Midland Comic-Con Craze

Comic Con Craze: Midland Mall hosts largest Comic Con yet, drawing an estimated 9,000 to 10,000

5th annual event took place March 7-9

By Max Milne,Community News Editor

Parking lots surrounding Midland Mall were packed over the weekend as cosplayers, creators, and collectors from all walks of life gathered for the fifth annual Midland Mall Comic Con, held March 7-9.

With the addition of a third day this year, Midland Mall declared 2025 the largest Comic Con it has hosted so far.

"I’m happy for the big turnout of Comic Con this year," said mall owner Jordan Dice, who estimated a total of 9,000 to 10,000 attendees over the three days. "It was a lot for the mall to take on internally, but as a team we did it, putting on the largest Comic Con event that has happened here.” 

In a social media post on Saturday, the mall said, "We NEED a bigger parking lot."

"We had people parking in the Meijer lot and walking over (on Saturday)," said Beccah Billmeier, operations manager for Midland Mall. "We estimate that we had over 7,000 people just through (Saturday)."

This year marks the first year that Midland Mall itself has organized Comic Con, after deciding to part ways with the former organizers. The mall received help from 35 volunteers through Life Church in Saginaw. Life Church Pastor and founding member of the Midland Mall Comic Con, Jonathan Herron, led the event volunteers.

"Because the event has grown so much, you need a solid team of volunteers," Herron said. "Back in 2020, when we started (Comic Con), we only needed a handful of volunteers - now we have people handling crowd control, helping with contests and activities." 

Although the mall was equipped to handle security, Billmeier stated no incidents had been reported as of Saturday night. She believes security was not an issue in part due to the event schedule the mall had in place.

"There was so much going on that people didn't have time to be bored," she said. 

In addition to more than 130 vendors, visitors could participate in or watch multiple cosplay contests, gaming tournaments, and other activities throughout the weekend. Vacant store spaces, including the BatCave and the old Men's Warehouse store, were opened to accommodate more vendors.

Stores throughout the mall, as well as food court tenants, reported record sales on Saturday. Some event vendors even sold out of products.

"I am so happy that Sarah (Thomas, Midland Mall event coordinator) invited me this year," said vendor Heidi Abbey, owner of Simple Treasures Handmade Crafts. "I've done the Midland Antique Festival for about 10 years now, but this is my first time doing Comic Con. I'm doing really well and meeting and making a lot of new friends with the other vendors and customers."

Other businesses, like Kakes the Great Popcorn Co. — another first-time vendor — were embracing the Comic Con culture.

"We're sort of new to the area and very new to (Comic Con)," said Kaylynn Martin, owner of Kakes. "It's a great treat to take pictures of the people all dressed up that walk by."

Cosplayers had plenty of photo opportunities and contests to participate in at Comic Con. There was a Kids Cosplay Contest on Friday, a Fursuit Contest on Saturday, and Individual and Group Cosplay Contests as well as Cosplay Parades on both Saturday and Sunday.

Additionally, cosplay panels were held on Saturday, including Ladies of Cosplay and The World of Competitive Cosplay.

"A lot of people said they didn't know what to expect - being that we are a mall - but that they were blown away and are already excited for next year," Billmeier said. "We didn't quite know what to expect because this year is our first year taking it over, but it has surpassed all of our expectations and then some."

The Midland Mall intends to make the Comic Con bigger and better next year, but has not yet announced the dates.

Life Church hosts Midland Comic-Con this March

Here’s something you don’t hear everyday: a church hosting a comic-con! Turns out the event we founded in 2020 has grown to become the state’s largest free comic-con. We’re proud to be part of this event and can’t wait to see it all unfold this March…


Midland Mall Comic Con Adds Kids' Night, Expands Cosplay Events

Originally published in the Midland Daily News on February 3, 2025.

Article by Dominic Sevilla.

Pick up your cape from the dry cleaners, start preparing your cosplays, and get your Pokemon cards ready to trade at the March 7-9 Midland Mall Comic-Con.

Midland Mall Event Coordinator Sarah Thomas is looking forward to this year’s event.

"One of the things we really wanted to concentrate on this year was making it a real Comic-Con," Thomas said. "So when you walk in, you see everything you would see at a Comic-Con—comic collectors, toy collectors, cosplay accessories. You name it, we've got it this year."

The Midland Mall Comic-Con is now being run directly by mall staff, with volunteers and event staff provided by Life Church Midland after a change in event organization in 2024. 

Life Church Lead Pastor Jonathan Herron and Thomas said the emphasis this year is on being a family-friendly event, with the introduction of Kids' Night on Friday, March 7.

"What I'm really looking forward to is Kids' Night on Friday," Herron said. "We have a lot of local businesses coming together to provide a free, fun, family event with contests, games, inflatables, lightsaber-making, and all kinds of stuff."

"The other thing we really concentrated on this year was making it family-friendly," Thomas said. "I have four children, and everywhere we go, it is ridiculously expensive. One thing we really wanted to do was make it so families could come in, not pay a ridiculous amount, and have a good time. This year, we put a lot of emphasis on Kids' Night, and there are tons of businesses that stepped up to do activities for kids for free."

Families and kids can expect to see the following at Kids' Night:

  • Wand making

  • Face painting

  • Lightsaber making

  • Free Pokémon cards

  • Make-a-superhero-mask station

  • Make-a-superhero-cape station

  • Temporary tattoos


Additionally, there will be a free show on Saturday for kids on the main stage, presented by Neverland Entertainment, along with a free kids' cosplay contest to help introduce them to the world of cosplay.

Speaking of cosplay, Thomas and Herron said they hope to make this event feel like a full Comic-Con experience by offering different cosplay contests, cosplay vendors, and more.

"There are five cosplay contests over the course of the weekend," Herron said. "It's really exciting that we've been able to expand to categories like group, furry, and things like that."

Other vendors will be on-site selling items, such as:

  • Chainwear

  • Furry costumes and accessories

  • Jewelry

  • 3D toys/gadgets, dice towers, helmets, and resin figures

  • Original work from artists and authors

  • Cosplay designs

  • Lego

  • Tabletop games

  • Pokémon, Tamagotchi, Splatoon, and Ghibli items

  • Handmade horror, paranormal, true crime, and pop culture vinyl decal stickers

  • Potion bottles themed around Harry Potter and Greek gods and goddesses

  • Pins, stickers, and posters

  • Hand-painted dragons

  • Plushies

  • Oddities

  • Knives and swords

  • Anime merch

"I'm a voracious collector of Funko Pops," Herron said. "I'm definitely in the community of loving pop culture. What I think it means to us (at Life Church) is that we get to serve with no agenda. That's been our heartbeat the whole time. It helps that I'm a bit of a nerd myself, and my son is excited about Pokémon cards being exchanged. It's kind of bringing all of these passions together."

More information and a full schedule can be found on the Midland Mall Comic Con Facebook page.

One Way Missionaries

“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.” — Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia.

There was an era of missionary zeal around the turn of the 19th century that bred a group who became known as One-Way Missionaries. When they departed for the mission field, they packed all of their belongings into a coffin and bought one-way tickets because they knew they’d never return home.

A.W. Milne was one of those missionaries. He felt called to a tribe of headhunters in the New Hebrides. All the other missionaries to this tribe had been martyred, but Milne didn’t shrink back into safe Christianity.

Milne did not fear for his life because he had already died to himself.

His coffin was packed.

He served in the New Hebrides for more than fifty years. The tribe buried him and wrote the following words on his tombstone:

“When he came there was no light. When he left there was no darkness.”

What an incredible inscription of someone’s life.

Imagine what the church would look like today if every single follower of Christ exhausted their lives to reach more people far from God.

CUT THE CHEESE: 3 STEPS TOWARD CREATING A NON-CHEESY RADIO SPOT FOR YOUR CHURCH

I’m a big believer in leveraging all media by all means to reach all people for the gospel. There’s just one thing that drives me crazy… Cheesy Christian Media.

Let’s be honest: if Christians excel in one area of media, it’s the cheese. We try to clumsily lump theological doctrine into 30 second church ads thinking that the goal is information-transfer.

Nope, sorry.

Effective advertising is more about connecting emotionally and relationally.
If you can touch the heart (or funny bone), you earn permission to invite people into your story.

 

First, here’s a recent spot:

Three steps we’ve learned in cutting the cheese:

1) KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! 

This radio spot is not designed for deeply theological, life-long Christians.  In fact, I’ve already taken heat from over-saved Christians on the internet.  And I don’t care, because I’m not called to make men happy but instead to obey the Lord.

The message in this radio spot is aimed toward people who wouldn’t normally darken a church door.  When you know exactly who you are communicating to, it won’t bother you when the rocks come flying from outsiders.

2) CONSISTENCY BREEDS TRUST! 

When I lived in north-east Ohio, I was impressed by the media strategy of Knute Larson, a now-retired pastor of The Chapel. Over the course of many years, by consistently lending his own voice and personality to church radio and tv ads, people throughout the region began to trust Knute. Even people who never attended church began to naturally think of Knute as “their pastor.”

If they ever encountered a crisis in their lives, they knew Knute Larson and The Chapel were a safe place to go to for help. That’s my heart for Life Church in the Great Lakes Bay Region.  Consistency breeds trust.

Proverbs 22 says, “A good name is more desirable than great riches.”  Life Church has a strong reputation and name recognition among unchurched Millennials and Gen Xers in our region of Michigan as a safe, non-judgemental place to ask real questions about faith.  That is important to me as our church continues moving forward.

3) EXAGGERATE THE TABOO!  

In this 2017 ad, we were told by the radio station that we couldn’t say the full title of the movie in our radio ad for legal reasons.

What could have been a hurdle was instead turned into an opportunity.  

In my improv-comedy training, I learned about the power of exaggerating the taboo. I talk more about this in my first book, Comedy-Driven Leadership: there are no mistakes, only opportunities.

In this case, we thought it would be hilarious for our 60 second radio ad for a church to have words that are being beeped out.  It would actually make the radio spot more interesting, like playing a little game with the audience!

The result is a fresh and fun radio spot that is gaining traction in the Great Lakes Bay Region.  More people will feel welcomed at Life Church and the story of God’s love will echo into more hearts.

Current Stats on the Post-Pandemic Church

While there is much yet not understood about the effects of the post-pandemic/post-Christian climate we are now experiencing, some data and research is beginning to emerge to paint a picture of today’s spiritual environment.

What follows are three important articles that church leaders should take under serious consideration when planning ahead for the future.


Losing Their Religion: Why U.S. Churches are in Decline

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.

As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The situation means some hard decisions for pastors, who have to decide when a dwindling congregation is no longer sustainable. But it has also created a boom market for those wanting to buy churches, with former houses of worship now finding new life.

About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000 new churches opening, according to Lifeway Research. It was the first time the number of churches in the US hadn’t grown since the evangelical firm started studying the topic. With the pandemic speeding up a broader trend of Americans turning away from Christianity, researchers say the closures will only have accelerated.

READ FULL ARTICLE


The New Very Large Church

It’s time to rethink church size. For the purpose of this article, I define church size as average weekly worship attendance, including children and youth who may not be in the primary worship service. In other words, we count every person attending a worship weekend (or other days for a few churches).

Let’s look at the breakdown of churches by average worship attendance:

  • Under 50 in attendance: 31% of all churches

  • 51 – 99: 37%

  • 100 – 249: 24%

  • 250 and above: 8%

All of the numbers are fascinating, but the largest category should cause us to pause. Only 8 percent of churches have an attendance of 250 or more. These churches now define the category, “very large churches.”

READ FULL ARTICLE


In Church Planting, More Money Means More People

A church plant’s attendance is directly proportional to the money spent at launch and in the congregation’s first year, the research found. At churches with average attendance over 200 in the first five years, average startup costs were $100,000 and first-year costs $225,000—a total launch cost of $325,000.

Smaller churches tend to spend far less. Church plants more than two years old with less than 100 in attendance averaged $10,000 in startup costs and $60,000 in first-year costs. For churches more than two years old with between 100 and 200 in attendance, average startup costs were $84,500.

The correlation between spending and growth held over time. Growing churches continued to spend more as they continued to grow, while nongrowing spent less.

READ FULL ARTICLE


Ghosted Again? Pastors Respond to Disappearing Congregants

Church leaders are seeking fresh ways to prevent "backdoor exits" and adapt to shifting membership.

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by Maria Baer

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The membership packet for new congregants at Cross City Church in Columbus, Ohio, is pretty straightforward. There’s a section enumerating the church’s “essential doctrines,” including creedal beliefs like the Trinity and the saving work of Jesus on the cross. There’s a section about church leadership and discipline, explaining the church’s process when a member sins.

And there’s a curious section under membership, “How to Be Sent Out or Leave the Church”:

There are many ways in which God calls His children out of one spiritual family into another. Physical moving, leading to a new mission and disagreement are all ways in which He moves His children. All these may happen without sin and with a full and righteous leading of the Spirit. … We pray and ask the members of Cross City to be prayerful, honest and communicate concerns, offenses, hopes, ideas and convictions in an early fashion, rather than allowing them to fester in isolation and cause division, hurt, or other ungodly effects within God’s family.

Cross City is part of the Evangelical Free Church of America, but church leadership came up with the idea for this section themselves.

Despite having a written policy against ghosting, pastor Scott Burns said the majority of people who’ve left over the church’s 11-year history departed without notice. “They just get quiet,” he said. “And one week turns into four, which turns into six.”

Pandemic shifts, along with rising political and social divisions, have made ghosting a major problem for pastors across the country. Across demographics, US adults are less likely to attend church than they were two years ago, according to the American Family Survey. While some slowly came back from shutdowns and pandemic restrictions, Pew Research Center reported in March 2022 that the return to church had plateaued. Odds are, if they were coming back, they’d be back by now.

Even before the pandemic, church membership wasn’t stagnant, and pastors knew not to take it personally when congregants left. The natural bends and twists of life—relocations, college attendance, job changes, deaths—mean all church bodies turn over with time. Yet the quiet, unexpected departures leave a lingering sting. With all the recent upheaval, it’s a feeling that’s become harder to ignore.

At Concord Church in Dallas, pastor Bryan Carter said attendance at Sunday gatherings is only about 65 percent of what it used to be, while online gatherings have grown by 400 percent. It’s hard to know who left for good, who moved online, and who joined.

Two years into the pandemic, pastors like Burns and Carter are eager to create a church culture that discourages ghosting in the first place.

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A time to seek and a time to lose

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Ghosting is dating parlance. It means to go radio silent in the middle of a budding online romance. In that world, to reach out to a “ghost” is bad form—it’s desperate or creepy. So this isn’t the perfect analogy for those who leave a church body with no word.

When members or regular attendees leave a church without explanation, pastors have a few choices, but all come with sensitivities. If you ignore departures, you risk overlooking potential problems in the church that prompted people to leave.

If you reach out to follow up with leaving congregants, you risk exacerbating hurt feelings on both sides. Even asking questions could put pressure on the former members, implying leaders are angry or against them.

Many pastors are burdened to reach out to leavers, whether to make sure the church didn’t cause harm or to extend a shepherd’s crook to the wayward, just as the shepherd in Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18 left his 99 to seek the one that “wandered off.”

Darryl DelHousaye is chancellor of Phoenix Seminary and was a longtime pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church, a 7,500-person congregation. He doesn’t remember learning about how to deal with “ghosters” in seminary; nor does Phoenix Seminary cover it in any official curriculum. He called that a potential blind spot.

DelHousaye said his protocol at Scottsdale Bible was to reach out to families who ghosted. “I would call them and say … ‘Where are you guys worshiping?’” Most people were shocked to hear from him “but grateful,” he said.

For pastors of megachurches, reaching out to ghosters might sometimes mean contacting people they’ve never really gotten to know. At Concord Church, Carter said he hasn’t fully implemented a good system to address what he calls the church’s “backdoor” exits. Part of his challenge as the pastor of a 2,500-attender church is recognizing when someone leaves.

“We have two indicators for Sunday attendance: giving and childcare,” he said. The church tracks both, which should make it easier to notice a sudden absence. But the huge popularity of their online services during COVID-19 has made it more difficult to know whether someone has stopped attending altogether or is just attending virtually.

It’s harder to leave unnoticed at smaller congregations, but people still exit without explanation.

Paul Risler is the pastor of Central Avenue United Methodist Church in Athens, Ohio. It’s a rural church with about 200 members. For Risler, reaching out to someone who has ghosted means touching base with someone he almost definitely knows and whose absence can’t go unnoticed among the congregation.

“I used to be more intimidated by those conversations,” Risler said. But he can’t avoid them. Leaving Central is baked into the church’s context: It’s located in the middle of Ohio University’s main campus, and around half his congregation is college students.

During the pandemic, Risler noticed the same thing Carter in Dallas did: The online-only services gave members the option to “tour” other churches online.

Risler said the option for college students in particular to virtually attend services elsewhere—including churches shepherded by nationally known pastors—proved too tempting to avoid. Many college students never returned to Central. “We lost our junior and senior class, basically,” Risler said.

When the church identifies departing congregants, Risler said he’s committed to reaching out for “exit interviews.”

“I just want to make sure that the reason they’re leaving isn’t because we harmed them or sinned against them or that there isn’t something we can fix,” he said.

Burns said part of what makes ghosting so deeply hurtful for pastors is that it means those who left secretly—even for understandable reasons like starting a new job or moving away—chose to do it without prayer and guidance from their church family.

“If the people are strong in Jesus and they find our church not a good home to be at … that’s a concern,” he said. “Is that our preaching? Is it the way we lead things? That’s hard.”

Carter said after the pandemic he’d like to implement a protocol of making “care calls” to people who’ve left without word. Instead of trying to stem the tide of ghosters, he’s going further upstream: He wants to create a church culture that discourages ghosting in the first place. “We’ve seen [ghosting] before,” he said. “We think part of it is we weren’t calling people to a higher mission.”

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A time to break down and a time to build up

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In an area as transient as Scottsdale, a rapidly growing city where families and young adults move in and away with unique frequency, DelHousaye used the phrase “come, grow, go” to describe the pattern of people inevitably leaving his church.

DelHousaye said when pastors don’t hold their congregants “loosely” enough—when they cling to church growth and demand loyalty from members—they unwittingly encourage ghosting.

“If people are going to be loyal, they tend to be more loyal if they realize they’re there by choice and not by manipulation,” DelHousaye said. “We made it so that you didn’t have to be afraid to tell people you were leaving,” he said of his “come, grow, go” philosophy. In fact, he said when he heard of a new church plant coming to town, as long as he believed it was “biblically solid,” he’d ask the planting pastor to share his vision from the pulpit and invite people to join him.

Burns in Columbus is trying to create a similar culture in his small Ohio congregation. “You should be able to trust that the church is not desperate to have you,” he said. “Otherwise, you shouldn’t be going to that church.”

The key for each pastor to create such a culture, DelHousaye said, is remembering whose church it is—not the pastor’s.

“If Jesus wrote a letter, it wouldn’t be to Scottsdale Bible Church,” he said. “It would be the letter to Arizona, to Utah, to Galatia, to Ephesus … It’s the church of Jesus Christ. It’s not my church.”

Carter in Dallas said his strategy to prevent ghosting is to encourage deep connection: “Here’s the deal. If somebody is worshiping, if they’re giving, if they’re serving, if they’re in a small group, the likelihood of their ghosting is low.”

Carter’s goal is to train 300 new small-group leaders this year. That includes leaders for online small groups, which meet virtually and are part of his strategy to prevent even digital ghosting. He wants to communicate that “going” to church online or even just sitting in the pews each Sunday isn’t enough. “We’re trying to say your commitment to Christ is not fulfilled until you’re helping other people grow in their journey with him,” he said.

Risler at Central has come to the same conclusion. He said pastoring a church body of mostly mobile college students has forced him to get creative about getting people connected and serving in the church quickly. Even official church membership is not a major focus at Central.

“We try to get people ‘onboarded’ pretty quickly,” he said. “So people are serving … and then kind of at the end is our membership commitment.” The idea is that connection breeds investment, which makes leaving without a trace harder.

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For everything a season

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Every year, Risler shares what he calls the Post-it story with his congregation. Early in his tenure, he and his team were doing a “SWOT analysis,” an organizational tactic that explores a team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Risler wrote “transience” on a Post-it, intending to stick it in the Weakness column. His children’s ministry pastor misunderstood and placed it under Strength. They had a back-and-forth, but she won him over.

“We’ve been given this opportunity to give people Christ, to have them experience biblical community,” he said. “We’re given this short period of time, and we don’t know how long that’s going to be. So we really have learned to try to maximize that opportunity as much as we can.”

Risler said that’s Central’s reality. It’s also, it turns out, the story of the church.

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Maria Baer is a CT contributing writer based in Columbus, Ohio.

Link: https://www.christianitytoday.com/.../ghosting-church...