off to a good start

A number of Lakesiders came together on January 16th for our first Multi-Campus Vision gathering. Pastor Brad and I shared about the convergence that it appears our creative God is orchestrating in this vision for Lakeside to go multi-campus. Lakeside has been gearing up the past few years to start a new church, but their search for the right leadership had been unsuccessful. At the same time, we were seriously considering leaving New Zealand to be nearer to family in the States. I wrote the pastoral staff and informed them, that due to needs in our extended family, would be returning to Northern California, without a clue as to what's next for us. We began discussing the possibility of working together. But in what capacity? As we talked, we learned that we were both looking into the slightly non-traditional approach of remaining one church but meeting in multiple locations in order to strategically impact our region for the kingdom. The more we read about it, asked around, discussed it, the more excited we became.

During our conversation on the 16th with those attendance, it became obvious that many Lakesiders from places like Orangevale and Cameron Park have a strong sense of identification with their areas and would love to see Lakeside establish a stronger presence in their communities. We even discussed T-shirts, yes T-shirts, reading "Lakeside-Cameron Park" or "Lakeside-Orangevale." We even joked about "Lakeside-Rescue" with the one representative from Rescue. We had a great time! See what you missed! I tell you, it's exciting to see people eager to join together in order to see Lakeside doing good works in their neighborhoods and reaching out to their friends and co-workers with the good news of Jesus.

We have two more Vision Gatherings coming up, January 30th and 31st, 7:00-8:30 pm at the church. Hope to see you there.