September 2009

Quite a bit of time had passed since the initial excitement of planting a church began.  Then the busyness of summer as full-time youth pastors kicked in. Add to that layer the fact that Brian was given the charge of a huge construction project of completely renovating our downstairs facilities at Crosswind and converting them into our Children’s,   Preschool, and Nursery Classrooms.

Not forgetting to mention that we had a newborn baby boy in the mix.

We desperately needed a vacation, and Brian was missing his family terribly. So as the wheels started turning in my head, I decided to start saving some money! I remember starting in March of that year saving $20 a week… a little saved over 6 months can add up to something big – I guess that may have been the first lesson in the finances of church planting.

Let’s go to Tampa!

My thought was this… how can I keep this dream of planting a church alive while enjoying a getaway, and seeing Brian’s family?  A three for one deal!!!!!!!  I called up Brian’s family, and we did the entire planning together. They had a timeshare points system, so I asked if they could work it out for us to stay in the Tampa area. They tried to get a place in or near Tampa, but the only place they could find was in Holmes Beach.

God at work again…

In my research and statistical scanning, I found this community called Lakewood Ranch. Everything about it seemed like the perfect place for young families and the perfect place to plant a church. Holmes Beach, the only place that Brian’s parents could get to accommodate us, just happened to be only 20 miles from Lakewood Ranch.

The surprise was a huge success, and we did a lot of relaxing. But I will never forget the day when we sat in an Atlanta Bread Company restaurant near Holmes Beach with his entire family, Selina, and Wyatt… we began to map out roads, look at the lay of the land, research demographics, and began to dream out loud with others for the first time that this far-fetched idea of planting a church could actually be a reality one day. I believe it was Brian’s sister, Terissa, who said, “We may remember this day forever as the day it all began.”

And that it certainly was… we spent the majority of the rest of that day scoping out Lakewood Ranch and falling in love with the idea of planting a church on the west coast of Florida. We never really felt that it would be in Lakewood Ranch, but we knew that it would be close to there… we were moving in the right direction.

A surprise birthday trip was the beginning of the beginning… and, wow, were we in love with this beautiful part of Florida, USA!

Jacqueline