel. Check it out there first if you need to, but do check it out. We do have a Wednesday evening event which includes a meal and an experience. Called Restoration Way. That's at 6:30 every Wednesday evening, kind of a focus on people with dependency issues and mental health issues to deal with. Not limited to that at all, but we want you to know that this indeed is a church where you can— if you don't feel like you fit in church, you can fit in here, and we want you to know that we're here available to you. You can find everything you need to find out at our website, heavenearthchurch.org. I'm Brad Miller, the coordinator of the podcast here, and speaking for our pastor, Ross Stackhouse, and the folks at Heaven and Earth Church, we hope to see you again soon here at the church that looks to make a lasting impact in our community.