Ron on the Road: Core Community Church, Omaha
Driving through Iowa and Nebraska involves looking at a lot of corn. We were able to break that drive up by stopping in Omaha, and having lunch with Ethan Burmeister of Core Community Church.
Ethan planted this church about 10 years ago with the help of Spanish River Church. The church has seen steady growth and has an amazing ministry in Omaha. Ethan and his wife Erin have four children, and have reached that important moment in their lives when the oldest child can babysit.
Core Community has an average attendance of around 350 on Sunday morning, and the church is very involved in serving the community. Ethan also has a heart for planting churches, he spends time coaching new church planters.
Probably the most exciting news about Core Community is that they are merging with another church in Omaha called Coram Deo. This merger will be a huge benefit to both staff and members of the churches. Ethan and the senior leader of Corem Deo have had a great and long relationship. This merger will give both leaders the opportunity to use their gifts in a more effective way. The merger just officially happened this past weekend, and as in any marriage, many details will need to worked out. However, both chuches are excited about the future and the opportunity to work together.
Please keep the Burmeister's in your prayers as this new chapter in their ministry begins. After lunch we hit the road and headed towards Denver, but only made it as far as North Platte. Nebraska. Which is famous for trains, they have over 10,000 railcars pass through this city daily.
Ron on the Road: Naperville Presbyterian
Naperville Presbyterian was the second church that Spanish River planted, and the first outside the state of Florida. It is located just outside of Chicago.
Chris Hodge is the senior pastor of Naperville Presbyterian. Chris was formerly the pastor of Treasure Coast PCA in Stuart Florida, before he was called to serve here a few years ago. The church has a beautiful facility and has two services that meet Sunday morning. We attended the 8:30 am service and were surprised to see a great number of people attending such an early service.
Naperville has had a history of being a church planting church, and they are now refocusing their efforts to once again plant more churches in the midwest.
Miriam and I enjoyed spending the day in Naperville, Il. They have a beautiful downtown, and a great place to take a walk along the river. Fall is arriving here in the Chicago area. It was nice seeing the color of the leaves and feel the cool air.
Please keep Chris and Karen Hodge in your prayers as they lead this great church. Pray for them as they refocus on planting more churches.
After service, we hit the road and started for Des Moines and points west.
Ron on the Road: Vista Community Church
This past Friday we spent the morning with Gary and Kim Treichler in Dublin, Ohio, which is near Columbus. Gary serves as an assistant pastor of Vista Community Church. Vista is not an SRC church plant, but Gary served for 11 years as the Small groups and Executive Pastor at SRC. We were joined at breakfast by Mike and Tammy Smith, Mike is the senior pastor of Vista. They were gearing up for a big weekend, Vista opened up their second site on Sunday. The church has outgrown the school where they currently meet, and decided to hold a second service in a local movie theater nearby.
Vista is a church on the move, they own three used Uhaul trucks, and move their church into the school and movie theater every Sunday morning. It takes a huge commitment from lots of volunteers. Vista is a growing church and with Gary's leadership in small groups and discipleship groups, they are growing deep as well as in numbers.
Vista is also getting involved in planting churches in Kenya. They have a great movement leader and have committed to partnering to plant many churches in Africa. Please keep the Treichlers and Smiths in your prayers as they continue to reach their community for Christ.
After our time in Ohio, we headed to Chicago. More on that tomorrow!
Ron on the Road: Jerry Maguire of Redeemer PCA, Concord
Tuesday evening we met with the Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Concord, Ma. Pastor Jerry Maguire and his wife Marg have been serving at this church for five years. Spanish River partnered to plant this church back in 1994.
Jerry and Marg gave us a great tour and history lesson about Concord, this is where the first real battle of the revolutionary war was fought.
Concord is also the home to Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This city used to be home to some large puritan churches, but with the influence of men like Emerson and Thoreau became liberal and to this day has very few evangelical churches. Redeemer Presbyterian is a bright light in a very dark community. The church has about 120 in attendance on a Sunday morning, they currently rent space in a community center in town for their worship services.
Pastor Maguire and Redeemer have a great heart for missions, Jerry is considering taking a sabbatical to teach at a Bible college in Kampala Uganda for six months. They have an intern from Gordon-Conwell Seminary that will fill in while they serve in Africa.
Please keep Jerry and Marg in your prayers has they faithfully serve in a beautiful yet difficult community.
We enjoyed our time with the Maguires, they treated us to a wonderful dinner at the Colonial Inn, which is a restaurant that started in 1716. Of course we had yankee pot roast. Later we had a sweet time of prayer for Redeemer Presbyterian and our families.
Ron on the Road: Christ the King Church
Tuesday we drove to Cambridge, which is home to Harvard, MIT and Boston University. It is also home to Christ the King Church, which is a PCA church that serves two congregations an English service in the morning, and Brazilian service in the evening. Rick Downs has served as the senior pastor of Christ the King for many years. Rick also was an intern at Spanish River from 1979-1981. Christ the King Church meets in a church that is over 150 years old, and it is one of the newer buildings in the area. Christ the King Church has a real heart for planting churches in the Boston area. Rick introduced us to two men that are in the process of raising support for two new plants. Bryan Loney will be planting a church in Roslindale, and Logan Keck will be planting a church in Egleston Square, both of these are neighborhoods in Boston proper.
Bryan came to Christ as an adult, he was working as a professor at Florida State University,
when he first heard and responded to the Gospel, and later he was called into the ministry. Bryan had to make the difficult decision of leaving FSU, even though he was a tenured professor. He and his family will soon be moving to Boston to start this new work. Here is some additional information: http://ctkroslindale.org/
Logan is also in the process of raising support, he and his family already live and work in Boston and hope to have a core group put together soon. You can read more about Logan and this project at this website: http://www.eglestonproject.org/
Bob Sawyer is the director of the CTK church planting center. He has been a tremendous help to Bryan and Logan, and along with Rick serve as their coach when the churches are planted.