When Chad Keck first took the position of lead pastor of First Baptist Church Kettering in December of 2010, it seemed like a great ministry opportunity — and it was. Kettering, a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, is an ideal place for a church to grow and provide meaningful service to its community. But as he took stock of the situation that Christmas, Keck realized he had a few items to add to his holiday wish list.
The foremost issue the church faced was a building loan that wasn’t turning out as the church had hoped. “They owed about $10 million on a $1.2 million budget,” he remembers. “So about 48% of all the income that was coming in through our giving was going back out in loan payments. That’s not sustainable.”
SEEKING THE LORD — Pastor Chad Keck has led First Baptist Church in Kettering since 2010.
Typically, a church in that situation would have sought to refinance under a better rate, but there was language in their bank’s original loan contract that prohibited the church from doing that until certain conditions were met — in this case, paying the loan down to under $6 million.
“We were going to have to figure out how to pay off four or five million dollars before we could even talk about refinancing,” Keck says.
FBC Kettering eventually turned to the Baptist Foundation of Ohio for help, which recommended WatersEdge. Keck considered reaching out at that time, but ultimately decided not to, knowing that the clause in the original loan made most conversations about refinancing unrealistic. Over the next few years, though, things at FBC Kettering went well — the congregation grew along with the budget, so interest payments became less of a financial hurdle. But the unfavorable loan conditions continued to rankle. “It was still way higher interest than we needed to be paying on a loan,” he says.
Soon, the church reached a decision, drawing upon the Biblical dictum You have not because you ask not. They would approach their bank and tell them straight-up that they planned to refinance. With God’s help, they thought, maybe the bank would give them favor.
That’s precisely what happened.
“I don’t know if they forgot there was that clause in the original loan, or if the bank was in trouble and they needed some cash, or if the Lord was working out the details,” Keck remembers. “They basically said, ‘Well, if you can do it, go for it.’ So we were able to refinance with WatersEdge and save something like two and a half percentage points.”
That number may not seem much on the surface, but when you work out the math, the significance is clear. The church saved around $175,000 overall, which made a massive difference in their day-to-day operations and an immediate impact on the reach and scope of their ministry.
“I think at that time we had paid the loan down to about $7 million,” Keck says. “So, you know — two and a half percentage points on $7 million, that’s a lot of money for our church. It drastically changed our ability to give to missions and do ministry overnight. It was an amazing opportunity for us to totally change the trajectory of the ministry, just with the signing of some new documents.”
One particularly appealing selling point for Keck was that the interest paid on their loan also went to fund ministry work. “The people at WatersEdge genuinely seem like they’re interested in what’s best for our church,” he says. “And hey — if we’re going to have to pay interest to somebody, we’d much rather it go to other Kingdom ministries than to pad someone’s corner office up in New York or somewhere.”
In fact, the experience was so positive that FBC Kettering decided to invest some of their savings with WatersEdge, too. And after the scope of these Kingdom Investments widened in 2023 — becoming available to individual investors for the first time — Keck has become a strong proponent of this opportunity for individuals to put their money to work to benefit churches, knowing firsthand the blessing his own church received.
“It’s a win-win. You’re helping by sending your money to them to invest, and they’re turning around and investing in churches like mine. I’m a beneficiary of people and churches investing money there,” he says. “So really, you’re helping other churches, you’re helping yourself, and the Kingdom grows as a result.”
ALL IN — FBC Kettering has experienced tremendous growth in the last decade, expanding to multiple campuses and engaging in mission work across the globe.
The Kingdom certainly grew at FBC Kettering following their refinancing. In the years that followed Keck’s arrival, the congregation added another campus by merging with another church in town. At the time of the merger, that struggling church was averaging about 30 people every Sunday morning; in September 2023, FBC Kettering recorded an attendance of more than 170 people within that building. Membership numbers are strong, too, and attendance across both campuses has risen to pre-COVID levels.
But what truly excites Keck is much more than stats about growth or any financial documents. It’s what those documents have allowed to happen: the movement of the Lord in the midst of his congregation. As evidence, he points to the genuine zeal for missions work that he sees among his people.
“When COVID hit, several of our international partnerships kind of went on hiatus,” he says. “But we’ve just entered into several new partnerships, and this past year we were able to send multiple teams to multiple places around the world. There’s a lot of excitement in our congregation for reaching the nations.”
With the Lord’s continued favor, that excitement will continue to be contagious in Kettering and across the globe for decades to come.
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