Our New Home

We got to Smyrna on October 31st. Our first mission was to find a house. I kept all the kids and went and got a newspaper to look for other rental properties. Rebecca had set up a few appointments and she went out ahead to scout out the houses. The very first house she looked at, she loved. It's a country style house with a front porch and set up on a big hill. We knew this was going to be the house we would live in for at least the next year.

The really cool thing was that it was Halloween and the neighborhood this house is in goes completely overboard for Halloween. We brought the kids back there that night and trick or treated at all our "soon to be" neighbors houses.

It was a great first experience for the kids.

PT Cruiser

At the end of October we were packing up the house and a good friend of the family came over. Her husband had just bought a new car and they were going to give their son their very nice old car. They were looking for something to do with their son's car a 2002 wood grain PT Cruiser. She almost jokingly said "Blake you don't need a car do you." I felt a little guilty since we had just been given a '96 Tahoe, but I instantly thought that the cruiser would be lot more gas friendly, it had almost half the mileage, and on top of that I'd look pretty cool motoring around Smyrna in a wood grain PT Cruiser. I confessed that we didn't "need it" but that I could see myself really having fun with it as I drove around meeting people for the new church. She kind of smiled and said she'd talk to her husband about it. A little later he came over and flung a set of car keys at me. And said they would love for me to have the car. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. (Thankfully as we sit here in Smyrna the week before Christmas, the starter went out on the Tahoe last month but the Cruiser is still going strong.)

Super Tater

In October we took a trip to Southside Baptist Church in Tyler TX to share the vision of what we were going to be doing in Nashville . Southside was our first fulltime ministry that we jumped into after seminary. They invited me to say a few words about the church plant. During the service, I shared about a 10 minute vision and then afterward the church planned a baked potatoe fundraiser for us. The whole church turned out and we had a blast visiting with everyone and catching up with each other lives. And the end of the lunch, a few men walked over to tell me how much was raised, we were excpecting a couple of hundred dollars but the total was over $2000. God is so cool. The money came in especially handy when the brakes on the trucks went out during the move to Tennessee. The brake job ended up being over $500 plus we had to stay in a hotel and all the extra food. But God had already abundantly provided for this in advance!

Colonial's Big Gift

In September we saw God do something incredible. We knew that our Church was praying through how they were going to support what we were going to do in Smyrna. Out of the blue, Pastor Tim called me into his office and told me that the personel team decided to coninue our salary and insurance through December. That meant we had 3 months to get settled and figure out what we going to do. I got so excited I gave Tim a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. The gift from Colonial was incredible, moment after I kissed Tim on the cheek was a bit awkward.

The Plan

Pre-launch Phase
November –March 2009
After moving to Smyrna, TN, and secure a meeting space, we’ll start meeting the community and start engaging them through service evangelism. We will recruit and build a launch team and train volunteers to serve at our monthly community outreach events.

Preview Phase
April-August 2009
We will conduct monthly preview services, servant evangelism projects, connection events and follow-up. Church staff will be in place by April. Several friends have expressed a desire to be a part of the servant evangelism projects and the preview services. Please let us know if you would like to be a part of these.

Launch
September 2009
Launch and promote grand opening month. We have this crazy vision that God is going to bring 300 people to our very first meeting!

Growth Phase
After launching large, our plan is to connect visitors to our church through newcomer classes, life groups, and mission opportunities.

The Journey So Far

Here's the recap of our journey :

April ‘08: Blake has this crazy feeling that God wants us to leave our comfortable life and go start a new church. Rebecca amazingly says “Let’s do it!” and the journey begins.

June ‘08 After much prayer and research, we “connected the dots” and the picture became very clear that God was leading to a town just south of Nashville TN named Smyrna.
-Smyrna is located in one of the fastest growing areas of Tennessee. The low taxes, scenic foothills, recreational activities, and incredible school systems are attracting young families like crazy. In fact the town directly south of Smyrna was just named one of the best places in America to raise kids by Business Week Magazine. It’s a perfect fit for our heart and vision to reach young families.

August ’08: Blake tells our church family that we will be leaving in October to start a new church in Tennessee. We put our house on the market and we begin fundraising.

September 08: We accept an offer on the house and go to our first Church Planter’s training conference. The offer on the house turns into a rental agreement as the buyers can't sell their house.

October ’08: We take a tour of Texas, visiting with 3 churches in 3 different cities in 5 days. We share the vision and the plan for what we are going to do in Smyrna. When we come back from the "tour" and we spend the next 2 weeks packing. We squeeze all our stuff into three fourths of a semi-truck (thanks to Rebecca and all the tetris loving packers) and head to Tennessee.

November ’08: We find a house to rent on our first day in Tennessee and we get moved in. Later in the month we launch a website (http://www.crossbridge.tv/), and sign a contract that will make the brand new theater in town the first location of The Crossbridge Community Church starting in September of 2009! We got to go to the Grand Opening of the theater and watch the Mayor cut the ribbon. We keep searching and praying for a local support church.

December ’08: We get our first Tennessee snow! And we send out a Christmas newsletter to all of our friends and family.

Cool things God has Done

Thanks to that $1000 check we were given we are able to pay for our training trip to Tennessee. We're attending a "church planters basic training" up in the Smokey Mountians. It's our first step in getting connected with the Tennesse Baptist Convention. Good stuff and we're getting to meet lots of other church planters.

Before we left Texas we got a contract on our house!!!! It has a contengency attached but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Also, we got a new vehicle. A 1996 Chevy Tahoe was donated to us. It will be great for hauling stuff for the new church.