Gettin Goin

Digging the Road Ahead

In our last update we mentioned the transition from afternoon to morning gatherings. This has been an important step for us. Because we are a scratch plant we have a steeper hill to climb on the front end. Practically, this means we are not planting with a large group of people from one Church. As a result, many of the typical Church planting practices had to be delayed until a core community could be developed. Here is an illustration:
  • When a Church sends a core group it is similar to Great Britain establishing a colony on foreign soil. They take their culture and connections with them to the new land.
  • Our calling is more like gathering a German, Brazilian, Kenyan, Indian etc.. and asking them to fight for their country. Although each individual may be highly gifted, they have no history or culture to fight for.  
Our first task has been the process of building community before we could offer it to the region. Without this process none of the classic Church Planting strategies could occur. 

The good news is we now have a healthy growing core community (see last months post for a video about this process). Now we are in the process of offering this community to our neighborhoods and surrounding region. Below is a list of important changes coming in our next phase.
  • We have officially incorporated with the State of Georgia
  • We have opened a bank account (WOO HOO! - we will send our online link in the next update)
  • Our ministry teams are growing (Children's, Finance, Music, Hospitality, Social media etc.. ) God has given Christ Fellowship a tremendous talent pool.
  • We are developing a membership process
  • We are restructuring our "community formation" into "Neighborhood Communities". This key step is our primary prayer request. It will allow our discipleship efforts to be both spiritually challenging and outward facing (missional)
Last Thursday was the first step in this process as we hosted a "beer brew" in the driveway. We greeted neighbors and built relationships. about half the guys who came were non-Christians. (sorry, photo not available. mail chimp servers stopped taking uploads)

Some of our next steps are:
  • continued weekly dinners in our home
  • exploring a working relationship with the local ARTS alliance
  • Serving the Chamber of commerce (and similar organizations)
  • Hosting "Home concerts"
  • and several other ways we seek to immerse Christ Fellowship into the Culture.

This is exciting!!

Quite frankly, we are now beginning the very heart of the labor that drew us to Church planting. However, we did not anticipate it taking over 12 months to get to this process. The reality is, this work was much more "scratch" than we had anticipated. The road ahead looks AMAZING, but at the same time we are needing to raise an additional 12 months support to recover the lost time. HOWEVER, below are some prayer request that we feel could cover or even exceed this gap. 

Please Pray

  • for 12 "outward facing" families to come alongside our amazing community. These could come from sister PCA Churches, or other gospel believing communities in the region.
  • For the healthy transition from "community formation" to "Neighborhood Communities". We believe neighborhood communities deepen existing relationships while opening the door for gospel proclamation.
  • For finances. Think of it like a runway. We raised three years of runway. But now we know that "from scratch" means we need one additional year of runway. However, If the first prayer request (12 families) is granted, we believe the financial runway could be shortened to under three years.
  • In the end, God provides perfect in both portion and timing. But still pray!

We are building relationships with the local business community. This photo is taken from a recent gathering of local leaders.

While I have been reaching out to the business community, Heather has been building bridges with the ladies.

Thank You Donors!  We are so grateful for your support!  Any Gift is helpful. Tax deductible donations can be made through our online portal here.  100% of donations go to the work. Or you can email Brian here with questions. 
  • If you have difficulty in renewing your support the fastest and easiest way to resolve any funding issues is to contact Karen Fowler at 678-825-1223 or email her at kfowler@pcanet.org
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