Small Beginnings

There weren't many adults and there were even fewer children on the first Sunday evening, September 11, 2005. We gathered together to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. The lesson was presented by Trent Wheeler, "Where there is no Vision..." (Proverbs 29:18).

The congregation started meeting on Sunday evenings at 5:00 PM for two reasons. First, we wanted to see if the core group was going to be able to sustain a new work; and second, by meeting at 5:00 pm, visitors might still be able to support the work at Spring Meadows and make it back for their own services.

Two really important things happened. I wish we could say that it was all part of the grand design, but it was more the power of God working through us than it was our brilliant forsight. First, was the 5:00 pm time slot. It turned out to be a real blessing. Our members liked getting out at 6:00 pm and getting the kids home early on Sunday night (at least initially).

The other thing we did was eat! We ordered some pizza's and sat down in the grass outside our little building and enjoyed the blessings of Christian fellowship. Lots of congregations have moved to a small group pattern for Sunday evening worship. Since we were already a small group, we just stayed and hung out together. It is a "tradition" we still enjoy and as long as it serves the needs of the congregation we plan to continue.

It was a humble beginning, but one where we have been richly blessed. God has begun a good work in us and I pray that we will continue it until the day of Christ.

Doing things the right way

I will be the first to admit that we have made some mistakes along the way. Bringing people together with a common purpose and trying to make a presence in a new community are all challenges that require prayer and planning. I am sure there are many things we could have done better, but hindsight is always 20-20.

You will hear a lot about the values and beliefs of the members at the Spring Meadows Church of Christ. Our core beliefs have driven us to be pro-active in our work and relationships. One of our goals was to maintain unity and harmony with our sister congregations. It has never been our desire to steal sheep and we believe that the best way to evangelize the community is for God's people to be joined together in the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

We realized that moving into a community where the churches of Christ were already working could send the wrong message if we were not careful. Before the first worship service was ever conducted we called and scheduled meetings with every congregation that might feel the impact of our presence, or who might have questions about our goals for the community. In each and every visit we shared the following objectives with our brethren:

1. Our ultimate goal is to build a congregation in the fastest growing section of Spring Hill, TN and minister to the young families moving into the community.
2. We want to build a working relationship with our sister congregations in the area.
3. It is not our desire to negatively impact any congregation of the churches of Christ meeting in the area.
4. We want to work with our sister congregations with the goal of evangelizing the community and building stronger ties and unity in our work together.

The congregation nearest to us geographically proved to be one of our strongest supporters. The Spring Hill Church of Christ has allowed their preacher to come speak for us, visited and attended our services and meetings and allowed us to use their facilities for baptisms. They have been a rich blessing to our efforts and we all are so very grateful to them.

Recently, Spring Meadows had an old fashion singing that was supported by a number of our sister congregations. The decision to do things the right way at the start - to be pro-active in talking with our brethren continues to be a rich blessing. We are now working together, supporting one another and striving to show the Spring Hill community the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17.

By the way, the picture in this particular blog was taken at the "Chili Bowl," one of the many joint activities between the Spring Hill Church of Christ and the Spring Meadows Church of Christ.

A Culture of Caring

There is a real comfort and stability that comes from being like-minded. As more specific plans began to formulate for the church we talked about the usual things. Where would we meet? What would the format of worship look like? What will we do about space for Bible classes?

Those were all important logistical questions, but there was a much deeper conversation that took place. There seemed to be a universal interest in building the right kind of culture within the congregation. In the last two years we have searched for words that better describe what we mean, but I keep coming back to the idea of "a culture of caring." We all knew, almost instinctively that to reach the young families in the Spring Hill community it was vital that the congregation be a place of love and acceptance. A place where people could bear their souls and come for healing. That focus led us to embracing the "one another" passages of the New Testament as a foundation for building relationships within the congregation.

All of us who attended those initial meetings had a great respect and love for the word of God. As we began to review (much later) what had taken place at Spring Meadows, we realized that another of our foundational beliefs was a reverence, respect and adherence to God's Holy Word. I emphasize that only because there are some who feel that a compassionate, loving congregation must be making compromises somewhere. We simply don't buy into that philosophy. Quite the contrary! We believe that a deep and abiding respect for God's word demands a spirit of love, forbearance, forgiveness and restoration.

As a result of those important decisions, The Spring Meadows Church of Christ has been blessed to see a steady flow of restorations, recommitments, baptisms and participation. I need to say this in closing. All of these changed lives are not observed by members coming and sitting on the front row during the invitation. Many families have met privately with a staff member, the eldership, or another member of this congregation to let it be known they are ready to serve God and get to work.

A dear friend of mine uses a very simple, but powerful illustration on the importance of a good beginning. He relates it to buttoning your shirt. If you get the first button right, the rest will follow much more easily. Some of those early decisions to focus on being the people of God have created an environment where we can work on the other items in a spirit of unity and shared purpose.

My First Recollections

It was 12 years ago in April that I remember sitting around a table at Legends Grille being interviewed for an associate minister's position in Franklin, TN. David Langhans, Glenn McGehee and Mike Cornwell were all on the search committee and assigned the job of grilling me that day. :-)

As we discussed the available position, the needs of the young people and my background; I remember one of the men sharing their vision of starting a new congregation "down the road" one day. It registered in my head because I have always believed that it is the responsibility of the church to reproduce itself. That forward thinking caught my attention as much as anything else in our conversation that day.

I was blessed to get the position and over the years there were periodic discussions of a need for a congregation in Spring Hill, TN. I guess it was around 2003 - 2004 that those conversations started to take root. A few families began to meet to discuss the possibilities of starting a new work and in the fall of 2004 I started to participate in some of those discussions and help with some of the initial planning. There were a number of different families who participated in those conversations at different times and if I tried to name them all, I certainly would miss someone who made a significant contribution to the discussion.

By the Spring of 2005 a small group of Christians was mobilized to begin working on a plan, locating space and developing a philosophy of work for the new congregation (still nameless). The steps that would follow in the next 6 months were both exciting and taxing as this dream that started a decade earlier (longer than that really), was beginning to take shape.

Spring Meadows History

Welcome to the new blog for the Spring Meadows Church of Christ. The first year I did a pretty good job keeping up with the history of the Spring Meadows congregation, but not quite as well the second (I am counting on Dale to help me fill in the blanks). I thought that creating this blog would be a great way to save our history online and provide a place for people to go back through the archives and see how we have grown and the great things God has done at Spring Meadows.

I also plan to copy and past the postings (and pictures) into a word or publisher file so we can keep the history stored in another location. We might make it available digitally to new members, or if we are still producing books a decade from now, we might even consider putting some of this in print.

I hope you enjoy - I would love to get your input as we start on this journey.