Ron on the Road: Oregon Church Planters
We visited with two partner churches in Oregon in the Portland area. The first was Imago Dei Community in downtown Portland, followed by Evergreen Presbyterian in Beverton, Oregon.
Imago Dei Community Church
Miriam and I had dinner with Eric and Tara Brown. Eric is the director for Church planting for Imago Dei Community, a church Spanish River helped start in 2000-2001. Eric also served in this capacity for Spanish River almost 10 years ago. We had a great time reminiscing about past mission trips and other memories from when Eric and Tara lived in Boca Raton.
Imago Dei just celebrated their 11th year and average around 1900 per weekend at their 4 services. Their lead pastor and church planter Rick McKinley has done a great job leading this ministry.
Imago Dei is very involved in their city where they have several ministries that serve Portland. They also have been engaged in starting churches and have recently made the decision to form their own church planting network. Several other churches are partnering with them in this new venture.
Evergreen Presbyterian Church
Our next visit was with Nathan Lewis the senior pastor of Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon. Nathan planted Evergreen almost 20 years ago with the support of Spanish River Church. Evergreen started their own Christian school several years ago that is doing very well. They also are planting another church that just started a few months ago called Ascension Presbyterian with church planter Eric Costa.
Nathan expressed great appreciation for SRC and David Nicholas for not only the financial investment, but also for the training and encouragement he received from David.
Ways to Pray
Please pray for Eric and Rick and their new initiative in planting churches in the northwest. Also, keep Eric and Tara in your prayers as they prepare for their oldest son, John to go off to college next year.
Ron on the Road: Cross Sound Church Seattle
During our stay in Seattle, we stayed with my college roommate David Carlson and his wife Vicki in Bellevue Washington. It was great to renew this old relationship, and we enjoyed trying to remember the good old days at Geneva College.
Sunday morning we left Seattle and took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Cross Sound Church is a PCA Church that SRC helped to plant several years ago. David Sellers is the second senior pastor to serve this congregation. Paul Schuler, the original church planter, and his family recently moved to Honolulu to take the senior pastors role at another SRC plant on the island.
We were able to attend the worship services at Cross Sound at Bainbridge Island High School. It was a wonderful time of worship and we felt very welcomed and thoroughly enjoyed our time there.
We later went to the Sellers' home for lunch, and were able to spend time with David, his wife Carrie, and their four active and wonderful children. David grew up in West Palm Beach and lived next door to Tommy Kiedis, Senior Pastor of Spanish River, as a child. Originally, David served Cross Sound as the assistant pastor before taking the senior pastors role this year.
Cross Sound's staff is growing and so are their efforts to be engaged international ministry. Cross Sound just recently hired a Youth Pastor who shared some of his vision at the services we attended. They also are very involved in doing ministry in Mexico. Their strategy is to send construction teams and/or funds to Tijuana to build homes.
Cross Sound also supports Victor Cruz of Redeemer Church in Mexico. SRC has partnered with Victor on several projects over the years.
If you feel so led, please keep the Sellers and Cross Sound in your prayers as the minister on Bainbridge Island.
Ron on the Road: Seattle Church Planters
On Saturday morning, Miriam and I met with three pastors that have some incredible ministry going on in Seattle.
Green Lake Presbyterian Church
Mike Kelly is the senior pastor of Green Lake Presbyterian Church, he also is directing a movement to plant more churches in the northwest. Mike and his team serve a multi-site ministry called CrossPoint Churches. Think of CrossPoint as a family of churches in missional partnership to cross barriers that divide the Seattle area--and the world--and more together than any single congregation could imagine.
Grace Seattle
John Haralson and Michael Subracko serve at Grace Seattle, which is a church that Spanish River was instrumental in helping to plant several years ago. John has done a wonderful job as the senior pastor. The church has gone through some difficult leadership challenges, and John has stepped in and has righted the ship and Grace Seattle is growing and serving the community in outstanding ways. Michael who serves as the associate minister at Grace Seattle also served in the mission field alongside Tom Hudson in Portugal. Grace Seattle is also just recently planted a church in West Seattle. Andy Pelander is the church planter at All Souls Church.
Acts 29 Network
We later met with Scott Thomas, who is the President of Acts 29. Scott has led this ministry for several years which was founded by David Nicholas and Mark Driscoll. Acts 29 is a church planting ministry that has played a role in hundreds of church plants around the world. SRC has partnered with Acts 29 on several of these church plants. Scott just recently wrote a book called "Gospel Coach" and his is very busy teaching seminars around the country on this subject.
Please keep all these men in your prayers as they serve the Lord in Seattle.
Spotlight: Adam Flynt & The Crossing Church, Jacksonville
Q: How did your launch service go?
A: It’s hard for me to say that we’ve launched. I’d rather say “launching.” As my father-in-law says, “rockets don’t launch all at once. Every launch is really a series of launches.” So we say we are “launching”. And God has been really gracious to us as we are launching.
On our first Sunday, we had over 150 total people in attendance. Our launch team consisted of about 40 adults.
Q: Did anyone make a profession of faith?
A: Though we did not have any come to Christ on our first Sunday, I have had a number of follow up conversations with individuals who are not followers of Jesus or who invited friends who are not followers of Jesus. They have all expressed a real joy about coming to church and wanting to know more and talk more about Jesus. We are praying hard as we share the bad news/ good news of the gospel with everyone
Q: In what way did God move that excited you the most?
A: I was most excited about how many people who don’t go to church and who are not followers of Jesus came on Sunday.
Our first Sunday was a great day because God gave us a great team of leaders. They really took on so much our first Sunday and really owned it. We also did as much as we could well in advance. This meant that everything we could do the week before, we did. That left a lot of margin to spend with people the week of the launch. I loved that I wasn’t holed up with printing, folding, putting ProPresenter together, etc.
Q: How did you budget in rest after?
A: Knowing this is Jesus’ church has helped tremendously to stay rested and avoid burning out over the idol of working too hard. We had family in town who came to our house on Sunday and cooked lunch for us. I also took the following Monday off to just rest and spend the day with my wife.
Keep Up with Adam:
Twitter: @adamflynt
Ron on the Road: Denver Church Plants
We had a very busy day in Denver yesterday. It started with a breakfast meeting with Shane Sunn. Shane is planting a church named Saint Patrick Presbyterian Church in the heart of the city of Denver, the planned launch date will be in November. Shane also serves as the director of the Western Church Planting Network. WCPN exists to assist western presbyteries in the planting of new churches and the establishment of Reformed University Campus ministries throughout the region. Shane and his family have recently moved from Greely, Co. where he planted St. Patrick Church. Please keep Shane and his family in your prayer as he carries on this important and needed work. Church planting has been difficult for the PCA in the west. There is a huge need for more reformed churches that preach the Gospel in the Denver area. For lunch I met with Steven Reese. Steve is the senior pastor of Redeemer PCA in Parker Colorado. Spanish River partnered to plant Redeemer several years ago, and Steve has faithfully served this church. Redeemer meets in a local theater and averages around 120 in attendance at the worship service. Steve talked about the influence that David Nicholas had in his ministry, and how appreciative he was of the investment that SRC made in him and his church. Parker is a growing community , but also has one of the highest numbers of bankruptcies in the country. Parker is a beautiful community with near perfect weather, and a great view of the Rocky Mountains.
Miriam and I connected with Duane and Holly Cory in the evening. Duane was serving as an intern, when Miriam and I first came to SRC. He later served on staff for several years before heading out to Littleton, where he and Holly planted Deer Creek Church 25 years ago.
It was wonderful spending the evening with Cory's, sharing some fun memories of SRC and hearing about great ministry through Deer Creek Church. Duane shared some special memories of David Nicholas, and talked about how much he learned from David.
Deer Creek has a beautiful facility and averages around 350 in attendance. They have a large and active youth ministry. They also have several international partners and have had several teams serve in foreign countries for short term mission trips. The church is also engaged in helping plant a church in a community close by Littleton.
Please keep the Cory's, their 4 grown children and three grandchildren in your prayers.