Sermons
Inside Sojourn
Multi-Site 101, And A Big, Surprising New Opportunity For Sojourn
Sojourn Church is on mission for Christ. Sometimes, the mission moves forward because of months of planning, prayer and hard work. The book of Nehemiah, for instance, is a story about God working through the careful and strategic work of His people.
And sometimes, the mission moves forward because of a sudden, surprising and dramatic work of the Spirit. Pentecost comes to mind.
For several weeks, we’ve been reflecting together on the vision we believe God has for us in the next ten years. In the midst of this season of prayer and reflection, God has surprised us all. The members of Lakeside Baptist Church, a small congregation with a love for Jesus and a desire to reach their city and neighborhood with the gospel, have voted to dissolve their church and merge with Sojourn. This means that their roughly 30 members will begin the process of becoming Sojourners, and their beautiful facility will be donated to Sojourn.
This gift isn’t something we sought out or anticipated. In fact, all of this has happened in a short period of time. So we share this news with you both to celebrate and to invite you to join us in prayer as we discern the best way forward in this new chapter of our mission.
Surely, this news will generate a lot of questions, and with that in mind, we’ve attempted to answer several below. We will also be hosting an informational meeting at the Lakeside Facility this Sunday (May 2nd) at 1:30pm:
11412 Taylorsville Rd.
Louisville, KY 40299.
Join us then, and join us in prayer as we all look forward to seeing what God will do at this new location.
The Elders of Sojourn
What about New Albany…I thought that was the next location?
Daniel states in the video that with multi-site you have two types of sites that emerge: those that you target in the process of implementing your strategy and those that surface due to opportunity that is placed before you. Lakeside Baptist Church is an opportunity that has emerged, unforeseen and unplanned, yet one that could not be avoided and one the elders saw as a gift from the Lord as we move forward into the next 10 years.
New Albany is a targeted location for Sojourn because we have six Community Groups now in Southern Indiana and over 100 Sojourners live across the river. Our goal is 15 Community Groups within the next year in Southern Indiana.
With this growing presence and many leaders that have moved or emerged from Southern Indiana, this step seems simple enough and the next logical location for a strategic campus of Sojourn. New Albany is a vibrant community desperately in need of the gospel. It is also a context very similar to the Highlands and Germantown – two communities in Louisville from which Sojourn emerged and planted roots in, and have been critical to the development of our identity as a church.
What does this mean for the East Campus? Will we move the East Campus to J-town?
The East Campus will continue to gather at the Westport Road location and it is not our intention to move that campus to this new facility. First, the property at Lakeside only can seat 250 people. The average attendance at the East Campus each week is well over that maximum seating capacity. Moving everyone would immediately force two or three services, and an even greater strain on our staff and volunteers.
Second, the East Campus and this new J-town Campus are situated in two different communities with altogether different needs, wants, fears and expectations. Both campuses give us opportunities to reach people that would otherwise never step foot into Sojourn Community Church. They each give Sojourn an opportunity to truly be a community church to which you can invite your neighbors. We intend to move forward with renovations of the East Campus, in partnership with the archdiocese and Portland Christian School, in order to seat 700/service and to also better equip the classrooms for our children.
We ask for your prayers with this…it is our intention to hire a pastor/leader within the next 90 days to come alongside Jamie Barnes to lead this campus forward.
Are we taking on more than we can handle?
This new J-town Campus certainly forces us to consider our preaching, our worship, our staffing and our budget. We are having to prayerfully look at every aspect of our church as we seek to develop this campus over the summer and then debut it officially sometime in the fall. This is certainly not something that will have immediate answers or solutions, but the development of this campus will be a process that will take several months to determine.
This was an opportunity and a gift presented to Sojourn that we just could not pass up, and now we are in a season of determining how best to move forward. We ask that you pray with us as we seek to determine a budget, a leadership team, and everything else a new campus requires.
About The Sojourn Pastors
Woohoo!
Praise the Lord. This is 2-3 miles from our home. What a great gift from the Lord!
Question 3 is the 1 that looms large to me, but if God intends it, God will provide. I hope our God is not too small.
This is really exciting and wonderful. Praise God for the members of Lakeside Baptist Church who saw fit to entrust us with such an amazing gift, and to seek to continue the work of God. It will be a blessing to get to serve alongside them.
Praise God! What a great opportunity to be a light for Christ in another area of our city! Thankful for the people of Lakeside and their desire to grow with us.
I am sooo exciiiiteeeed about this!!! My family lives in that end of town!! Thank you thank you thank you Jesus!!
First, WOW! AWESOME!!! Second, without the actual relatively new facility on the property, the land itself would be worth 1 million dollars plus. There are so many expensive neighborhood developments in close proximity to this church, that the land would be attractive to developers. Thirdly, I hope we never sell it. God has entrusted us with a great location with all kinds of room for future growth opportunities and possibilities. The up and out need Jesus just as badly as the down and out. I pray that Sojourn finds fruit in the local neighborhoods contiguous to the new location.
re: “What about New Albany?”
Reminds me of Romans 1:13. Being prevented from pursuing one’s plans can be really hard to accept, but sometimes it is just necessary.
What a wonderful gift and opportunity our church has been given! Lakeside is a precious congregation! Praise God for our Elders and the members of Lakeside for all their hard work. Hope lots of Sojourners will go to the Open House this Sunday and see this wonderful gift! And meet the Lakeside folks!!!
This is God!! He is so so good! To me this is a confirmation of God’s blessing on our leadership, church and mission. Is it possible to get some pictures posted on the site for all to see? I want to encourage fellow sojourners to pray for our leadership and their families. To God be the Glory!!!
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I’m concerned about stretching our preaching resources too far. You say you plan to hire another pastor to be responsible for leadership in the J-Town location. What about live video screening of our sermons at the new locations? I believe Southeast Christian Church does that with their new Indiana Campus. I just don’t want our preaching pastors to get burned out.
Amazing!!
I pray for wisdom,guidance and thta we would be faithful in all that is before us as we move forward! Amazing!
Good question Donna, and one that the pastors are continually praying about and talking about. Included in these prayers and discussions are thoughts on video, hiring, making use of the great preachers we already have, and of those coming up in our own “pipeline.” This is one reason Sojourn invests so heavily in training men (for instance, our Pastors’ School, where scores of men meet every Thursday morning).
For a specific elder-response to the question of video, see Question 19 of the General FAQ page at vision.sojournchurch.com. Here is the link:
http://vision.sojournchurch.com/general-faq/
I happen to believe that Sojourn is blessed with very Spirit-filled, preaching and teaching Pastors already. I love the Executive elder team and their abilities, but as we saw in the past year, while various elders stepped into the pulpit, that God has some very gifted and excellent expositors of the Gospel in the pipeline NOW! I would list the preachers that I am talking about, but to make sure I do not leave one off, I won’t. Obviously, we must choose between multiple preachers preaching the same sermon passage at the different locations, or go with video. I hope that the elders choose live preaching. We can always archive the sermons on the web, and if you want the perspective of another preacher that preached that day, access it on-line!
The multi-sites seem to keep the individual gatherings a little more intimate. I do pray for the leadership as we move into more areas. I would like to say I believe a live pastor, preaching and teaching, is the most excellent way. I know God is bringing numbers, but bigger doesn’t mean better in a lot of ways. Personally, I’d like to be able to say who I would call in a crisis, my pastor. At the East campus right now, I would call Jamie Barnes. But, I’m not sure if others think of him as a pastor, since he is not preaching,(YET)! I hope he will soon. I know we are in growing pains and I too, pray, our leaders don’t get burned out. So, we as the “sheep” in this local flock really need to step up and answer the call, when the leaders ask for help! God is in control. And it is Amazing, the direct answer to prayer about where to put the next site! Praise be to God!
Is Lakeside Baptist Pastor Brockway’s church? If so, I know the Brockways from years ago.
Praise God for His goodness to us! Anyone want to ride a riding lawn mower twice a month????
Praise God! What a cool opportunity for us to be a light in this area.
The members of Lakeside and the employee of Lakeside Child Development Center are very excited about the merger of Lakeside and Sojourn! Can wait to learn more! Oh, to the person that asked about Brockway–he left long time ago!
I hope we can sustain live preaching. The video format works for some but it is not desirable. Coming from a former Sotheast member, video preaching is not the best way. Whatever the decision, I trust our Elders and their leadership.