From Mega-Church Insider to Church Consultant: Kim Tarlton's Leap Into Purpose-Driven Business

When the Call Means Leaving What You Built

Imagine walking away from the best job you've ever had. The highest salary. The most authority. A staff of hundreds across 14 campuses leaning on you for direction. Now imagine doing it not because something went wrong, but because something deep inside you knew it was time.

That's exactly where Kim Tarlton found herself three years ago. After nearly three decades in full-time church ministry — most recently as a senior creative and communications leader at what has since been dubbed a "gigachurch" in Indiana — she felt a pull she couldn't ignore. Not away from ministry. Into more of it.

"God really placed on my heart this desire to use everything I had learned, everything I had experienced, but to use it for the greater capital-C Church — and to offer it in a way that's affordable."

That conviction became Story and Stone, a communications and marketing consultancy that partners with churches to help them reach their communities and grow their congregations from the inside out. But getting there wasn't a clean, linear leap. It was a faith-fueled free fall.

The Messy, Necessary Middle

Kim is quick to acknowledge that her departure from church staff wasn't entirely serene. "Churches have messy stuff," she says with the calm candor of someone who has earned the right to say so. The messiness, in a way, made the direction clearer. She knew it was time. She just didn't know what came next.

What she did know was the problem she wanted to solve. Throughout her 28 years, she had watched churches — even well-resourced ones — struggle to afford the kind of communications coaching and strategy that could genuinely help them. "I was in mega churches. The last one is known as a gigachurch now. They have larger budgets than a church of 50 or 100. And we were still going, 'We can't afford that.'"

So she stepped out with no clients, no staff, and no guarantee — only a sense of calling and a husband who believed in her enough to say, "Let's go."

"You can start a business and call yourself the CEO and the founder and all that great stuff. But CEO of what? You have no clients, no staff. You have nothing. You're literally at the bottom."

In that season of starting at zero, God proved himself faithful in what Kim describes as perfectly timed provision. A company brought her on within months, giving her the experience of coaching multiple churches simultaneously. When she eventually launched Story and Stone on her own, the foundation was already laid — not by strategy alone, but by grace.

What the Church Actually Needs

Story and Stone operates around a distinction Kim makes that cuts to the heart of how many churches think about growth. "There's a lot of things out there that are like, 'Grow your church' — and that's cool, yes, that's a body in a seat. But for me, internal is growth and external is reach." Her work focuses on both: helping churches communicate discipleship opportunities to the people already inside their walls, while also building the kind of outward presence that draws in those who haven't yet walked through the doors.

Every new church client starts with Kim personally. She spends the first three months simply learning — researching, listening, asking questions. Sometimes a church arrives convinced it needs everything. Often, Kim helps them see that a trained volunteer could handle what they're about to pay for. "You don't have to pay me for that kind of thing," she says without hesitation.

That posture of honest service flows directly from her faith. And it shapes a business model that might make a conventional consultant nervous: roughly 90 percent of what Story and Stone offers, Kim gives away for free.

"My faith is — give it away. The human in me says charge for it all, make money off of it. But no, because God is continuing to provide and take care of us as a family."

Her team reads the research so churches don't have to. They digest a 900-page social media report, then spend three months distilling it into usable, practical content — emails, blogs, social posts — that any church communications team can apply immediately. It's ministry disguised as a business model.

Praying Before the Strategy Meeting

One of the more surprising insights Kim shares is about prayer — or rather, the lack of it she witnessed in church environments. "I probably prayed less in 28 years of church ministry than people in a normal work environment," she admits. Staff chapels might offer 15 minutes on a Tuesday morning. But the rest of the week? Meetings ran start to finish without a single moment of asking what God was saying.

"You could go through a whole day of meetings and never once go, 'What is God telling us?' Instead it'd be, 'I think this is a good idea for social media. This is the trend.'"

That observation shapes how Kim now enters every client relationship. She builds genuine rapport with lead and executive pastors — people who are often placed on pedestals so high they rarely get to have honest conversations. She helps them begin with prayer. She asks where Scripture speaks into the direction they're heading. She reorients the conversation from trend-chasing to discernment.

It's a quiet, consistent act of faith integration that doesn't require a Bible verse on every deliverable — it just requires someone willing to ask the right question first.

The Courage to Stay the Course

When clients started coming in and Story and Stone began to gain momentum, Kim faced a different kind of temptation: expansion. Broaden the niche. Serve businesses and nonprofits beyond churches. Grow faster. It made practical sense.

But she felt God saying no. Stay the course. The churches are the mission field.

"We ready in scriptures, 'Knock and the door shall be opened.' People take that to mean God has one perfect plan and you just have to find it. But I feel like God is saying, 'Kim, you've got options. And I'm going to bless you no matter what door you go through.' But he's also very clear: I've given you the authority, the ability, the access to speak to these churches. Now you make the choice."

She made it. And the fruit followed.

For other Christian business leaders, Kim's advice is less about tactics and more about staying grounded when doubt creeps in — and it will. "Even me, with that clear call, working with churches, I would still sit in my office and think, 'Should I be doing this?' Those questions eat away at you." Her answer: stay in the Word, stay connected to God, and don't mistake the difficulty of the journey for a wrong turn.

"If you have that clear call — if you know you are supposed to start this thing — don't give up. Hold on. The ride is going to get wild, but stay firm in your faith and stay grounded in what God is working with you to create."

Kim Tarlton left the security of a remarkable career to build something smaller in structure but larger in reach. She now spends her days doing what she says she was built for — helping churches be seen, helping people find Jesus, and trusting that the one who called her into this work is the same one holding it together.

For her, faith and business have never been separate categories. They're just the same calling, lived out in different rooms.