I hope you find this newsletter encouraging. Please pass along it along to others to spread the word about what God is doing in church planting in Florida.
2019 was a good year for our Network. By God’s grace, we helped to start four new churches throughout the state. (You can read the updates from the plants below.) We also made major strides in developing the ministry of Parakaleo, a ministry to church planting spouses and women in leadership in the church. Our networking and recruiting efforts are already beginning to bear fruit for church planting in 2020 and beyond.
We are on track to finish 2019 in strong financially. If you or your church has not yet fulfilled your financial commitment to the Network, please do so in the next few weeks. If you have any questions about your 2019 contributions, feel free to contact our CFO, Jack Story, at jstory10@comcast.net. One goal for 2020 is to increase giving by 5% - around $20k – over this past year. Please pray about how you might help us reach this goal.
Also, I hope you will plan to attend our annual meeting on Thursday, January 30 at 10am. We will be meeting at Reformed Theological Seminary in Oviedo, FL. The first hour of the meeting be a time of celebration and prayer. The second hour we will conduct our necessary annual business. We will conclude with lunch together in the Fellowship Hall at RTS. This is the only time all year we have the chance to all be in one place. It is the best way for you to hear more specifics about 2019 and plans for 2020. It really is crucial for every church to send at least one representative to this annual meeting. It would be a huge encouragement to me to have a big crowd.
It really is a joy to serve this Network. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing! (Colossians 1:6).
“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come the thee!”
Drew Bennett | Executive Director
Christ CHURCH BEACHES
JAX BEach | Kevin Bigelow
Launched: September 2019
Attendance: 75-100
Christ Church Beaches launched public worship on September 08, 2019 in the Beaches Historical Chapel (a 130 year old restored chapel in the heart of Jax Beach) with 140 people in attendance of which approximately 90 were new contact work from the Launch Team. Through the first seven weeks approximately 150 to 250 new people have joined us for worship, with 16 people going through Discovery Class. Today our worshipping community has grown to a little over 100 people and our weekly attendance ranges from 75-100 people.
In addition to worship, we have launched a fourth community group and have started an evangelistic work in a fifth community aiming at growing into a group. Alongside community groups, we have begun a group of emerging leaders called the Pablo Island Fellowship aimed at raising up young leaders in Christ.
In the coming weeks and month we’ll continue to accelerate our outreach in the community. We will host a candle light Christmas Eve in the chapel for the community. In addition, we have received approval to host a Jax Beach community Easter Egg hunt on Palm Sunday which we anticipate bringing several hundred people. Alongside this, the Jax Beach community has an Easter Sunrise service of ~1,500 people (mostly de-churched) that Kevin Bigelow will preach at this year.
Three ways you can pray for Christ Church Beaches are:
1. That the Bigelow family would rest more and more everyday in the person and work of Jesus.
2. That the Lord would continue raising up new leaders who will grow into officers who can bring another generation of leadership to Christ Church Beaches
3. That the Lord would continue to warm up the network and relationships of the Launch Team bringing friends and family to himself by means of their relationships.”
NEW CITY CHURCH
PALM BAY | BEN HARRIS
Launched: October 2019
Attendance: 100
We are so in awe of the grace and goodness of God at New City Church in Palm Bay. After gathering for launch team meetings over the summer months we launched Sunday morning worship services and youth group this fall. Public worship services are being held at Bayside High School in south Palm Bay and began on October 20th and we are averaging over 100 people in attendance which includes many new visitors. We have raised up 10 ministry teams (prayer, worship, tech, welcome, connect, set-up, children, nursery, youth and connect teams) that are filled with some passionate, amazing members of the New City family!
We are blessed in our city to partner with and serve 3 public schools and 1 Christian school: Bayside High, Jupiter Elementary, Turner Elementary and Covenant Christian School. We have enjoyed bringing the teachers meals, doing painting and landscaping projects, mentoring students, serving at events, and are currently planning to bless 8 under-resourced families at these schools with Christmas gifts. We will be launching City Groups in the month of December as well as practicing gospel hospitality by doing a whole church party in November and then again in December. Please pray for our boldness, joy, and perseverance as we continue the work of evangelism and discipleship and are already tangibly experiencing very real spiritual attack.
GREATER HOPE CHURCH
MULBERRY | Stan McMahan
Launched: December 2017
Attendance: 125
God has continued to bless the work of Greater Hope Church. in Mulberry. We recently celebrated our 2nd anniversary as a church. We spent the fall studying the parables of Jesus in Matthew and the Prodigal Son in Luke. We were encouraged to learn from Jesus about His kingdom and grace! We added 16 new members this fall and launched a new Community Group. We’re thankful for the opportunities God is giving us to reach out to our neighbors, friends, and coworkers with the gospel. We’re looking forward to hosting our first “Carols in the Park” on December 22. Please pray for us as we share the gospel at that event. Also pray with us for more conversions, continued spiritual growth in our Community Groups, and for God to raise up more workers for the harvest in Mulberry.
GOOD SHEPHERD CHURCH
LAKELAND | Jeremy Kemp
Launched: January 2018
Attendance: 65
God has been at work at Good Shepherd Church this Fall. In the past two years, we have grown from being a group of individuals joined together by the task of planting a church to a true “core group" that is committed to do church together and be the church to the least and lost in SE Lakeland and beyond. Our City Groups been working through a study called “Gospel Fluency”, learning to speak gospel truth to ourselves and each other to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:16). This has also provided training for how to speak the gospel to unbelievers. Towards that end, we have been drawing new people from two distinct areas recently: the local neighborhood surrounding our place of worship and local college campuses, even having the opportunity to host two Ministry Practicum students from nearby Southeastern University this semester. Also, in early January we are gearing up to welcome around 16 new members to our community.
Please pray for us in the following ways:
1. Pray for open doors and clear speech for the gospel to go forth in SE Lakeland.
2. Pray that our people would get more of Jesus. Church planting is hard. Pray God would use this to strip us of idols and satisfy us with Him alone.
3. Pray for our finances going into our 3rd year of our church plant. We have a ways to go before being self-sustaining.
GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH
NORTH LAKELAND | Josh Floyd
Launched: September 2018
Attendance: 65
The Lord continues to move and work at Grace Community Church! We have been preaching through the Parables of the Kingdom and our people have continued to grow in grace. On Sept. 15th, we celebrated our one-year anniversary of holding public worship services! And we received our first batch of new members (22 communing and 11 non-communing for a total of 33 new members). On Oct. 20th, we had our first vision casting / budget planning meeting where we had several regular attenders and new members share their testimonies. One woman, Connie, said that she loves her community group and although she thought she'd been a Christian for a long time, she can say that she just came to Christ 8 weeks ago! Praise the Lord! This church plant is being used by God to change lives on the northside of Lakeland!
Please pray that more people would come to faith Jesus Christ, that GCC would continue to grow numerically and that those who are coming would give financially. Also, our part-time director or worship is rolling off at the end of December and we are currently looking for their replacement. Thank you for your prayers!
WAYPOINT CHURCH
PONTE VEDRA | James Brignac
Launched: SEPTEMBER 2016
Attendance: 90-100
As we come to the end of 2019 we are excited about the ministry that is happening at Waypoint. One of the blessings we’ve had is our largest new members class yet. At the end of October we had 14 adults and 5 students join the church (8 total families). These families came from a variety of backgrounds, but all had a similar path to Waypoint. Each of these families stated that they were drawn to Waypoint because of the gospel being preached and the love they felt from the congregation. We have continually stated that we want to be a church that is grounded in the gospel and loving our neighbors. We also had two baptisms after conversion at that service and we look forward to continuing to reach the lost with the gospel. We also are continuing to work on better methods for discipling the young believers that consistently walk through our doors.
Previously we have asked for prayers regarding the start of our new community group that would engage the 55+ community in Nocatee and I’m happy to report that those prayers have been answered. We’ve officially kicked off this group and the response has been overwhelming. It looks like we’ll have between 10-12 couples engaged in the group and it has already been a pathway for inviting friends to church as well. We want to be a church that is meeting the needs of the various communities within Nocatee and this was one of our biggest needs. We have seen God raise up leaders, hosts, and people and we know that God will work powerfully through this ministry.
As we move toward Advent we would ask that you pray for the folks that will be coming for our outreach event and Christmas Eve service. It has been one of our most well attended services and always presents opportunities to meet new people and share the gospel with a large number of people. We also continue to have our consistent men, women, and youth studies and all have seen growth. Each of these studies has decided to do a study of a book of the Bible this next season (rather than a book study) and each has stated they want to take a deeper dive into the scriptures. We want to constantly push our people in this direction and look forward to seeing the fruit of more of our people diving into the gospel message!
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray that our new members and those consistently attending will find more ways to connect to the church through worship, service, and community.
2. For continued wisdom and vision for our leadership team as we continue to move towards particularization.
CHRIST SATISFIES CHURCHTAMPA | JIMBO MULLEN
LAUNCHED: MAY 2018
ATTENDANCE: 25
CSPC has been meeting in the College Hill community since May of 2018.
We regularly have 20-25 people who join us for the worship service on Sunday afternoons.
Today we will be preparing for our annual Christmas outreach in the College Hill community. On Sunday, after our service, we will be giving Baskets of Love (food), home baked cookies, and toys/gifts for the children. All these items were generously donated by people from our mother church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, and our ministry partner, Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tampa.
In March of 2019, Darnard and Deana Winborn along with their 6 children (plus a new baby born in July) became the first members of CSPC. Darnard is pursuing gospel ministry and is in the process of applying to come under care of the SWFL Presbytery. He serves in a variety of ways at CSPC including praying, teaching the children's message, and filling the pulpit on occasion.
Jimbo has had many opportunities to meet with some of the men who regularly attend CSPC for discipleship. He's also had several opportunities to serve them including: providing transportation to Willie David during his recent radiation treatment for lung cancer and assisting Darnell as he entered a drug & alcohol rehab program.
Please pray that we will be able to locate office space to rent in College Hill. That is a great need.
BERAKAH COMMUNITY CHURCH
DAVENPORT | Dony St. Germain
Launched: Fall 2018
Attendance: 230
God is at work at Berakah Community Church. We praise Him for His Grace.
As we studied 1Thessalonians, we challenge God people to preach and live the gospel. God is using His word to transforms many hearts. We also start to see many young people coming to know Christ. Alexandrine a 19 yrs old who came to know last week. Then this past Sunday a young man asked me he would like to talk to me after church. His exact word were “Pastor I don’t how to live the gospel because I don’t know the gospel”. After two hours this young men trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior and shouted “Being I Church all my life, but the first time I know if I died today I will be in heaven”. It brings joy to see God bringing many to himself.
We had a very good women retreat and it was excellent. However, we don’t have a strong children and youth ministry because we can only use the place on Sunday night 7:00 to 10:00 PM.
We also trained 12 men and women in evangelism strategies to share their faith with family and friends. It is life transforming. We are planning to be particularize next year June. So we start training leaders for leadership in the church.
Also, we are working hard to raise money to build the steel building. Pray for open doors. We were able to share at the presbytery in Central Florida yesterday about the need for the place to worship. Pray that churches will come alongside of us to help us in this project. We raised $300,000 and still in need of raising $800,000. Pray that God will provide.
LA VINA - UPC HISPANIC CHURCH
ORLANDO | Pablo Torres
Launched: April 2018
Attendance: 40
The Lord has allowed us to make new friends and little by little to share with them the gospel, some have visited us, and we hope that very soon they will decide to attend our activities. The core group is still very animated and united, a few weeks ago we started a Sunday school class and by the end of the year we hope to have started a youth group and a women's prayer group, we also hope to conclude this year with two outreach activities, and pray that the Lord will bless us and start the year 2020, with new people attending our services.
As you know our main pressure point is finances, please continue to pray that the Lord will provide what is necessary for our support and the development of the Hispanic project, and at the same time that our heart will remain at peace, trusting in the promises of the Lord. Also pray that each member of the congregation will be a useful and effective instrument in the hands of our Lord to share the gospel in the activities that we will have, and pray to God to give us his wisdom, peace and hope because some brothers of the congregation have been living for weeks in the midst of great trials.
