Surveying Corpus Christi / Sat. December 3, 2011

We left cold and rainy Fort Worth on Friday morning and pulled in to the Corpus area by 2 pm. The coast is beautiful and the weather was warm and balmy. Today, as you can tell by the picture, it is very windy and the forecast promises rain.

Last night, I went to a preaching service at the Heritage Baptist Church in Corpus where Pastor Atwood was dedicating their new building. It was a good service with Dr. Jack Trieber, pastor of the North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, CA, doing the preaching. Heritage Baptist is located in central Corpus. I was able to introduce myself to the pastor and let him know that we were there to start a new church in the city.  I couldn’t really get a read on his opinion, although I do believe he is sincere in his desire to reach people with the gospel and hope that he knows we are on the same team. He has been there five years and has a relatively small congregation of about 50.

We got up this morning and hit the ground running. Pastor John Hinton of the Faith Baptist Church in Aransas Pass drove me from one end of Corpus to the other as I prayed and tried to seek the mind of God regarding a new church plant.  I purchased a map of Corpus and first located all the independent Baptist churches that I knew of to be in the area. Then I surveyed the areas outside of their general vicinity and, at this point, have found two areas of the city that could potentially be promising locations for a new church plant.

Nothing is in concrete yet as we still want to survey the city of Victoria on our way back to Fort Worth. Victoria, which is located about 100 miles north of Corpus Christi, is a city with a population of approximately 75,000, and to my knowledge has only one conservative independent Baptist church.

Why Should You Follow This Blog?

Hey Y’all!

You should follow this blog because I’m funny and interesting and you love me. No, really, I think every church planter should chronicle his church plant so others can learn from it. We could learn what to do and what not to do. We could see what worked for him and what didn’t work for him. Of course, the church planter would have to be honest about everything and not record numbers or results “evangelistically”.

What will you find in this blog along the way? It is my goal to chronicle the church plant in Corpus Christi. In this introduction page I will explain how I came to choose Corpus and give you a bird’s eye view of my game plan, projected time frame and some short term goals. This is not intended to be a personal diary or journal but I do see myself sharing prayer requests and answered prayers as well. I want to chronicle the most interesting parts of our deputation trail and humble beginnings and not bore you to tears with non-essentials.

Why did we choose Corpus Christ as a place to plant a church? Well, one reason we chose CC is because we didn’t necessarily have a geographic region etched in stone upon our hearts and since we both love Texas and my wife loves the water, I began to research the coastal cities of  Texas. In researching this I discovered (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) that with a population of nearly 300,000 souls, there are only 4 conservative independent Baptist churches in Corpus. I know some people will argue and say there are plenty of churches but the fact remains, things that are different are not the same. The churches I start and pastor are very conservative in nature. And contrary to what some believe, conservative doesn’t mean old-fashioned and antiquated. I am personally familiar with a score of churches that are “successful” and yet very conservative.