I have always been fascinated with NASA and the world of space travel. Several engineers have held a significant place in my life over the years — those who planned payloads, those who were part of the mathematics and conceptual teams responsible for understanding flight in zero-gravity environments, and those who operated in support of missions. But one piece of information always comes to mind at this time of year. Over 80% of the fuel is expended in the first few minutes of flight. Launching requires an immense amount of energy.

That was true for the Space Shuttles; it’s true for the launch of school years; it’s also true of any new initiative for our church. Right now, we are experiencing wonderful challenges. Parking is under pressure because we are seeing more people attend worship and group life. We will launch a third modern worship service on August 17, and it will require an additional hour for worship, tech teams, and pastoral staff. It will be exciting, but it will require energy.

Midlothian is building & developing more and more housing that is aimed at older adults. Our traditional service and Explorers ministry are becoming saturated, and soon, we will need to invest more energy and resources to meet that growing need. (As I said, these are exciting, good challenges!) And as services are added, group life will need to grow to accommodate this opportunity.

Our city’s population is growing, and if you took our prayer drive challenge several months ago, you saw new development where we once saw pastures and farmland. We have seen a few new churches attempting to plant new congregations in response to that, and we must think about how to love more people well. But for every person that drives into our community, we have a challenge to give them an opportunity to know Christ.

Our Launch

Join us as we launch a new schedule and a brand new worship hour.

Join us as we launch a new year of group life — support groups for the hurting, connect groups for building spiritual community, and classes for teaching biblical truth.

Join us as we launch some critical infrastructure projects to provide needed parking and make timely repairs on our campus.

Join us as we launch new relationships and conversations that point people to Jesus.

It will require lots of vision, patience, hospitality, and energy. But all launches do!