Since January 2010 we have been preparing and praying for the place God would have us. All that we knew to do was to put our house on the market, and begin making contacts. We were blessed to see our house go under contract in April and close in June.

I made dozens of phone calls, and sent out resumes to out at least 35 different churches and Baptist associations. God then connected us to a guy in the Southwest Orlando area who planted a church a year ago Easter, and was looking for someone to come in and co-pastor with him.

His name is Jesse Carbo, and he is the Lead Pastor of The Roots Community Church. The church is running between 40-50 in attendance, and is in an area which is severely lacking in the number of evangelical churches, and has a great need for deeper community through Jesus Christ. Also, this area has a large mission opportunity of families living week to week in hotels with kids who need educational tutoring, and the gospel.

Church plants have struggled financially in this area since the economic bust in 2008, and because of this, most plants cannot afford to pay anyone full-time, let alone having multiple staff. With this in mind, I am searching for a full-time job with benefits that can provide for us financially, and for me to have enough time to do pastoral ministry within the church.

Being a bi-vocational pastor was not what I had in mind after graduating from seminary, but I see many great values in this being the future of my ministry. First is that my ministry extends beyond the walls of the church and into the workplace where many people need to hear the gospel.
Second, it is a benefit to the church plant, in that they do not have to support us financially, and in turn we can help financially support the church. Finally, I can gain a greater perspective on working full-time and then volunteering with the church, and help others with the family-work-church balance.

When are we going to move?

The short answer: we don’t know. Long answer: We are in a perfect storm of not being able to pre-qualify for a mortgage until I have a job.  So I am working on finding a job and a salary in order to pre-qualify us so we can make an offer on a house down there.

What will I be doing at the church?

I will be partnering with Jesse, working as an Executive/Teaching Pastor. My job description has not been written out yet, but I will be doing some teaching on Sunday mornings, counseling and discipling people, creating and managing systems of moving people from new believers to mature disciples, and whatever else needs to be done.

What will I be doing bi-vocationally?

I’m hoping that I can find a job as a computer technician in a school district.  I feel like it would be a great job to have, with set hours and good insurance. Please pray for us as we are searching for the right fit. It would be great if Tracy did not have to work, however she can be free to choose what she would like to do.

Why a church plant?
Tracy and I were praying if God would have us plant a church somewhere, specifically in the coastal region of South Carolina or Central Florida. I have always seen myself as someone who can come into a situation and make it better, versus being a guy who can start up a core group from scratch. We believe God connected us with a person who is extremely visionary (which I lack) and a church that has a solid core to grow from. In many ways, it is exactly what we’ve been praying for, without knowing that we could find the right fit. We were praying for:

• A Southern Baptist church – I believe there is a great benefit to being a part of a denomination, and there are many changes ahead for the Southern Baptist convention with a younger generation soon coming into leadership.
• A church that is connected culturally to its local area – The Roots Community is young enough to adapt to the culture, without having a long history of traditions which push non-believers away from the church.
• A kingdom-minded group of people – As Christians, we are part of a larger church, and therefore we connect people to the gospel not to grow our specific church, but to add believers to the body of Christ, some through our local church, but some to other churches
• A place where we could be for a long time – We don’t have God’s plan for our future, but we would like to find an area to settle in and grow old in. It could be God has us there for a short time, or a long time, but either way, we’ll be grateful.

Could we have stayed in Birmingham and worked for free and had most of the benefits of those bullet points?  Yes. But we have not heard a yes from God about staying, so we have been looking for his will outside of the area.