Renew Polk - Spring Update
Renew Polk is a missional partnership of churches that exist together as a catalyst for church planting in Polk County. Our goal is to plant 20 new churches in the next 20 years. I hope you are encouraged to read what God is doing in and through our church plants. I also hope this newsletter sparks an interest in you to give involved. So, let me give you three practical ways you could do that.
First, consider giving towards our financial needs. Our goal for 2018 is to raise $120K from individual donors. We are currently funding three church plants and are planning for three more. This would allow us to fund all of these projects. Please pray about making Renew Polk a part of your regular charitable giving.
Second, spread the word. Encourage people to sign up to receive this quarterly newsletter. Currently, only 180 people do so. That is less than 10% of the attendance of all of our churches. We would like to reach 1000 subscriptions by the end of the year. Also, follow us on Facebook and encourage others to do the same.
Third, participate. Attend the meetings we hold twice a year – in January and again in August/September. Like and share posts from the churches and planters in our network to help us reach as many people as possible. Comment with encouraging words. This is a huge help in gaining exposure for the work of Renew Polk, but, far more importantly, it creates a word-of-mouth marketing campaign for our church plants.
The Father is doing a beautiful work among us. Read and give him glory!
Drew Bennett, Executive Director
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Redeemer Southwest Church
Southwest Winter Haven - Launched January 2016
Jeff & Marissa Skipper (Jonathan, Isaac & Brooks)
Easter Attendance - 141
As Redeemer Southwest Church moves past our two year anniversary, we’re rejoicing in all that God continues to do. We recently completed another class of membership courses, and have seen more folks come to faith. One special story was baptizing a man and his son who have been visiting since we launched! As we’re continuing to see new faces, we’re outgrowing our current space at the Howard Johnson. On Easter, we had a record high attendance of over 140 people! In an answer to prayer, the Lord has opened a door for us to pursue purchasing a church building and property in the heart of our target area. Our prayer is that this would give us a greater presence and impact for the sake of the gospel and God’s Kingdom in Southwest Winter Haven. Please pray for our courage, and for God to provide as we step out in faith for His glory.
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Greater Hope Church
Mulberry - Launched December 2017
Stan & Stacy McMahan (Asher, Kathryne, Madeline & Alexander)
Easter Attendance - 120
God continues His work in Mulberry! Since our public launch on December 3, 2017, we’ve seen more and more visitors and regular attenders at our worship services. We had our first new members’ class in February and will have our second on April 22. We currently have 16 adults ready to become new members (along with 10 children)! We’re praying that more of our visitors and regular attenders will follow in publicly professing their faith in Jesus and committing to our church community! Our Easter services were a big encouragement. We participated in a city-wide sunrise service at the Mulberry High School football field. Stan had the opportunity to preach at the service. We saw higher than average attendance at our worship service on Easter as well. Community Groups are launching this month. We have six leaders leading three groups, with the goal of multiplying those to six groups by the end of the year. We’re thankful for our new office space (on SR 60 in Mulberry) and are looking forward to identifying and hiring an administrative assistant soon.
Our biggest prayer request continues to be faithfulness and fruitfulness as we continue our mission. We want to be faithful—to live our lives, love our neighbors, and follow Jesus because He loves us first. Please pray that we focus on Jesus and the joy of following Him rather than getting (or not getting) credit, glory, or success for ourselves. We want to be fruitful—to see our neighbors embrace Jesus and new find life in Him. We planted Greater Hope for this very reason. Please join us in prayer for more opportunities to tell the good news of Jesus, for more conversions, and for more people who will find a place to belong in His family at Greater Hope Church.
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Good Shepherd Church
Southeast Lakeland - Launched January 2018
Jeremy & Sara Kemp (Corban, Gray & McKendall)
Easter Attendance - 95
Good Shepherd Church just celebrated our first Easter together! It has been a sweet season of ministry our first few months together since launching in January. We have seen many visitors come through the doors and worship with us and have begun the process of moving newcomers towards membership. We hosted our first Glimpse of Good Shepherd and had 9 people attend to learn a little more about who we are. Then, just last week, we did a Membership Weekend to continue that process. Watching our church family grow in both strength and number is so exciting, God has been very kind. Please join us in praying that our friendship internally and our reach externally would flourish during 2018.
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Grace Community Church
North Lakeland - Launching Fall 2018
Josh & Liz Floyd (Maddie, Sarah Beth, James & David )
Launch Team Size - 34 (including children)
We are continuing to see the Lord move through our young and small congregation here at Grace Community Church (GCC) on the northside of Lakeland. We are having people come to faith, neighbors and friends from the community have begun attending our community groups and monthly parties, and new people are joining our launch team and excited about being a blessing to our city for Christ! And all this is taking place before we have even launched public worship on Sunday mornings!
As we look to launch in the fall of 2018, please continue to pray Luke 10:2 for us – that the Lord would send laborers for the harvest, please pray that people from the community would desire to get caught up in the orbit of what the Lord is doing in the city through GCC. Please pray that the Lord would continue to bring lost people to himself through the preaching and sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ!
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