TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

New Church Tackles Life Issues

ADVERTISEMENT

By CAROLE DICKEY

Tribune correspondent

Published: February 8, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - Gathering Pointe Church at Ballantrae, which launches its first official service March 1, focuses on life questions with Biblical answers.

"We believe the gospel is relevant," said lead pastor, the Rev. Ross Johnson. "We believe that Scripture can be applied to our situations today, so let's preach it in such a way that it's relevant for struggling families in 2009."

Although the church is new and the leaders are just getting their feet wet, they will be jumping into life challenges with both feet. For starters, four pastors who met at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania have joined forces to launch the church.

Johnson, 36, is the lead pastor; the Rev. Dave Bisignano, 42, is body life pastor; the Rev. Doug Murray, 37, is family pastor; and the Rev. Mike Morgan, 28, will head up the contemporary worship portion of the services, starting with a three-man band.

"We want to help people to reconnect - or connect - with God," Bisignano said. "The goal is to keep the body of the church together through Bible studies, affinity-type groups and things like that."

Tracy Bisignano, wife of Dave, said it is unusual to start with four pastors, but "when you do a church plant, the idea is to do it as a team. Then, as the church grows, and if a lot of people are coming from another area, like Wesley Chapel, then eventually we can go there and start another Gathering Pointe Church. We would like to continue a multiple church planting. That's the idea."

Murray said his goal is to be an assistant to the family. "It's hard in the world today raising kids that first of all love God and love Jesus, but also to live in a way that's full of character and things like that," he said.

Often a children's ministry is focused totally on the kids, Murray said. "We really want to try to put feet to the idea that we are trying to help the parents be the leaders they need to be," he said.

Their children's programs will encourage interaction within the family, such as daily things that will give the parents and children more reasons to come together during the week, he said.

Preceding the official launch March 1, the church is offering a few get-acquainted opportunities to the community. On Friday, the movie "Fireproof" will be shown at their new church building in Ballantrae. Also, preview services will be held the last two Sundays in February.

"One of the purposes of the preview services is to kind of gauge what our launch is going to look like," Johnson said. "If we could launch on March 1 with 75 to 100 people, we would be ecstatic, because we want to move to two services right away to give choices to people."

The church has three distinctions, Johnson said. They are:

•Transformational: "We are going to God's word because that's the true source for transformation. We put 100 percent authority on Scripture," Johnson said.

•Relational: "That's where a guy like Pastor Dave comes in and takes the relationships that are formed within the church body and gets them together and gets them growing," he said.

•Missionary: "That's taking what we've learned that Sunday or in that small group and going out to our workplace and living it, engaging our culture, engaging our society, and making sure we are living the way Christ wants us to live," he said.

GATHERING POINTE CHURCH

WHERE: 17743 Hunting Bow Circle, Land O' Lakes.

WHEN: Church services will be 10 a.m. Sundays

FOR INFORMATION: Go online to www.gatheringpointe.com

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT