TheEastCoastBlog

So East Coast had our 1st preview service on Sunday! Many of you have been asking how it went. I was going to wait to write up a blog post on it until I got some pictures. You can view them here.

I am still overwhelmed – seriously in shock at all the people who have prayed for us. About an hour before we began, the pastor of Southside Baptist (right across the street) came over to talk to me. He said that he was excited for us and that they have been praying for us. Wow, that was incredible. What if we all worked together to reach people for Christ?!?

I’m still amazed at all the prayer that was being lifted up for East Coast! To the other pastors in Jacksonville, fellow church planters, lay leaders in Jax and even out of state (thanks Sonny!), the Promise Land people, and the many friends & family members. Thank you for praying for us and thank you for communicating that to us through texts, twitters, facebook messages, and emails! I think we would all be amazed at the spiritual warfare going on that day. Again, thank you for the prayers.

I could see the hand of God in so many ways little by little working things out & opening doors for East Coast. We had about 60 people show up! a few people came from the community, but it was mostly our friends and family who came out for support – for that I am grateful! It is going to take a team of faithful and focused believers to reach out to our community in selfless service.

The San Marco Theater worked out great for us! I had an incredible time in personal worship, we had a ginormous screen to work with, and I got to share the vision of East Coast along with the message of the gospel! We recorded the message you can listen online here. It’s a terrible recording, for that I apologize. We are still working through some technical difficulties. Thanks again for your prayers, they really made the difference Sunday. Our next preview service is November 15th. I would love your prayers for this as well.

Many things have happened since the last blog post. As of a week ago, East Coast was planning on going to the Park and Ride to try and reach out to 2,000 Jaguar fans who live in the San Marco area. Long story short, our permission was denied by the city.

Plan B was to go to the stadium, purchase a parking pass and hand out free waters there… still to no avail. We couldn’t get permission to do this on Stadium property.  Knowing God has led us to do this, I headed down to the stadium THE DAY BEFORE THE GAME, to pray and look for where God wanted us to set up and give away free water…

Just as I was about to go home, I passed by a building within a stones throw of the stadium and saw a man pass by the door. “Why not?” – so I got out and explained our story to this man who didn’t have a clue who we were.

To make a long story short, this man had been a pastor for 30 years in here in Jacksonville and allowed us to have four spots to park some cars and set up a tent!!

We handed out about 1000 water bottles Sunday along with a printed card front and back that had the East Coast website on it, and the three preview service dates (October 18th, November 15th, December 13th). No doubt, this was a God’s provision – giving us the right place and the right time. Like I said before, we handed out 1000 bottles of water and spoke to probably 3000 people as we invited them to East Coast Church! Here are a few pictures of what took place Sunday morning…

This Sunday October 4th East Coast is going to make an effort to reach out to 2,000 Jaguar fans! There is a park and ride located Downtown, near San Marco. Here, Jaguar fans park their car and take a city bus to the stadium. As they load up on the buses, we will be there to hand them a free bottle of water as well as an invite to our preview service (October 18th). Along with huge coolers and tons of ice, we need about 2,000 water bottles to pull this off – which amounts to 33,800 oz of water – a little over 60 cases!

If you would like to be a part of this effort we could use your help. Here’s what to do… this week purchase a few cases of water (Zypherhills, Nestle, Aquafina…). You can drop them off at one of three locations or we can try to pick them up, just give me a call 904-514-1370. On Saturday we will go purchase what we still need.

Hopefully as these fans are riding the bus to see the Jaguars take on the Titans, they can enjoy a cool drink of water in the name of Christ and read about a new church that wants to reach out to them.

Thanks for your help in trying to reach Jacksonville for Christ!!

Kevin Connell

Lead Pastor, East Coast Church

Sunday the East Coast team went down to San Marco to pray on the steps of Landon Middle School and walk around it… someone on our team likened it to Jericho, ha!  You see, we are running into a few problems with the administration of Landon Middle. The problem is unclear now, I will share details later. In the meantime, we are still pursuing Landon, but are looking for other venues as well. After praying at the school, we went to check out 4-5 other locations in the San Marco vicinity.

We have a preview service on OCTOBER 18th! Where? Not sure YET – but God knows! We have seen God in this since the beginning, He sees the details of the future, I don’t. This morning I applied Romans 8:24-27 to my prayer life in faith!

Pray with us for the exact location – not only for our preview services, but also for our location to launch January 10, 2010!

Having a place for East Coast to meet at on Sundays has been a long process. God has placed the desire in my heart to have church at Landon Middle School 5 or 6 months ago. As I began praying, I caught more and more of a vision about ministry at Landon. I remember driving by multiple times, looking at this school and begging God to let us meet there.

On Tuesday morning Micah Pringle and I drove through San Marco and prayed for the community. Once again, prayer was made for this school on behalf of East Coast. I remember asking God if we could get a response that day. The next day, I got a phone call which led to a confirmation of Landon letting East Coast use the school!!

This is a huge answer to prayer! Thank you to all who have been praying for this. I know there are many of you whom I have never met before that have asked God to let us use this school. I can see clearly that He is at work behind the scenes as we dream & plan on how to reach the community of San Marco with the gospel of Christ!!

- Kevin

This morning I had coffee with East Coast’s worship leader, Micah Pringle. If you  don’t follow him on twitter, you need to. He is an incredible worship leader and plus he looks like Phil Collins.

We talked about the vision of EC and the people that are going to be reached. After throwing down some Starbucks, we went and covered the San Marco community in prayer. I LOVE driving through and praying for the people of that small community – every time I do it, I get more and more passionate about reaching the people Jesus died for in San Marco. Here are a few things we prayed for…

• Landon Middle School – It would be a great central location for East Coast!
• The leaders of East Coast, to lead from a close walk with Christ!
• The elderly we saw in the community
• The young families we saw in the parks
• East Coast’s kids ministry
• Those that are in need, and how EC can meet their need
• Outreach that God has given us vision for
• To be able to serve the business owners of San Marco
• Patience to wait on God as the gospel works its power
• People that occupied the houses on the river
• People that lived in the many apartment complexes
• A collaborated effort for all churches in San Marco to reach people for Christ!
• Lives to be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Driving through and praying for this community fires me up!!!  If you want to get together for some drive through prayer for East Coast and San Marco, email me and let me know!

Kevin

I heard Andy Stanley say on a leadership podcast a few weeks back that, “Vision stays the same, but plans change”… that particular message stuck with me as the lead pastor of East Coast, looking back I know why. The “plan” all along has been to launch out September 6th to serve and reach the community of San Marco for Christ!!!  That plan was so strong it was quickly transforming into vision…

In between middle school and high school camps in Acworth this year I got the privilege of meeting with JR Lee from Freedom Church. Sitting down with him for an hour was God “again” trying to lead me in a different plan.  After talking with him I knew that launching out in September wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Here is the new plan for East Coast Church

• Start September 6th
• Meeting weekly with the launch team
• Trying to build it to 40-50 volunteers
• Each week talking about the vision of EC
• Then launching out January 10th,  2010

This is going to take a lot of prayer, a lot of money, and a lot of selfless people! It’s going to be extremely hard, but incredibly rewarding! If God is leading you to be a part, join us. Were going to reach this community for Christ with or without you!!

Completely amped about reaching San Marco,

Kevin