November Update: Loving Key West

Time goes fast! We’re now starting month four of this journey, and we continue to see God at work in the process. Before we jump into updates, we want to make sure you know where to follow along. We now have a website at thereef.church, and we’re on both Facebook and Instagram. Following us there is the best way to keep up with what God is doing between newsletters, see photos and stories from our trips, and know how to pray in real time. If you haven’t already, we’d love for you to take a minute and follow us.

We’re finding new connections and meeting new people every week, including people right here in Northeast Ohio who are actively involved in the Florida Keys and the churches there. I recently had the chance to grab lunch with Mark Jones, who pastors Freedom Hill Community Church in Stow. He’s been networking with churches in the Keys for years. Who knew a guy like that was in our own backyard?

We’re still on target to move in June 2027 and launch The Reef in February 2028. We’re very close to securing a meeting space in the right location in Old Town, and we’re getting closer on housing plans as well. We’ve also assembled our interim leadership board for the church. This month we’re working through the incorporation process, and we should have everything lined up to incorporate in mid-December so that we officially exist as a Florida church on January 1, 2027.

In October we spent a week in Key West as a family. This was Clair’s first trip, and much of it was about helping her get used to both the idea of moving and what life in Key West would actually be like. All week we rode the emotional rollercoaster with her, from joy to tears and back again, as she processed change, the loss of some things, and the excitement of new ones. By the end of the week she was excited about the move, which was an answer to prayer. Before anything else, Shawna and I want to be good parents through this process.

While we were there, we also got to experience some of Fantasy Fest. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s probably the largest festival in Key West: a ten-day costume and street festival in late October that ends with a big Saturday-night parade down Duval Street. It started in 1979, when local business owners created it to bring in visitors during the slowest part of the tourist season. Today it draws tens of thousands of people every year and is known for its anything-goes, adult-oriented atmosphere.

But here’s what’s interesting. I’ve met several people who moved to Key West after seeing this festival, and not for the reasons you might think. One older man I met on a previous trip, who now lives there with his son and grandkids, told me what he saw was crowds of people who could all get along. No fighting, no crime, just a bunch of people, young and old, getting along. That reflects the heart of Key West’s official motto, “One Human Family.” The phrase started as a grassroots campaign by local resident J.T. Thompson, and in 2000 the city adopted it to express its commitment to equality, acceptance, and mutual respect for everyone.

What I keep thinking about is how close that is to the good news of the Kingdom, and how it can prime a community for the gospel. Every person is created in the image of a loving God and is loved by that same God, who calls us not into a religious system but into a relationship with Him and with one another. The gospel gives that motto more depth and dimension than most people could imagine.

Now, what most people want to know: is Fantasy Fest as bad as they’ve heard? Well, yes and no. Early in the week it’s pretty community-oriented, even family-friendly, with kids involved. As the week goes on, it becomes definitely adult-centric, and anything after dinnertime isn’t kid-friendly. But during the day, downtown is pretty normal, in Key West terms. If it’s Tuesday, you’ll see a lot of people in tutus. As evening comes, and the farther north you go on Duval, the crazier things get.

I think of Timothy, a young pastor in the wild port city of Ephesus, and all the things that went on there. Ephesus was a city known for its famous temple to Artemis, its trade, its excess, and a culture that wasn’t exactly looking for a church to show up. Yet that’s exactly where Paul asked Timothy to stay and lead. He didn’t tell Timothy to clean up the city first or wait for it to become more respectable. He told him to love people well, teach the truth, and live in a way that pointed to Jesus.

There’s a temptation when church planters look at a place like Key West to see it as something to fix. It’s easy to walk down Duval during Fantasy Fest and make a list of everything that’s wrong. But when you come to a city to fix it, you end up standing over people instead of standing with them, and people can feel the difference immediately. Jesus didn’t come to fix us from a distance. He moved into the neighborhood, ate with the people the religious folks avoided, and loved them before they ever changed. Real change in a person or a city is something only God can do, and He usually does it through people who have chosen to love that place first.

So that’s our posture. We’re not going to Key West to fight the culture or to fix it. We’re going to love it: to be good neighbors, to show up, to listen, and to tell the truth about a God who made every person on that island and wants them. “One human family” is a beautiful idea, and we believe Jesus is the One who makes it real.

Our goal is to have 150 people committed to praying for The Reef and for Key West by the time we move. If this newsletter has encouraged you, would you share it with a friend, your small group, or your church, and invite them to follow along at thereef.church and on Facebook and Instagram? Every person praying matters.

This month, please pray with us for the incorporation process and our interim board, for the final pieces of our meeting space and housing to come together, and for Clair as she keeps processing all this change. Thank you for walking with us. We couldn’t do this without you.

Grateful,
Nate & Shawna

Did you know Key West once “seceded” from the United States? In April 1982, the U.S. Border Patrol set up a roadblock on U.S. 1 at the top of the Keys, searching every car for drugs and undocumented immigrants. Traffic backed up for miles and tourism took a hit, so Key West’s mayor, Dennis Wardlow, declared the Keys an independent nation called the Conch Republic. He symbolically declared war on the United States, surrendered about a minute later, and then requested a billion dollars in foreign aid. The roadblock came down soon after, and to this day Key West celebrates Conch Republic Independence every April. It’s a perfect picture of the island’s personality: a little rebellious, a lot of humor, and a deep sense of being its own community.