Spirit of Grace Lutheran Church Started on October 5th

On October 5th five ELCA churches in West Pasco County in Florida dissolved in order to form a new congregation, Spirit of Grace Lutheran Church. The launch was celebrated at a special joint service at the former King of Glory building in Gulf Harbor.   

The Spirit of Grace pastors are Rev. Sally Cook, Rev. David Kruger, and Rev. Jerry Nordsiek. The locations and wroship times are as follows:

North Campus -- 9525 Hudson Avenue in Hudson:  Saturday, 5:00 PM, Sunday 9:15 and 11:15.

South Campus -- 8812 Old County Road 54 in New Port Richey:  Sunday 8:00, 9:15 and 11:15.

The web site is www.spirit-of-grace.org, and the phone number is 727-376-0919.

 This Web Site traces the journey to Spirit of Grace starting in 2007.

More information about church consolidations, mergers, and other partnerships can be found at:
www.churchcollaboration.com

 All Five Churches Pass Resolution For Consolidation

		Votes	Yes	No	Yes %
	All Saints	66	66	0	100.0%
	First	15	15	0	100.0%
	Immanuel	83	62	21	74.7%
	Joyful Spirit	128	124	4	96.9%
	King of Glory	54	51	3	94.4%
	Totals	346	318	28	91.9%

Joint Worship and Information Meeting

The West Pasco Lutheran TEAM         In August, 2007 the six ELCA churches in West Pasco County of Florida formed a team in to explore ways to collaborate for more effective ministry. The idea of a team to explore cooperation came in April, 2007 at a workshop led by Pastor Jerry Wahl, the ELCA Mission Director for the Florida-Bahamas Synod. The TEAM's first meeting was on August 4, 2007. David Raymond of ChurchFuture has been the facilitator and consultant to the TEAM. More information about ChurchFuture and Raymond can be found at www.ChurchFuture.com.  The TEAM's objective is to revitalize Lutheran ministry in West Pasco County to effectively reach and serve people of all ages in the area by sharing the love of Jesus Christ.

Almost 400 people gathered at King of Glory for the second TEAM Joint Worship Service on Sunday, June 8th. Pastor Sally Cook preached on walking on the road with Jesus. Worship was followed by an Information Meeting at which the TEAM's plan was described in detail.  You can see the slides and hear the one-hour presentation by clicking on this link:

June 8, 2008 TEAM Presentation of the Consolidation Plan

This is a large file, so click once and wait for the file to download to your computer. Copies of the presentation will be available on DVD if you have trouble downloading the file.

The meeting started with devotions by Pastor Rita Gardner Tweed of the Florida Bahamas Synod. TEAM Chair Bob Memoli then gave this introduction: 

"In January our church members representing all our congregations summoned us to research and study and present a plan for consolidation and that is what we will do shortly.

 

But before we do that, we need to briefly explain the road we took, so that you feel comfortable that we have done our homework.

 

At our TEAM meetings we have learned that we all have similar goals for the future of our congregations.

 

We have focused in on how we spread the word of our Lord and minister to everyone.

 

Our TEAM which represented all our congregations learned about each other over the last few months and have learned to respect each other and trust each other.

 

We apologize that as individual congregations you will not have this advantage of knowing each other at this time like we do within the TEAM. However, we ask you to trust us and know that everything you hear today is factual as best as we could ascertain…..from the heart and always with our congregations interest at heart.

 

We ask you today to dream of the future for us but more important the future for our descendants and their children…..Our legacy.

 

We want to let you know that GOD was with us in our meetings and that we saw small miracles occur during the past few months.

 

There was a lot of emotion expressed, tears were shed by all of us and a loving kindness and warmth felt by all of us… and not to forget to mention lots goose bumps.

 

We ask you today to consider from your heart how do we minister to the 70% of un-churched people in our communities so that they have the same gift from God that we do.

 

The proposal we will present to you today was approved unanimously by the TEAM. The vote was 18 for none against and no abstaining votes.  We then presented to all our church councils the consolidation resolution.  Each council voted individually as a church council.  When each church council was polled for their vote, There were 30 for the consolidation resolution, no votes against and no abstaining votes.

 

To sum that up there were 48 votes to consolidate with no negative votes and no abstaining votes.  I would say to you today, that that is a powerful statement in itself.  It shows the confidence we had in the process and the results.

 

This vote is consistent with the vote the congregations took in January when the congregations agreed to study consolidation and bring back a resolution.  With the exception of a handful of no votes the vote to consolidate was overwhelming.

 

Please remember we are presenting a plan and did not micro manage every detail.  That is not what this meeting or the next vote is about.  First we must agree with the concept. 

 

Once we do that… all of us will be involved, and when we say all we mean every member in our congregations not just a few people.

 

It is important that you understand that today we will present a plan that will have JUST ONE NEW CHURCH, just one congregation working together with multiple worship sites.  I will repeat that, we are proposing one totally united church with more than one worship site.  We will stand together as one united family.

 

This also means there will be no All Saints , no First, no Immanuel, no Joyful Spirit, no King of Glory.  We will have a fresh and new start, a new name and a new identity worshipping our Lord and spreading his word throughout our communities.

 

We must remember that doing it the same old way will not accomplish anything but the same old results. Churches struggling to survive financially and not ministering to the young, the elder the un-churched and everyone else that needs Gods love.  We must reach out our ministries to others while taking care of each other.

 

It is also important that we understand that we do not know every detail on the overall implementation of the consolidation.  That will be accomplished once we vote as congregations to consolidate by all of us who want to be involved in the process.

 

We ask that you listen to all the information we are going to present and hold your questions until the end.  We will answer any and all questions and not leave here until we do.  We are hoping that many of the questions you will ask will be answered in the presentation itself.

 

We ask that we all pray together when the spirit moves us during this meeting.  That is how the TEAM has received all its strength the past year.  From prayer and each other.

 

O God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire….. Amen.