We're growing even more than we planned!

So, for a number of years, our church has had a vision of planting a new church further out east on Long Island but it just never was the right time. Last year in August, my husband felt called to take on the new church plant and we've been moving forward with a start date of September 12 to have our first services. We'll be about 30 minutes away from our home church and have a good team of about 25 who will be going with us to get the church off the ground. It's exciting to see what God is doing there and I know His hand is in this endeavor.

Shortly after signing the contract with the hotel where the new church will be meeting, we got a call from a small Baptist church in a town on the north shore of Long Island - about 30 minutes away from the home church and 25 minutes or so north of the new church. They were a dying church with only 5 attendees on a Sunday and they wanted to approach us with an offer of giving us their church in it's entirety. The lawyers have met, the deal is done, they had their last church service and the church is now ours. It's an adorable little New England style church and our prayer is that we can also open that church in the fall. I'm still not sure who will be the lead pastor there but I'm guessing we'll find out this Sunday (and I have a sneaking suspicion I know who it is and he'll be awesome out there).

So God is amazing. We're being faithful in following His call and He's given us a bounty! It's not going to be easy work but I do believe that we're equipped to be able to bring two new churches to an Island that sorely needs the Gospel. We've met with the area churches and we have their blessing on the future.

I'd like to share with you the new church building. Our plan is to make the Sunday School building (the brick addition on the left) facade match the style of the church. Our missions pastor is formerly a construction guy and he's excited about this new project. I know the church facility is in the most expert of hands.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e110/annsni/Port Jeff/IMG_1644.jpg
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One more pic to update the front of the church today:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e110/annsni/PortJeffchurch004.jpg

 

Yep - We were just saying that we finally have a pretty church for weddings! LOL Of course our sanctuary is a more all purpose auditorium that is hard to make "pretty" for weddings so this will be great!

 

Isn't that sign great??