May Highlights!

We moved to Long Island last month without a single thing on our calendar besides LAUNCH LOCAL CHURCH written in bold on September 19th. Honestly, it was scary and intimidating to think about arriving here without any clue where to start. Read on to hear about how our first month on Long Island went!

Settling in.

If you were unsure just how committed we are to starting this church, we are now full-time residents of my parent’s basement! Most people react to this with wide eyes and a look of discomfort. But truthfully, it’s exactly where we need to be right now! We are so blessed to have our own space, a big yard, and “dog-walkers” for Amigo 😜. Plus, after years away, it is really nice to have lots of time with my (Emily’s) parents! While a house of our own would be nice in so many ways, it is also nice to have one less thing to manage while we are focusing on building Local Church.

We moved to Kansas City with another couple, Nick and Sarah, who are also settled in and enjoying their first month being Long Islanders! They have a great apartment, Nick is doing well working from home (and even joined a softball team!), and Sarah is happy at her new job doing job placements for special needs individuals. The four of us spend time together each week and are excited to see what God is doing!

Networking = New Friends!

Revive LI is a network of like-minded ministry leaders committed to the development and support of churches on Long Island. We loved being part of their April gathering!

We started to network and set up meetings with pastors as soon as we got here. We met many of them for the first time virtually last fall. It has been life-giving, helpful, and encouraging to finally meet in person. We were even fortunate enough to attend two conferences for Long Island pastors. It’s incredible and humbling to see how many churches here are willing to support new churches! In fact, we are now supported financially by 4 other Long Island churches! This is an answer to prayer and we can’t wait to see how God will use these partnerships to change the spiritual landscape of Long Island.

Funding through one-time gifts and monthly support is a huge deal for new churches.

Here are two reasons why:

• New churches that fail typically do so because they run out of money within the first 3 years.

• People who are new to a church do not typically give a significant amount until approximately 18 months in.

We are working to fundraise another $92,000 before we launch in September. If you are interested in learning more about why you should invest in a new church, reply to this email and we will set up a time to meet!

Meet our new friends, the Indovinos. Keith and Amy are pastors of Blaze Church in Riverhead. And this beautiful marina is literally in their church’s front lawn! 😍

Local Church is online!

A website or social media page is often the very first impression someone will get of a church. 📲We have been working hard to develop a website, Instagram, and Facebook page that effectively welcome people to Local Church. On our website, you will find information about who we are, how to join our team, and what we believe. When you finish reading this newsletter, head over to www.localchurchli.com to check it out. And make sure you are following us on social media to stay up to date on all things Local Church!

What now?

The easiest parts of the journey are behind us! 😅Now we have the challenge of finding the right building and putting together a team of people to bring Local Church to life!

We are hoping to have a few building options by the end of the month. Our dream scenario is to find a church building that is sitting empty or one that we can share with another smaller congregation. ⛪️ Our second-best option would be a community center or other venue with a large open space, a place for our Kids, and plenty of parking.

Building a team happens through various grassroots efforts. We are having parties, lots of meetings, word-of-mouth suggestions, and guest speaking at other churches. The “team” we are looking to build consists of everything from a Kids Director, to a band, to people who will simply attend each week. We have been meeting with about 5 new people each week to share the vision God has given us for Local Church. We are praying that this number increases as we have the opportunity to guest speak at other churches and as people like YOU suggest friends for us to meet with! So, if you know of anyone on Long Island who may be interested in Local Church, let us know. 😊

Here are some of the words we use to describe this stage of church planting: exciting, intimidating, faith-building, humbling, impossible. We know God is building this church and are thankful for all the ways He demonstrates this to us. So even in the midst of these two big uncertainties ahead of us, we continue to work as hard as we can and trust God with the results!

We had the privilege of enjoying a weekend in KC for a Church Planter retreat! It was great to rest and hang with other church planters who were sent out by Grace Church.

Here’s how you can pray 🙏

If everyone receiving this newsletter took 5 minutes to pray for the following 5 things, that would be 36 total hours of prayer for Local Church! 🤯

CLICK HERE to let us know you prayed!

- We are asking God to provide and reveal to us an existing church building that we could rent for our weekly services.

- Pray that our meetings with potential new members of our church go smoothly. That we have the confidence to cast a compelling vision, and that God would lead and direct.

- Please continue to pray for us and for the Fosters as we adjust to being on Long Island and to our new apartments.

- Pray for our hearts and our endurance as we continue in the hard work of starting a church.

- Ask God how He wants YOU to get involved with Local Church!

Answered prayers:

- We have had some really great moments with people from all walks of life. We really believe that in many ways, God is already using us for exactly what He brought us here for - to inspire people to follow Jesus.

- Our launch team is growing! We have 8 people committed to joining us and another 5-10 loosely committed.

- We are approx. 40% funded for our low-impact budget and we currently have 29 monthly financial partners! 🙌

- We are continuing to quickly and easily build relationships with pastors and friends!

In case you were wondering how beautiful Long Island is 👀

Thank you for following us on our journey 🎉

We are looking forward to all that God has for us, for you, and for Long Island! ⛪️🌱