Thank you for taking the time to read these updates from our church planters. I hope you will be encouraged by their faithfulness and perseverance.
Our 2024 Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, February 22 from 10am-1pm at St Paul’s Presbyterian Church – 4917 Eli St, Orlando, FL 32804. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us in-person. It is the one time each year that we are all together in the same place. At that meeting, we will give you a report about our activities in 2023 and talk about what’s coming up in 2024. Chris Vogel, MNA Coordinator for Church Planting and Vitality, will share about MNA’s goal to see the denomination grow from 2000 churches to 3000 churches in the next ten years. Lastly, you will get a chance to hear from our church planters, as you enjoy lunch from 4Rivers BBQ. It will be a great day together.
Thank you for your support of the Florida Church Planting Network. What a tremendous calling we have!
Drew Bennett | Executive Director
1410 Dundee Road
Winter Haven, FL 33884
(863) 298-9849 - work
(863) 286-2310 - cell
drew@redeemerwinterhaven.org
Christ CHURCH BEACHES
JAX BEACH | Kevin Bigelow
LAUNCHED: September 2019
EMAIL KEVIN
This fall was a difficult one for several unforeseen reasons. Nevertheless Christ has been faithful and has been ushering CCB & the Bigelow’s into deeper rest,joy, and courage in himself. Day by day he has been cultivating a thick gospel-resilience amongst the core of the church as they learn hard by hard to turn to Christ and wait on him. At the moment we anticipate 12-15 new members joining between now and Easter. Our community groups will start back up on February 18
Pray with us:
That the Spirit of Christ grows our community in her gospel-fluency
That Christ grows our giving from ~$16k to $21k/mo
That the Lord reaches more and more families up and down the Jax Beaches with the gospel of his mercy and adds them into the worshipping community of CCB
That the Bigelow’s are given rest and courage day by day from Christ.
NEW CITY CHURCH
PALM BAY
LAUNCHED: October 2019
New City has called an Interim Pastor, TE Jon Storck, who arrived in mid-November. They have worked along side their mother church to develop their own Pastor Search Committee. That committee has been meeting since January and are at the beginning stages of developing a "pastor profile." They will begin taking applications soon.
They are currently averaging 90-110 in attendance. They are financially self-sufficient still, even after losing their pastor in April (praise God!).
COVENANT OF GRACE CHURCH
NORTH PORT | Aleksey Zhuravlev
LAUNCHED: Fall 2018
EMAIL ALEKSEY
We have had the pleasure of welcoming one new family and two single individuals into our membership. Additionally, we have conducted three baptisms and ordained two deacons, which is an important milestone for our congregation. In order to foster spiritual growth, we have initiated Tuesday night studies for both young and adult brothers at the pastor's home. These study groups typically consist of 5 to 10 individuals. Our commitment to worship services remains unchanged, with services conducted every Sunday and Wednesday. Furthermore, we are actively working on enhancing our media outreach to Russian-speaking communities, not only locally in North Port but also across the globe.
Prayer Requests:
Spiritual stability and growth.
Growth in attendance.
Five new families into membership.
Success in outreach through media.
LA VINA
ORLANDO | Pablo Torres
LAUNCHED: APRIL 2018
EMAIL PABLO
The average attendance has increased, in the last month we have had attendances of more than 40 people and on one occasion we passed 50, that means that more people are getting to know us and are approaching us, the followers on Facebook have also increased and the spiritual maturity of some people who have just met Jesus has been admirable.
Pray with us:
Consistency and increase in attendance, leadership development, growth in server staffing
SEVEN RIVERS THE VILLAGES
THE VILLAGES | Stephen Speaks
LAUNCHED: October 2021
EMAIL STEPHEN
Seven Rivers Villages Church has been meeting for worship since 2021. In that time we have experienced growth in the number of people worshiping with us on Sunday mornings, started seven small group Bible studies, and established ministry teams to help take care of church organization. Our hope was to begin leadership training this spring, but our main two candidates for eldership have experienced debilitating life issues that will prevent them from participating. We find The timeframe for movement towards particularization extended. Yet, financially, we are stable. We even hired an assistant to serve alongside me to help with the church plant. Steven Brooks was installed on January 14 to help With organization and administration, small groups, and preaching.
Items for praise:
Our older folks in the congregation continue to invite friends to worship and visitors are incorporated into different aspects of body life.
Our ministry to Youth is growing, which is a challenge in our older demographic. A High school Bible study for guys meets weekly on Mondays. There are 6 regulars attendees, but they were joined this week by one of the employees at Dairy Queen!
Our plant Members and Regular attenders are taking ownership in church organization. They not only make sure that the needs of weekly worship are met, but they also do a great job visiting and taking care of folks dealing with sickness and infirmity.
We have several people who are not Christians, old and young, visiting our church regularly.
Please pray with us:
Pray for leadership development.
Pray for conversion growth.
Pray for Steven Brooks as his family adjusts to life in The Villages area.
CHRIST CHURCH SARASOTA
SARASOTA | Chris Knaebel
LAUNChed: 2023
EMAIL CHRIS
In the Fall, we had an 8-week marriage challenge with 16 adult participants. We have sent off four families (11 people) due to relocation or circumstantial changes to serve the greater good in other parts of God’s Kingdom, yet despite this, we still received 61.6% internally from the congregation of our weekly operating budget this quarter. Below are some highlights since our last update.
2nd Annual Carols & Cocoa:
- 47 people in our living room sang the gospel through carols. so. much. joy.
- Elliot started helping lead music alongside his dad. such. a. blessing.
- More than 41% were unchurched or de-churched. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus!
Thanksgiving 2023 God Stories:
- A Brother Spared: after a significant car accident.
- A Woman Rescued: from addiction is leading others to hope and healing in Christ and His gospel.
- A Retired Prison Guard is finding rest after 20 years of on-the-job trauma.
- A Family’s Marriage: is leaning into the mercy and grace of gospel renewal.
- New Guests: From Main Street, hear God’s people worship, lean over the railing, come inside for God’s Word prayed, preached, and sung. Such. A. Privilege.
- A member recently sacrificially bought a person with an addiction a new pair of shoes as a gift to remind them of God’s Love. They have trusted Christ and are back in recovery. After praying for a car for a week, this former addict contacted her to say his dad had died, and he wanted to give her his car. A brother has been able to provide her now with an excellent second job!
Testimonies:
- “This is the most friendly church I have ever attended . . . the music and biblical teaching are a 10/10.”
- “I am being fed here. I love the intimacy of the relationships and look forward to being with this community each week.”
- “Easily one of the most welcoming churches I’ve been involved with.”
- “Every person in the church is welcoming and caring. I have made very close friendships. Pastor Chris’ teaching is biblically sound. If you want a church where you can feel part of a family and grow in Christ together, this is the place for you.”
PRAYER:
Wisdom, Growth, Meeting Space
P/T Work? We’re considering the possibility of my going bi-vocational
Strength, Clarity, Faithfulness & Fruitfulness
Additional Believers, Continued Conversions
KISSIMMEE FELLOWSHIP
KISSIMMEE | Heath Zuniga
LAUNCHED: Falll 2023
EMAIL HEATH
We’re moving to morning services on Sunday Feb 4th @ 10am. There’s many opportunities for our church to serve and meet needs in this school.
We have launched our City Groups - 2 English speaking and plans to begin 1 Spanish speaking service soon. We’ve had some good encouraging growth during the fall but we’ve also lost some key families (job relocation, denominational differences).
I’m grateful to have a small preaching team of myself and two other men and we will begin monthly Sunday school/trainings in evangelism and Bible study methods. Our two big goals for this year is that every person in our church would have confidence in sharing the gospel and studying the Scriptures. We are praying for 15 conversions.
UNIVERSITY PRESBYTERIAN
TAMPA | WRIGHT BUSCHING
LAUNCHED: FALL 2023
EMAIL WRIGHT
We launched worship on September 10th. We are renting an Episcopal church and have a 4:00pm service. Most of our people have really enjoyed the 4:00pm worship time. We have a part-time worship director and a part-time children's ministry director who are both fitting into their roles very well. We also have Men's and Women's Bible studies on Wednesday nights that have gone really well and have had a large percentage of our men and women attend. We've had a significant number of students from USF attend each week and have seen several join the church as well. We are grateful that the Lord continues to bring visitors and non-believers each week to hear the good news of the gospel.
Please pray:
That the Lord would raise up faithful men to serve as elders and deacons.
For several non-believers who are regular attenders to come to faith in Christ.
For wisdom as we consider whether or not to enter into a longer lease with the church we are currently renting.
OAK CITY CHURCH
BARTOW | BRIAN MACDONALD
LAUNCHED: FALL 2023
EMAIL BRIAN
Overall, encouraged with the steady growth of our church particularly after our morning launch. We met our growth metrics in average attendance. Very encouraged with the leaders in our church and opportunity to bring on a new pastoral resident who is eager to learn and has aspirations in church planting. Very encouraged with evangelism and the conversions we saw in 2023. We were discouraged with the internal tithes and offerings throughout the year, although we ended well financially with year end giving and support. We didn't meet our tithe and offering metric, although I knew I was shooting a bit high. I have been discouraged with some heavy shepherding issues over last quarter but that is common in any church. We are moving into the more settling stage and looking to find our new rhythms in discipleship and weekly meetings but do not want to get too comfortable and lose our zeal for outreach and growth!
Pray with us:
Please pray for endurance and prudence with shepherding issues.
Please pray for increased internal giving in 2024
Please pray for our current evangelistic meetings [weekly seeker study and Bartow High bi-weekly meeting]- several seekers are engaging with God's Word and asking Holy Spirit to change their hearts.
EAST COLLIER | GREG BLOSSER
An assistant planter has been added to the team. Aaron Dean (7 years of pastoral experience) lives in the target community. Very good addition. Outreach to the unchurched going very well. Consistently hosting parties and events in our neighborhood, attending events of others. Deeply connected in our neighborhood. Hosting a 6 week Bible study for unchurched. It has been enthusiastically received, people engaging with the identity of Jesus and asking good questions.
Pray with us:
Workers for the harvest (grow the launch team)
Another gatherer of people on the launch team.
Continued progress with unchurched friends and neighbors.
Secure a worship location.
NEW RIVER FELLOWSHIP
FT. LAUDERDALE | CHAN KILGORE
LAUNCHED: FALL 2023
We are six months in have established a strong core group of about 40 adults. We have developed 16 leaders who are serving in different capacities from leading children’s ministry, small groups, worship, a/v and setup & tear down teams. We have seen 30+ salvations in the past year (still following up on some in recent weeks who have expressed a desire to know the saving grace of God) and on February 4th we will baptize four adults.
Pray with us:
Our greatest need is for strong, mature believers who can help us disciple all the new believers and those who are returning to church as adults. It’s a blessing to have such a spiritual young church but the pastoral care load can be weighty. It also impacts our internal giving. However, I am encouraged to see our new believers starting to give.
LAKESIDE COVENANT
MT. DORA | MATT MATULIA
LAUNCHED: WINTER 2024
We just had a soft launch where we held worship with our launch team and a few other families. Our first attendance was 72 total people, which included adults and children. Our launch team consists of a group of 28 adults and 30 children (aging from infants to age 17).
The Lord has been very gracious to bring a larger family into our launch team in the last month which is a real blessing as we will have additional "helping hands" as we begin gathering weekly for worship. In the last year the Lord has been faithful to bring new families into our lives who have become key leaders in our launch team. In the last year we have expanded into two new hope groups (for a total of 3 groups) which include people from our launch team, but also other families whom we are engaged with in ministry. These families include people who have not been in the church in years as well as non-believers. I have been personally discipling 4 of the men in our launch team who I see with leadership potential and our plan is to launch more discipleship groups in the fall. We are currently worshipping as a launch team during the month of January in preparation for a February launch. The Lord has been gracious to meet our financial needs so that we are starting out in a healthy place with our finances.
Pray with us:
That the Lord would grant me a deeper love for him and for his gospel and enable me to love and lead well my family, our launch team, and others who will be joining us when we launch.
That the Lord would give our launch team a growing zeal for evangelism and would use us in the ministry of evangelism allowing us the opportunity to see many people come to faith in Christ.
That the Lord would continue to sharpen our vision for our home group ministries and other discipleship ministries as we move forward.
CHRIST THE KING CHAPEL
DADE CITY | CHUCK WILLIAMS
ANGEL ROMAN
LAKE NONA PRESBYTERIAN
TONY ELSWICK
REDEEMER WINTER HAVEN
JOSH GILMAN
GOOD SHEPHERD OCALA