Hello everyone! I hope that life is treating you well. For us, things are REALLY starting to get interesting here.

Preparations

We continue to prepare for our move to the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area, and everything that goes along with the planting of our church there.

Right now, we are in the process of figuring out a lot of the big details of the plant. We are honing in on the specific part of Nashville where we will be starting the church, our strategy, our budget, etc. Next week we will be meeting with our Church-Planting Coach from ARC to nail down a lot of those details.

If you didn’t see our letter last week about ARC and Nashville, you can see it here.

Coaching

Last Sunday, I traveled to Nashville to visit a newer ARC plant that started about a year and a half ago, Church of The Hills. Man was that exciting!

They meet at a local middle school, they are now holding two services on Sunday mornings, and are growing like crazy! In the past two months alone, they have added 84 people to their “Dream Team” (People who are giving their time and energy to serve in the church on Sundays or through small groups).

The beautiful thing is that their growth has been true conversion growth, not transfer growth… AND a large percentage of their people are millenials (18-35)!

The Pastors of that church, JD & Leah Ost are going to be serving as our coaches over the next few years. They are a GREAT couple, and for some reason seem to love us a whole lot… as we do them! 😉 We are so excited AND thankful to God for him putting these amazing people in our lives as we take this next step in ministry!

The USA – One Of The Largest Mission Fields In The World

It is hard to wrap our heads around this, but the USA is truly one of the largest mission fields in the world. Why is it hard to understand? Because literally everywhere you go, you see a church on every corner. In the Nashville area alone there are over 700 churches today. Isn’t that awesome… and isn’t that crazy?!

The startling thing is that if this Sunday every single chair in every single church were filled, we would only be able to serve 20% of the population. In the Nashville Metro area alone, there are over 1.5 million people who don’t attend church on a regular basis.

THAT is why we do what we do, THAT is why we won’t stop, THAT is why we ALL have to get our eyes off of ourselves and look around and see that the Harvest is Great.

Prayer & Visits

PLEASE keep us in your prayers over the next few months.

• Income: Our only income right now is what you are giving. We need to move asap, the rent in the middle TN area is much higher than here in Rome. We are working on alternative ways to get an income, but honestly, for this to happen, we need partners who will give. Pray for this, and please give generously also! You can do that at here.
• Family: EVERYONE in our family is excited about returning to Middle Tennessee. Still, moving is always hard and stressful (Changing of schools, new friends, rutines, etc.). Pray that God would put His hand over Norah and our kids (Erynn, Jordan & Derrick) lives as we continue through this process.
• Vision: God every day seems to be expanding our vision, allowing us to dream things that only a few weeks ago seemed so far out of reach. Pray that God would give us wisdom as we make a lot of very important decisiones over the next weeks and months, AND that He would provide financially for that vision that He is giving us!

We love and appreciate all of you! We WILL be visiting a LOT of churches this fall, and even into next Spring. We hope to see you! If you could have us come to your church, please let us know!

Have a GREAT rest of your week and weekend! May God bless you richly in all you do!

Love,