This past Sunday night was our Journey Annual Awards Ceremony, where we celebrate our volunteers, look back at all that God has done in the past year, and look ahead to this coming year. Yesterday I shared about "Networks" in this post (if you're part of The Journey, read it, because it's a game changer). Today I wanted to share the transcript from another HUGE area that we're moving in during 2011. Here it is:
. . . I want to highlight a couple of really big movements for us as a church in 2011. From the very early days as a church, we have dreamed of a day where we would establish other sites (think franchises, so to speak), up and down the US-31 corridor, from Whitehall to south of Holland. There are a number of reasons we had that dream – one was because we wanted to do whatever we could to reach more people with the hope and message of Jesus. So many people live one place, work in another, and to get their friends or relatives to drive 30-45 min. to a gathering at Schamber Drive, just wasn’t going to consistently happen. So, we dreamed of creating Journey-type experiences within a mile or two of the highway, and within 15 minutes of where you lived along that corridor. We also believed it was wise stewardship, to formulate a plan where we could share resources, best practices, leadership, etc. without having to totally recreate the wheel with each new church.
This is the year, now is the time. We are in the finalizing process of picking the location and site, and we’ll let you know those details at a later date, but we are currently planning that we will have a preview Christmas event at the new location with an official public launch on January 8 or 2012. We will start developing a launch team in the fall to participate and bring leadership to that new location, and we’ll be calling on others to step into serving here at Schamber Drive. By the beginning of next year we will become one church in two locations. This will also mean new staffing, sharing of resources, creative leadership, and working through a funding process for that new site.
We can't wait to see all that God will do in 2011 and beyond. Our best is truly yet ahead of us!