Changing churches is hard. It gives a newfound level of empathy for families walking through the doors of a new church for the first, and even second, time. Stepping into a space that is very much alive and vibrant, just like where we came from, is great. But until you have the same deep relationships, it can — and will — still feel deeply foreign, even cold. It's lacking the same relational warmth you once had every week. This is no fault of the church or the people who make it up. It's purely a consequence of human relationships and time itself. It will take time.

This is where we are: taking the time to build new relationships in this new space at Heartland — both for me as a pastor, and for us as a family. It's cool to be part of something that's on the same missional trajectory for the Kingdom as where we were at Riverwood, but that, due to context, might approach things differently. This gives me a great space to learn and continue developing as a pastor, leader, and now church planter.

The hope is to build relationships in this space and absorb as much of Heartland's culture as we can, so we can infuse it into this new church in Key West. Obviously, you can't copy and paste a church from Ohio to Key West — but you can learn the culture and adopt the essence of its values to carry with you, injecting them into what's ahead.

Pray that the Spirit moves through relationships, and that He'd even move this process along quickly. This isn't something that's wildly complicated — it's just something that's at the mercy of time.

The Key West Project, for lack of a better term at this stage. Where are we with that? Well, outside of absorbing Heartland's culture, we're in the midst of a few things.

First, a name. This sounds simple, but it's more complicated than it looks — it's kind of a lifetime commitment. Once you choose it, it's pretty hard to change, so we want to get it right. It also has to fit the culture of Key West: it can't be tacky, and it can't be something already overused. There are logistics too — can we get a domain name for a website, does it carry the mission and identity of the church well, and so on. One of the front-runners is The Reef. It meets most of what we're looking for. But is it tacky? I'm honestly not sure yet — I'd love to know what you think!

The other front we're working on is the Mission, Vision, and Values of the church. How do we communicate the church's mission? Most evangelical churches share roughly the same mission, but how you communicate it matters. Then there's the vision: what are we working toward? What might this Jesus-following community do for the Kingdom in Key West? That part is very location-specific. And then, what are the guiding values — the guardrails as we work toward that vision and mission? What are the things that will cultivate the right culture?

This, again, is something that will take time to develop, but it will matter a ton in the long run.

Pray for wisdom and discernment as we make huge decisions in this moment — decisions that will shape the culture of a future church. Pray for the right voices to speak into this process, and the right answers along the way.

On the personal side of this transition, things don't stop. You don't stop moving as a family through the rhythms of everyday life, despite everything else in transition. Claire is starting school shortly, which means schedule changes on that front. We're looking forward to that — it'll give her a rhythm again with friends. It comes at the right time, since she misses people from church and her class.

We're also working toward getting our house ready to sell. We're pushing to finish the outside before winter, and we feel like we're on the home stretch — three more windows to go, and three more sides of siding!

Pray for Claire and the start of school — that it would truly meet her need for friends and rhythm in this season of transition.

Key West has no natural source of freshwater. None. For most of its history, residents survived on rainwater caught in cisterns, and it wasn't until the Florida Keys Aqueduct was built — a 130-mile pipeline running the length of the Overseas Highway — that the island had a reliable supply. Everything the island needs to sustain life has to come from somewhere else, carried a long way, and received rather than produced.

It's a strange thing to build a city on a rock with no water under it. It's also, if you're paying attention, not a bad picture of what it means to plant a church that knows it can't sustain itself — that everything it needs has to come from outside itself too.

In Key West, as it is in heaven.