Sunday, January 25, 2009

Happy Birthday Vista!!!

Today my church celebrated it's 2nd birthday! It's hard to believe it's been two years since our church was planted and met for the first time. This morning Pastor Mike was talking about our birthday and he mentioned that in two years we have gone from 100 people to 400....THAT IS CRAZY! I have been a part of Vista since day 1 (well even before then!) and I am just so blessed to be a part of this super awesome church.

Our Vista Story...
Drew and I moved to Columbus in August 2006 from Buffalo, NY. After a year in Buffalo living with Drew's parents, we just hadn't found or made any connections so we decided to take a step of faith and move. We wanted to be somewhere in between my family in Indiana and his family in Buffalo. We had two sets of friends that lived here and we had visited one of them and just fell in love with the area. For a state capital, it seems quiet here (I am basing this of course on Indianapolis!). So in August we moved here.

We searched for a church we would enjoy. We are both into contemporary worship and preaching. We were invited to Heritage by one of the couples we knew. We went and loved it but decided not to settle...shopped around the next two Sundays and ended up back at Heritage. That sunday the church announced that it was planting a church in NW Columbus in the area of Dublin as well as beginning Heritage Delaware and Heritage Marysville. We both had wanted to be a part of a church plant and this was really perfect for us. We jumped in head first. I jumped into the Children's ministry aspect, helping Ms. E. with developing a ministry idea.

Our first meeting happened at Dublin Rec Center in Jan. 07. It was cool, we were in a public place and people would walk by our doors to work out...many times you would see people poke their heads in and ask us what was happening in there. Jump the end of 07 and we were big enough we began meeting in a high school. (where we continue to meet.)

When we started our church service was Sunday night at 5:30 pm, now we meet at 10:30 pm. Our children's ministry has grown from just three rooms, to 5 rooms. It's insane to see how much we have grown. Also, we have had a LOT of babies born.

I am so thankful to be apart of this church. I love my life group and the friends I have made. I feel like I have deep connections and I am so happy to have that, because I never really had that sense of connection and friendship. I obviously had it at my church I grew up in, but as an adult, I never found a church in college where I truly connected. Now, I have that connection, I have girlfriends and parent friends and just other friends. It's great! It's also great to be part of such a selfless community of believers.

The amount of love and assistance we received when Parker was born, was just, unbelievable. I have never been good at admitting I need help and it was great to have that help. I was floored to find out that the day I had Parker, so many people stopped by to check on me (I was out of it, so sorry I don't remember if you did - but I do know you guys did and I remember hearing voices!). One of the best things that happened that morning was being able to call Pastor Mike and have him pray for us before I went into my c-section. I remember him saying "we love you guys." What a way to calm my nervousness. It was thankful that he came to visit me and that Ms. E came to visit me (and brought Drew food). And when we got home, the help continued to come, from rides, to food, to baby needs, people were there to help us! And what amazes me is that we still have people offering to help, we have many hand me downs of clothes and toys and blankets and stuff from friends at church. Many people are willing to watch Parker if we need it.

I love my church, I love the community, I love the preaching style and I LOVE worship (this morning rocked!) What an amazing birthday party we had!

I hope this doesn't come out as gloating or bragging, it really is not intended that way at all. I just want to share with you how much I love where God has lead us.

For more information on Vista, please visit their website here: Vista.

Here is the Birthday Video - enjoy!


Vista: 2 Years from Clay Productions on Vimeo.

Anyway...so yah, happy 2 year birthday Vista!

2 comments:

Carrie said...

That's wonderful how much you love your church. Every time we have to move, I say, "Oh, I'll never find another church that I love as much as this one"...and then I alway do. God's people are amazing.

I have to say, though, if you still lived in Buffalo, that would be pretty cool, because I only live an hour south of Buffalo! :)

Heatherlyn said...

That was a neat story about your journey. It's so good to have a place where you feel like you belong. Friendship and fellowship are essential in life.