The History of the Suncoast Part 5
After our four preview services which we did every other week we officially launched Church of the Suncoast the Sunday before Easter in 2006. We had 67 people that day. That was what we were able to grab from the community since all the well wishers were back at their churches.
I want to point out one difference in what we did versus what other planters do. There are a couple schools of thought when starting a church from scratch. One is to gather a small core group and meet with them for months and months and months until you are sure everyone is on board and gets what you guys are about to do. From that you birth a Sunday service and hope to grow from there. At the Suncoast we went the other way. We grabbed a few people, or borrowed, just what we needed to start and we launched a service first hoping then to get people in the community to be our long term core. There are too many reasons to list here why we did this but the bottom line was we believe in starting with the community and then working our way to a core.
The proof of this was harder than I could have imagined. I’m not saying I would do it different, other than launch with more people, why? From that launch number of 67 and then 95 our first Easter I grew the church all the way to 32 – 34 people in the middle of that first summer. I know you are impressed right? Those were HARD days. I would go home after tearing down the little day care and be mad, I would cry, I would shut down. I don’t know why… but for some reason probably a God-thing I stuck it out and over the remainder of the summer we started growing again and by the time we made the big move to our first real location we had a strong group of 60 + people.
What we did in those days leading up to our big move to Oakstead Elementary was really cast the vision for a re-launch that we called a Grand Opening. It was one of the most exciting times I think for me. We all threw our hands in the middle and said lets do it. We moved into Oakstead in late August of 2006 and for our Grand Opening we had 163 people!!! It was a go God moment!!!
From there we settled in around the high 70’s to low 80’s with some weeks in the 90’s. Tons of new faces and again people coming to Christ for the first time. That is one of the most amazing things about our church. Since we started in 2006 we have seen over 90 PEOPLE RECEIVE CHRIST! We finished out 2006 with our first Christmas Eve service with another great day of 153 and a couple salvations.
That Christmas was also when someone gave Church of the Suncoast a gift that I don’t think they really understand how meaningful this was… I am getting a little misty just thinking back to this. That Christmas someone gave us a gift of $70,000. Yes that is seventy thousand dollars. For the first time I was able to really sleep at night knowing that next Sunday will happen now. I didn’t have to carry around that burden of if the church will be able to pay me next week or if we can make the rent at the school.
2007 brought a lot of optimism as you might have guessed. We started the year with a high attraction series on sex and saw some weeks in the triple digits and by that summer God really gave us some unexpected momentum in June of all months! We has weeks in the 120’s talking about money!!! Wow.
BUT, right when you could feel the flood gates about to burst I got the phone call that our school was kicking us out in a month. CRUSHED! That is how I remember feeling for weeks. What do we do? Where do we go? God why are you letting this happen?
And, that is where we will pick things up again next time in the final post on the history of the Suncoast. I hope you have enjoyed hearing our story.
I want to point out one difference in what we did versus what other planters do. There are a couple schools of thought when starting a church from scratch. One is to gather a small core group and meet with them for months and months and months until you are sure everyone is on board and gets what you guys are about to do. From that you birth a Sunday service and hope to grow from there. At the Suncoast we went the other way. We grabbed a few people, or borrowed, just what we needed to start and we launched a service first hoping then to get people in the community to be our long term core. There are too many reasons to list here why we did this but the bottom line was we believe in starting with the community and then working our way to a core.
The proof of this was harder than I could have imagined. I’m not saying I would do it different, other than launch with more people, why? From that launch number of 67 and then 95 our first Easter I grew the church all the way to 32 – 34 people in the middle of that first summer. I know you are impressed right? Those were HARD days. I would go home after tearing down the little day care and be mad, I would cry, I would shut down. I don’t know why… but for some reason probably a God-thing I stuck it out and over the remainder of the summer we started growing again and by the time we made the big move to our first real location we had a strong group of 60 + people.
What we did in those days leading up to our big move to Oakstead Elementary was really cast the vision for a re-launch that we called a Grand Opening. It was one of the most exciting times I think for me. We all threw our hands in the middle and said lets do it. We moved into Oakstead in late August of 2006 and for our Grand Opening we had 163 people!!! It was a go God moment!!!
From there we settled in around the high 70’s to low 80’s with some weeks in the 90’s. Tons of new faces and again people coming to Christ for the first time. That is one of the most amazing things about our church. Since we started in 2006 we have seen over 90 PEOPLE RECEIVE CHRIST! We finished out 2006 with our first Christmas Eve service with another great day of 153 and a couple salvations.
That Christmas was also when someone gave Church of the Suncoast a gift that I don’t think they really understand how meaningful this was… I am getting a little misty just thinking back to this. That Christmas someone gave us a gift of $70,000. Yes that is seventy thousand dollars. For the first time I was able to really sleep at night knowing that next Sunday will happen now. I didn’t have to carry around that burden of if the church will be able to pay me next week or if we can make the rent at the school.
2007 brought a lot of optimism as you might have guessed. We started the year with a high attraction series on sex and saw some weeks in the triple digits and by that summer God really gave us some unexpected momentum in June of all months! We has weeks in the 120’s talking about money!!! Wow.
BUT, right when you could feel the flood gates about to burst I got the phone call that our school was kicking us out in a month. CRUSHED! That is how I remember feeling for weeks. What do we do? Where do we go? God why are you letting this happen?
And, that is where we will pick things up again next time in the final post on the history of the Suncoast. I hope you have enjoyed hearing our story.
Questions About Growing Spiritually
I recently came across a staff meeting podcast that Andy Stanley did for the people at Northpoint where he addressed the issue of growing spiritually at a "seeker" church. I loved his take on it so here are my notes plus some additional thoughts from me:
Answering Questions about Growing Spiritually
at Church of the Suncoast
Q: What is our spiritual growth or discipleship model?
A: We want people to fulfill our purpose statement. Take a next step with God by:
Loving Up (Worship, Sunday Services)
Reaching Out (Influencing Others for Christ and Inviting Them to Church)
Growing Within (Community Groups, Serving, Giving, Personal Disciplines)
Spiritual growth is not a linear progression. It is cyclical. A Sunday worship experience or serving on a team will mean different things to your faith at different stages of life. You don’t complete one and then move on the next, then the next, then what? We want people to stay in those things and God will grow a person’s faith through seasons of life and circumstances.
If you are already in all of those things then great! Keep on because God will grow you the more you are exposed to them.
Q: What about new believers?
A: Specifically which one? Are we talking about a general group or a person? Is there something we need to do for a specific new believer? We can deal with that! We can track the growth of specific people, we can’t as a group. We can’t rush growth.
Q: What do you have for mature believers?
A: We have opportunities for you to pour your life out into the lives of people that are not as mature. Mature believers do not need another Bible study or “deeper” worship. If you can use the internet then you can find answers to any question you might have. Mature believers should know better than this. What we need are people willing to share what they know with new believers and mentor them in our various environments. Maturity is not about only “knowing” more stuff!
(Most of the time this question comes from a group of people getting together and talking about all the things they would change about the pastor or the church. The reality is a mature believer may never “learn” anything new at our church and that is OK. If a person needs to learn there are tons of resources we can point them to like books, blogs, and websites)
At our church we have endless opportunities for you to pour your mature faith out into the lives of people that are not as far along as you are through relationships and authentic community.
Mature believers need to learn to be self - feeders through a daily quite time and learning to research things on their own. A sign of maturity is the ability to feed yourself and not always be dependant on the preacher, teacher, and or leader. The point of being a mature believer is being a self - feeder and able to feed others.
Answering Questions about Growing Spiritually
at Church of the Suncoast
Q: What is our spiritual growth or discipleship model?
A: We want people to fulfill our purpose statement. Take a next step with God by:
Loving Up (Worship, Sunday Services)
Reaching Out (Influencing Others for Christ and Inviting Them to Church)
Growing Within (Community Groups, Serving, Giving, Personal Disciplines)
Spiritual growth is not a linear progression. It is cyclical. A Sunday worship experience or serving on a team will mean different things to your faith at different stages of life. You don’t complete one and then move on the next, then the next, then what? We want people to stay in those things and God will grow a person’s faith through seasons of life and circumstances.
If you are already in all of those things then great! Keep on because God will grow you the more you are exposed to them.
Q: What about new believers?
A: Specifically which one? Are we talking about a general group or a person? Is there something we need to do for a specific new believer? We can deal with that! We can track the growth of specific people, we can’t as a group. We can’t rush growth.
Q: What do you have for mature believers?
A: We have opportunities for you to pour your life out into the lives of people that are not as mature. Mature believers do not need another Bible study or “deeper” worship. If you can use the internet then you can find answers to any question you might have. Mature believers should know better than this. What we need are people willing to share what they know with new believers and mentor them in our various environments. Maturity is not about only “knowing” more stuff!
(Most of the time this question comes from a group of people getting together and talking about all the things they would change about the pastor or the church. The reality is a mature believer may never “learn” anything new at our church and that is OK. If a person needs to learn there are tons of resources we can point them to like books, blogs, and websites)
At our church we have endless opportunities for you to pour your mature faith out into the lives of people that are not as far along as you are through relationships and authentic community.
Mature believers need to learn to be self - feeders through a daily quite time and learning to research things on their own. A sign of maturity is the ability to feed yourself and not always be dependant on the preacher, teacher, and or leader. The point of being a mature believer is being a self - feeder and able to feed others.
Monday Update
This past Sunday was great at the Suncoast. We had good numbers for November (125). The band did a new song by Jeremy Camp called "There will be a day" for part 3 of our series "So You're Dead... Now What?". I bombed the message. Just felt uncomfortable which has only happened one other time in 2 1/2 years up there. Who knows... have been praying the three prayers in "It" (stretch me, ruin me, heal me) so maybe that had something to do with it. Had a BUTT LOAD of new peeps!!! Go God!
Check out the last two parts of the History of the Suncoast later this week.
PS - We did a Halloweenie Handout on Friday night and gave out 112 hotdogs. Mad props to everyone at the Suncoast that passed out some dogs.
PSS - The Hurricanes beat Virgina in ACC play! Go Canes!
Check out the last two parts of the History of the Suncoast later this week.
PS - We did a Halloweenie Handout on Friday night and gave out 112 hotdogs. Mad props to everyone at the Suncoast that passed out some dogs.
PSS - The Hurricanes beat Virgina in ACC play! Go Canes!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)