How We Started
The Move to Springfield, Missouri
Second Baptist Church called some time later, and we began to discuss a ministry in Springfield, Missouri. As we prayed, we held a confident peace that God was calling us. We had to come. God answered so many specific details and desires in our prayers when he led us to Second Baptist and to Springfield—a kind of place to raise a family, a kind of church to serve in, a kind of people to serve alongside, and a kind of people to serve in our new church. Our only assumption was that we had misunderstood God in regard to church planting.
Around spring 2001, we began to discuss church planting as a staff. This was not the first time we had discussed it, but this time we thought God might be leading some of our staff members to lead this new church. That church plant was not in God’s timing, but he never let me release my call from that time.
The Journey of Brokenness
In March 2003, God began to stir my heart in prayer toward planting a church. As I stood at the church altar during an invitation, we sang, “Here I am Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, where you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.” Deep in my heart I remember knowing at that point what was about to happen. I knew God was calling, and as I read my journal entry from that day, it is so clear to me. I see the move of God in my heart and realize he was working while not allowing resolution. God knew that resolution could not come too quickly for me. Every part of my life had to be broken. No comforts, no conveniences, only desperation for God. Desperation consumed me.
By June I was seeing it on road signs, billboards, restaurants, and businesses everywhere! As I drove home from work one day, my mother called me and the first thing she said was, “When are you going to plant a church?” The very next week my mother-in-law called and asked the same question.