The
year was 2005. I
was midway into my second as the College and Singles Minister at a
local
church, and my wife wanted to move to a new house. Our kids were
getting older
and we wanted a bigger yard. We started looking and my wife found what
she
called a “perfect neighborhood”. We started looking around and we ended
up
having a house built while we put our house on the market. For me,
however,
there was something missing. I remember wondering, “Where is the
church?”
That thought would stay with me for the next three years.
Three years later, I knew I was being called away from our church staff
position and being called into something new. I was feeling the call to
pastor,
and I started circulating my resume. All the while, people were
approaching me
about planting a church--especially some of our best friends who
happened to
live in the “perfect neighborhood”. After three months of wrestling, I
knew
it was time to plant a church in the “perfect neighborhood”.
On August 10, 2008, a group of about 50 people met in the back room of
a local
restaurant to form the core group of what has come to be known as The
Church in
the Hills located in Dallas, Georgia.
One thing I stressed to that first group of people is that the
vision of
this church is to minister to a three-mile radius. Within that radius,
there
are two large neighborhoods and several smaller neighborhoods that lie
in
between. Within 5 years, it is estimated that there will be 10,000
homes and at
the moment of our inception, there is not a church within that
three-mile
radius. The demographics point to communities of 35 to 55 year-old
parents with
kids under 15 years of age. What I knew was that God was calling me to
be the
church in this community. What I began to understand is that God was
giving me
a mission field that looked just like me. What I knew was that this
community
needs the profound nature of the Gospel as much as I did.
| Bubba
Rainwater Lead Pastor The Church in the Hills |
