We’ve moved to Louisville, KY to plant a church. If that’s news to you, it might be a good idea to start with reading a couple of blog entries back.
So why did we decide to start a church in Louisville?
The Lord pretty much threw church planting in our faces until we got what He was trying to tell us. He wasn’t quite as forthright about location, but one thing He did make clear to our hearts was that our next season of ministry needed to be birthed out of relationship.
One relationship specifically seemed to have a lot of grace on it and that was with a church called Covenant Community Fellowship in Indiana, just outside of Louisville. CCF was planted a little over two years ago by a friend of ours from Bible college and they have a vision to assist with planting more churches in their region.
The Lord also spoke to our hearts via another church planting pastor, who told us to plant somewhere we would be culturally comfortable. Chris was raised in Arkansas (about as South as you can get) and I was raised in WI (about as North as you can get), so what was culturally comfortable for us was a little vague. We figured our best bet would be somewhere right between the two.
When we looked Louisville up in Wikipedia, it said this:
Louisville is influenced by both Southern and Midwestern culture. It is sometimes referred to as either the northernmost Southern city or the southernmost Northern city in the United States.
We saw relationship and region coming together and the more we looked into Louisville, the more life we felt on it as the location we were being called to.
As our hearts grew toward Louisville, I researched specific neighborhoods to see if anything jumped out. One in particular caught my eye, called the Highlands. It embodied elements that had always held a lot of attraction for Chris and I and seemed like it had the kind of vibe we were looking for.
First chance we got, we took a trip down to Louisville to see the city for ourselves. When we arrived, we immediately stopped at a coffee shop downtown to take advantage of wi-fi an get our bearings.
When we ordered, the barista asked us what we were doing in Louisville. We replied that we were just checking out the city and he immediately said, “You need to go to the Highlands.” He proceeded to tell us more about the Highlands, but offered no other suggestions for exploring Louisville. Just the Highlands.
When we drove into the neighborhood we instantly fell in love. There was a kind of chaotic excitement in the air. Not completely a good excitement, but it was compelling and gripped our hearts more than any other area of the city.
And now we’re here, right in the heart of the Highlands. We are discovering that the way we felt when we first visited the neighborhood was more accurate than we realized. There is an excitement in the air that isn’t necessarily all good. And we can’t help but love it here.
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