Dear Members & Attenders, 

I want to ask you to please pray for us as our leaders assess a significant decision!  I have asked our officers to assess if we are ready to partner with a campus ministry started within our denomination called Campus Outreach (C.O.).  Specifically, a seminary-trained ministry leader – David Springer – would consider moving here to lead a number of ministry staff, seeking to launch ministries on a number of area campuses, starting in the fall of 2018.

Campus Outreach partners with local churches in college towns all over our country as a ministry to students within that church, and as a mission from that church to their area campuses.  In our county we have four colleges within reach – Florida Southern, Southeastern, Florida Polytechnic, and Polk State – and many more within our region.

What we have to assess is whether or not we can be helpful by the Fall of 2018, when C.O. staff would like to begin ministry if they were to move to Lakeland.  So we have leaders who will travel to Charlotte in the next few weeks to interview their church partners.  And David Springer and other C.O. staff will be here at Trinity on Sunday, July 9 to have a Q & A after worship. Please come attend this if you have any interest.

PLEASE BE CLEAR: we have made NO decision to do this!  We are conducting due diligence to see if we could, or if we should.  Their staff members would be raising money in the cities and states where they come from – so that seems very economical.  But they would want some support from us as a ministry base, and eventually it would mean more work for our administrative staff as we partner with them.  And that means work and money invested by our church.  We need to discern if we are capable.

The need is undeniable.  You likely have heard me comment that 80% of our county is unchurched, and that is an average. But within college age people that number is actually over 90%. I recently saw a two minute video interviewing college students about what it means to be a Christian, and their highly varied answers were horribly vague, or just wrong.  It was sad!  (You can watch it here.)

The fruit from Campus Outreach is just as clear.  The table below lists the fruit from the Charlotte Team in the last twenty years (and it’s impressive).  Imagine if that kind of fruitfulness was being worked out in our city and county over the next twenty years!  And three leaders in our daughter churches were students influenced by Campus Outreach – coming to Christ and growing in ministry training through their leadership (Lyle Caswell, Dax Gibson, & Jeff Skipper).

 

Dear Members & Attenders, 

I want to ask you to please pray for us as our leaders assess a significant decision!  I have asked our officers to assess if we are ready to partner with a campus ministry started within our denomination called Campus Outreach (C.O.).  Specifically, a seminary-trained ministry leader – David Springer – would consider moving here to lead a number of ministry staff, seeking to launch ministries on a number of area campuses, starting in the fall of 2018.

Campus Outreach partners with local churches in college towns all over our country as a ministry to students within that church, and as a mission from that church to their area campuses.  In our county we have four colleges within reach – Florida Southern, Southeastern, Florida Polytechnic, and Polk State – and many more within our region.

What we have to assess is whether or not we can be helpful by the Fall of 2018, when C.O. staff would like to begin ministry if they were to move to Lakeland.  So we have leaders who will travel to Charlotte in the next few weeks to interview their church partners.  And David Springer and other C.O. staff will be here at Trinity on Sunday, July 9 to have a Q & A after worship. Please come attend this if you have any interest.

PLEASE BE CLEAR: we have made NO decision to do this!  We are conducting due diligence to see if we could, or if we should.  Their staff members would be raising money in the cities and states where they come from – so that seems very economical.  But they would want some support from us as a ministry base, and eventually it would mean more work for our administrative staff as we partner with them.  And that means work and money invested by our church.  We need to discern if we are capable.

The need is undeniable.  You likely have heard me comment that 80% of our county is unchurched, and that is an average. But within college age people that number is actually over 90%. I recently saw a two minute video interviewing college students about what it means to be a Christian, and their highly varied answers were horribly vague, or just wrong.  It was sad!  (You can watch it here.)

The fruit from Campus Outreach is just as clear.  The table below lists the fruit from the Charlotte Team in the last twenty years (and it’s impressive).  Imagine if that kind of fruitfulness was being worked out in our city and county over the next twenty years!  And three leaders in our daughter churches were students influenced by Campus Outreach – coming to Christ and growing in ministry training through their leadership (Lyle Caswell, Dax Gibson, & Jeff Skipper).

 

Things to pray for:

–  Discernment.  We need discernment over what we can and cannot take on.  Please pray that God would give us that discernment, self-awareness, and humility.

–  Patience in the process.  This will take time – which is good since Campus Outreach staff members would like to know something of our intent by the Fall.  Please pray that the Spirit would give us the fruit of patience.

–  Courage.  It will take courage to say yes to this, and it will take courage to say no.  So either way, we need courage – so please pray that the Father would fill us with His perfect love to drive out fear.

–  Faith for whenever Trinity is ready to pursue this mission field.  Lakeland currently has almost 20,000 resident college students (even if they commute to USF or UCF or other regional schools).  Please pray that the Lord of the Harvest would raise up workers to address this growing mission field that is right in our own city!

 

Tim Rice, Lead Pastor & Director of Church Planting
Trinity Presbyterian Church
301 N. Florida Avenue
Lakeland, FL 33801
863-603-7777
www.trinitylakeland.org