After finishing college and being married for almost two years, we embarked on one of the greatest journeys together. After making the rounds of visiting many churches in our area over the course of a year, friends already involved in the core group of a new church plant asked us to come check it out.
One Sunday night in the summer of 2006 we met for an evening bible study and from that point forward never looked back. Before that time we had seen churches on corners of streets all over towns all our lives and never truly given much thought to how those churches came to be what they are today. It’s something in the south you kind of take for granted.
I’ve seen reference in our former assistant pastor’s newsletter from his current church plant where he used language similar to, “you haven’t lived until you’ve been part of a church plant.” And it’s so true. It’s something I wish everyone had the privilege to experience. Until you’ve set up a church week after week in a high school gym and a make-shift nursery in classrooms, it’s hard to describe. But it’s glorious at the same time. It’s community right from the start.
Toward the end of 2006 the new church held our first public worship service in that same local high school gym. And a year later we became officially recognized as a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America.
By August of 2010 we embarked on a building campaign called His Plan, Our Future. Previous to this meeting we’d seen drawings of what the proposed buildings would look like. It was quite another thing, however, to have the slide show of what the inside and outside of the buildings would look like in color sketches. Tom and I sat in that meeting with a new appreciation for what we were a part of for God’s Kingdom. I sat 8 weeks pregnant with our first son seeing a nursery and church home he would be blessed to be a part of. I can vividly remember tears of joy in my eyes.
On November 6, 2011 we stood as a church family for a photograph on the site of our future church home. And on September 16, 2012 the new worship service was dedicated.
In December of 2013 our senior pastor, who had originally accepted the call to plant our new church, stepped down to start a church planting network and our then assistant pastor took on the role of senior pastor. This new network partly fulfills the vision of our church from the beginning, to be a church that plants other churches. In the initial phases and study of where our new church home would be there was so much discussion about church plants being better able to reach those that are unchurched. I wholeheartedly believe this after seeing the tremendous growth of our church and the diverse backgrounds from which they’ve come.
This past Sunday, October 8, 2017, we celebrated the 10 year anniversary of our church. Our former senior pastor came to be a part of the ceremony and preach for the service. We have so much to be thankful for. God has tremendously blessed our church body and raised up leaders within it. There is no perfect church, however, and we’re still a very young church. We’ve been so blessed to be a part of something great for our community and something great for God’s Kingdom and hope that hundreds of years from now it’s still a faithful witness.
It’s been the greatest pleasure to experience real community around us and share life alongside each other. Some of the people that have been the most instrumental in our lives we’ve met through the church. As time has gone on, some of them have gone to the mission field or to plant other churches. Currently our membership is over 700 and continuing to grow. This is such a testament to God’s grace. We often laugh when we say our current community group of about 45 adults is about the same size as the church as a whole was when we first became a part of it.
Our children will likely not remember the celebration that took place last Sunday morning. They will also not likely remember singing Happy Birthday to our church during the children’s message and what a sweet sound it was. We’re so blessed to be a part of a church that’s exploding with children that will hopefully one day be the hands and feet of His grace to the world around them.
We’re beyond thankful that God saw fit to use us and every other person He’s called to be a part of the life of this church to further His Kingdom despite our brokenness and look forward to the journey ahead. Because, as it’s said, “A church is a hospital for sinners.”
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” John 19:10
