August 2011

I felt a deeply urgent drive to go back to Florida and find the place where we would plant Awaken. We had already made the decision to go to ARC 3.0 (Assessment), just about a month after 2.0, but now I was going to slip another trip into the mix. I knew that during the assessment phase of our involvement with ARC, they would want details about the city where we felt called to plant. I planned a two-day, in-and-out trip that would have me driving all over the southwest coast of Florida.

Jacqueline and I mapped out possible locations, which was a daunting task. With our desire to stay in the Church of God, while planting through the ARC organization… there were only a few locations that were open to us. We overlaid ARC’s church location map against the Church of God’s locations and picked out four potential locations that still kept us in the general area of Sarasota/Bradenton/Tampa. There was a fifth location, North Port, but I had ruled it out, because it just didn’t seem like a good location on the map.

Once in Florida, I quickly gravitated to St. Petersburg. There was an area, in particular, that just seemed like the right place. I got some great vision for the city and felt like we could do life there. But to be fair, I pressed on to check out the other areas. Time slipped by as I visited city after city, marking them off our list, one-by-one. That night I called Jacqueline and described to her my discouragement. As much as I liked St. Petersburg, I couldn’t honestly say I felt called there.

Jacqueline, ever the cheerleader, asked if I should consider North Port… just in case. I flatly told her no… it wasn’t what I wanted. It was too far inland, by my estimation. I went to bed and Jacqueline went to work. The next morning, I awoke to a ten-page e-mail from her describing to me all the reasons why we should plant in North Port. She included demographics, places of interest, city data, and tons of her signature rah rah! I decided I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t drive down to check out North Port in the flesh.

I packed my bags, loaded the car, and headed for North Port. I prayed on the way there (knowing that I would not have time to visit anywhere else before it was time to head to the airport) that God would make it clear where we were supposed to plant. As I neared the exits for North Port, I sensed a strange sense of excitement. I no sooner got off the exit and saw the first housing development before I sensed the Holy Spirit say welcome home. As I drove through the city of North Port, I captured a vision for the future in a way that I never had before, even in Sarasota. At this point, I like to think we were always called to North Port, but just got confused… you see, North Port is in Sarasota County and is actually its largest city… only God!

Brian