Kevin McNelly

Kevin McNelly always has compared Chattanooga Matters to a tomato stake supporting a fruit-bearing plant.

On Dec. 31, having been a Christian ministry incubator for more than a quarter century and sowing dozens of new plants, Chattanooga Matters will pull up that stake.

"We have run our course and done our job," said Mr. McNelly, executive director of the group originally known as the Chattanooga Resource Foundation. "The type of ministry that was started 26 years ago was needed for the city and accomplished great things through the years."

The economic downturn was "one piece of the puzzle" that led to the board's decision to close, but not the only one, Mr. McNelly said. A decline in donations and interest over at least the past five years also contributed, he said.

The organization helped launch nondenominational faith-based ministries such as First Things First, the Scenic City Women's Network and the Chattanooga Youth Network. It also offered a leadership class that graduated more than 475 people, including U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond.

Mr. McNelly said encouraging emerging leaders in the city through venues such as the leadership classes may be the organization's biggest achievement.

"They are now the catalysts out in the community to promote the biblical world view that we're all in this together -- that we're all part of the same family," he said.

Former Tennessee state Sen. David Fowler, state Rep. Richard Floyd and Sheriff Hammond said the relationships they made in the leadership classes were valuable and eye-opening.

"It was a wonderful opportunity to be moved beyond your own environment and experience and to see and develop relationships with other Christians (despite the) denominational, racial and economic barriers that often separate us," Mr. Fowler said.

The diverse class, according to Mr. Floyd, included people from every sector of the business community.

Mr. Fowler, now president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, was a graduate of the first leadership class in the 1990s and later the organization's board president. He said the class crystallized his call to public service.

"It was an eye- and spirit-opening experience that, for the first time, (introduced me to) seeing life through the lens of Scripture and to the thought God had wired individuals with actions, skills and gifts for particular callings that would give life its greatest meaning and sense of fulfillment," he said.

Ending the ministry is somber, he said, but he remains excited for the future.

"We're in agreement that we serve a God that is big and that he takes us from stage to stage," Mr. McNelly said. "We recognize that God is our source for everything, and we've been willing to follow him. And I know beyond a shadow of doubt he's out there ahead of us."