The Backstory.
So, I (DL) guess it was about October when the idea first starting forming itself. Me and Ricky were talking one night and somehow got on the subject of starting a church. We both expressed our enthusiasm for starting a church with fellow schoolmates. I mean, how awesome would it be to start a church with people that you already know, you work well with, and that have the same passion?
Well, we asked ourselves—Why not? It’s something that we really want to do, so let’s do it. So we took the idea to two of our close friend, Joe and Jared. They agreed with the idea and the CPers (Church Planters) were born. From that point on we met and discussed all of the different options that we had, the different hurdles we would have to jump over and the different aspects of the idea.
Over time, our idea developed and progressed. We decided that we wanted to start a church in Florida or North Carolina. Then we narrowed it down to Florida, then to the Orlando area. We picked a Lead Pastor (Jared) and assigned roles to the rest of us (Joe—Preaching Pastor, Ricky—Student Pastor, Me—Education Pastor). We bought loads of books and resources, we made charts and lists, we had meetings.
Finally, we felt ready to present our idea to a superior—someone we trusted and looked up to. That person was Bro. Blackburn (the Vice-President of our college). We laid everything out in front of him and explained it all to the best of our ability. Then we awaited his reply. He had a lot of concerns (who wouldn’t?) but was generally in favor of the idea. He suggested that instead of trying to start immediately with an autonomous work, that we start a daughter work under a pastor that we all respect.
After the meeting, and after a lot of discussion, we decided that the daughter work route was probably the best way to go. So then we decided to talk to yet another person whom we all respected—Bro. Coltharp (pastor and professor at our college). He was very excited about the idea and gave us a ton of great ideas to consider. We left the meeting with him feeling very encouraged.
Then, we had an idea. Why not start a daughter work under Bro. Coltharp? We all respected and admired him, he was someone who was very easy to work with, he was a well-balanced individual, and he has a great church. But he pastored in the Chicagoland area. Were we okay with Chicago? We had never even considered it before, but the more we thought about it, the more comfortable we were with the idea. We decided to pursue that thought.
So, we talked to Bro. Blackburn again and mentioned this idea to him. He felt it was a very good idea and called Bro. Coltharp for us.
Well, you’re pretty much caught up now…
We are working on starting a daughter work with Bro. Coltharp in the Chicago area. We still have to meet with Bro. Coltharp about his involvement, etc, but we all feel really good about it.
Who knows what will happen?
But, we’ll keep you informed as we make this journey together…
