Where it All Began
In the spring of 2006, one of my mom's friends came to our home back in the Chicago land area for a routine visit. Little did we know that that trip would rock our worlds.
As we were driving back from the airport after sending my mom's friend off, my parents posed the idea of starting a church in North Carolina. Now this was exciting and shocking at the same time. A move? Right after I started high school? But that wasn't my major thought then. At the time I was thinking wow! How cool would that be? Starting a church from the beginning--growing it from two families up. Well, it wasn't long thereafter when we took our first survey trip as a family to Cary, North Carolina. I figured that there would be a bunch of southern people like southern types of food with huge pieces of property and small farm houses scattered about. To my astonishment, it wasn't that different the a typical neighborhood in the Chicago Suburbs. Sure there were no skyscrapers or crazy traffic. And there were many more hills and plants and stuff in Cary. Nevertheless, it was much better than expected. My first days on the "survey trip" I was taken to an amazing park with a breath-taking waterfall and tons of snakes laying on rocks around the water. This was true nature!
My impressions of Cary and the surrounding areas were different than expected--but for the good. On our way driving home from our visit in Cary we began to talk serious about moving. At the time I was all for it. Starting fresh in a new school and being able to be a HUGE part in a new church plant. I would be able to be there from the beginning. I said I wanted to move. As soon as we arrived home we began packing. Not even 2 months had passed before we were on the road to Cary again, this time to stay.
Upon arrival I was eager to start. I couldn't wait for this church to get going! It was going to be an amazing experience. As I found out rather quickly, church planting has a couple difficulties--ok A TON. There was so much work to do in so little time. There were tons of planning meetings and tons of research for things to order and then tons of purchasing and sorts of crazy things. Well, despite the insane loads of work all the efforts paid off on September 24, 2006. This was one of six "preview services" we had before we launched full time. We had one in each month leading up to February 18, 2007. That was the time when we had our first kick-off service! Since that day earlier in February 2007, I have been the part of one of the wildest rides I have ever been on. At times I was on as "church high" and couldn't wait to get back. Other times it was a drag just to go to church. Despite the bumps and fairly major obstacles, much has been accomplished!
Stay tuned to see what awesome things God is going to do in my life and in the ministry at Northwest Community Church!
As we were driving back from the airport after sending my mom's friend off, my parents posed the idea of starting a church in North Carolina. Now this was exciting and shocking at the same time. A move? Right after I started high school? But that wasn't my major thought then. At the time I was thinking wow! How cool would that be? Starting a church from the beginning--growing it from two families up. Well, it wasn't long thereafter when we took our first survey trip as a family to Cary, North Carolina. I figured that there would be a bunch of southern people like southern types of food with huge pieces of property and small farm houses scattered about. To my astonishment, it wasn't that different the a typical neighborhood in the Chicago Suburbs. Sure there were no skyscrapers or crazy traffic. And there were many more hills and plants and stuff in Cary. Nevertheless, it was much better than expected. My first days on the "survey trip" I was taken to an amazing park with a breath-taking waterfall and tons of snakes laying on rocks around the water. This was true nature!
My impressions of Cary and the surrounding areas were different than expected--but for the good. On our way driving home from our visit in Cary we began to talk serious about moving. At the time I was all for it. Starting fresh in a new school and being able to be a HUGE part in a new church plant. I would be able to be there from the beginning. I said I wanted to move. As soon as we arrived home we began packing. Not even 2 months had passed before we were on the road to Cary again, this time to stay.
Upon arrival I was eager to start. I couldn't wait for this church to get going! It was going to be an amazing experience. As I found out rather quickly, church planting has a couple difficulties--ok A TON. There was so much work to do in so little time. There were tons of planning meetings and tons of research for things to order and then tons of purchasing and sorts of crazy things. Well, despite the insane loads of work all the efforts paid off on September 24, 2006. This was one of six "preview services" we had before we launched full time. We had one in each month leading up to February 18, 2007. That was the time when we had our first kick-off service! Since that day earlier in February 2007, I have been the part of one of the wildest rides I have ever been on. At times I was on as "church high" and couldn't wait to get back. Other times it was a drag just to go to church. Despite the bumps and fairly major obstacles, much has been accomplished!
Stay tuned to see what awesome things God is going to do in my life and in the ministry at Northwest Community Church!
posted by Ryan Vet at
7:25 PM
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