If you read my announcement last week you will know that I accepted a promotion to be principal. Although that is a big announcement that is not the announcement I've had everyone lingering on for about a week or two.The Turnaround
What a turnaround there has been in the past nine months. After an unexpected resignation in July of 2007 and a failed church plant in which our partner named himself the "senior pastor" we went through some hard financial and emotional times. It was a time where we stood strong in our faith believing God was working some big things out for us.
During the time prior to the resignation, I had begun initiating a friendship with John Atkinson who is a pastor on staff at Bay Area Fellowship. I was reading his blog and thought since I lived in the same town I would give them a complement on how I thought they as a church were doing a great thing.
The friendship continued to grow and after the failed church plant we decided we would go as a family to Bay Area Fellowship as we figured out what God wanted us to do. I knew God had placed in me the desire to launch a church so I continued planning and building a team through the network of friends God had placed in my life over the years. We were having core team meetings and our core grew to a total of 20 people attending. It was going good until the day when I had a meeting with John to just talk over what all God was doing. That was the beginning of things turning from good to great.
In the meeting, John began to lay out the plans God had put on his heart to begin taking Bay Area into a multi-site initiative. Bay Area already had one campus but God was really moving on John to do something big and with Pastor Bil's go ahead John was moving. It was at that point John asked me a question that has led up to my big announcement.
The question was "Would you consider taking what you are doing and becoming a Bay Area Fellowship Campus in the Calallen/TM area and leading the campus?"
At first I was shocked and intrigued. Obviously, it was a great honor to be asked by a church like Bay Area to lead a campus. After several conversations, prayer, and talks with our team here is what we have decided to do with our church launch.
The Announcement
We have decided to accept this role and convert Life Church, the church we were planning, into becoming Bay Area Five Points. I have accepted the role to lead the campus by joining our vision with the vision of Bay Area Fellowship.
Not sure if you can grasp the significance of this...THIS IS HUGE. This is a perfect fit for us and what we wanted to do. In part 3, I'm going to let you in on some more thoughts but for those that don't know, Bay Area is pastored by Bil Cornelius and runs about 6,000. Pastor Bil planted the church here around 10 years ago and it has grown to be a church focused on reaching the lost and connecting them with God.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
[Photo Credit Flickr.com]
