Meet Our Pastors
The most significant command God has given us is to love one another. "Loving people to their next place in God" is the mission for Christian Life Center South Bend that empowers us to embrace people where they are in life and helps us to guide them to what God has next for them.
Pastors Doug & Shanna Neal
Senior Pastors
Doug and Shanna Neal met fresh after college and began serving together as youth ministers in Chicago, Illinois. They married and became ordained in pastoral ministry. A few years later – after receiving their graduate degree in Biblical Studies – they continued serving as a team and pursued a new worship experience, while adding to their family.
In 2008, during their pastoral tenure as associate and campus pastors of their home church in Illinois, Pastor Doug had an experience that changed the course of their ministry. He clearly heard the voice of the Lord directing his family and ministry to South Bend. In just a few short weeks they were offered the opportunity to pastor a church in South Bend, Indiana.
Doug and Shanna desire to see unity throughout the Body of Christ aspiring to develop and nurture ministry relationships throughout the Michiana region. Through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit, they’ve committed to breaking through denominational, socio-economic and cultural barriers to unify God’s people displaying the love of Jesus Christ to the world.
As of current, our Pastors are continuously keeping their faces before the Lord for every next place concerning CLCSB and their own lives. Published work from both of Pastors have been published this being one of the doors the Lord has opened for them.
Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.
- Jeremiah 3:15 NIV
Pastor Stephanie Rose-Weldy
Senior Associate Pastor/Worship Pastor
Pastor Stephanie Rose-Weldy leads Christian Life Center South Bend’s Worship & Arts ministry. Her love of music started as a small child as both parents were exceptional musicians. Stephanie has three beautiful children, and one of her greatest joys was working with her youngest daughter in passing on such a great legacy of creating and arranging powerful sounds in music, simply for inviting people to worship our King.
Inviting people into the presence of God is one of the greatest honors one can have, and her love of worship became synonymous with breathing.
Her vision for worship includes the intentionality of teaching people the importance of exalting our God, the power of agreement – in Jesus being revealed in people’s lives – resulting in the experience of encountering Him in ways only He can provide.
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
-Ephesians 2:2 NIV
GOD
There is one God revealed as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Genesis 1:1,26,27, 3:22; Psalm 90:2; Matthew 28:19; 1 Peter 1:2; 2 Corinthians 13:14
JESUS
We believe in the Virgin Birth, The Begotten Sonship, and Deity of Jesus Christ; that He was 100% God and 100% man.
Matthew 1:22, 23; Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1-5; 14:10-30; Hebrews 4:14,15; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4; Romans 1:3,4; Acts 1:9-11; 1 Timothy 6:14,15; Titus 2:13
THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit makes men aware of their need for Jesus Christ, and lives in every Christian from the moment of salvation. He provides us with power for living, understanding of spiritual truth, and guidance in doing right. The Holy Spirit baptism empowers the church to preach the gospel throughout the whole earth.
2 Corinthians 3:17; John 16:7-13, 14:16,17; Acts 1:8; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 3:16; Ephesians 1:13, 5:18; Galatians 5:25
HUMAN BEINGS
We are made in the image of God, as the supreme object of His creation. Although every person has tremendous potential for good, all of us are marred by an attitude of disobedience toward God called “sin”. This attitude separates people from God and causes many problems in life.
Genesis 1:27; Psalm 8:3-6; Isaiah 53:6a; Romans 3:23, 5:12-13, 6:23; Isaiah 59:1-3
THE BIBLE
We believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God.
2 Timothy 3:16
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit brings various gifts and enablements, as outlined in Scripture, and these gifts are valid and fully operative today. These gifts always operate in harmony with the Scriptures and should never be used in violation of Biblical parameters.
1 Corinthians 12, 14
BAPTISM & COMMUNION
The Word of God enjoins on the Church two perpetual ordinances of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first, baptism, is the outward sign of what God has already done in the individual’s life and is a testimony to all that the person now belongs to Jesus. It is identification with Jesus and is effected in His name. The Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of the death of the Lord and is done in remembrance of Him until He comes again; it is a sign of our participation in Him. Both institutions are restricted to those who are believers.
Acts 10:48; 1 Cor. 11:26
DIVINE HEALING
Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers.
Isaiah 53:4,5; Matthew 8:16, 17; James 5:14-16
ESCHATOLOGY
We affirm the bodily, personal, second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the saints, the millennium, and the final judgment. The final judgment will determine the eternal status of both the saints and the unbelievers, determined by their relationship to Jesus Christ. We affirm with the Bible the final state of the new heavens and the new earth.
1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; Romans 8:23; Titus 2:13; 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52; Matthew 25:46; Mark 9:43-48; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:8; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21; Revelation 22
THE FIVE-FOLD MINISTRY
The callings of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are functional within the body of Christ until the Lord’s return. The purpose of these gifts to the church is to equip believers for the work of ministry, that the body of Christ might be edified.
1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11-12