Last Sunday I gave an update on our five-year strategic plan. In May of 2004, God led our leadership team on a journey to develop a five-year strategic plan and we launched this plan in February 2005, calling it “The Journey”. In the next five years we are hoping to accomplish these three key strategies:

Healthy Growth to 3000 in Weekend Services - The church continues to stay healthy, and when things are healthy, growth comes. Each weekend our attendance is up over the same time last year, sometimes as much as 20-30%. The greatest number to me is the over 800 people who have committed their life to Christ since January 1. So, growth is happening.

Become One Church in Many Locations - I gave an update about the Collierville campus plant last time, and since then we had an interest party which 74 people attended! We’re hoping to launch our 2nd campus in the spring, but it depends upon a few other things – establishing permanence in the Cordova area, building a launch team of 50-70 people, and raising the dollars needed to launch a campus.

Establish Home Base - Home base for us represents a minimum of 40 acres where we can establish a long-term campus. Obviously, this means looking in areas of the city where land is more readily available. At this point Collierville seems like a great place for a long-term home base. Before that happens, though, we want to establish permanence in the area we are currently in.

Permanence in the Cordova area - We’ve located a great place where we can plant a stake in the ground in the Cordova area - its nearly 20 acres right on Germantown Parkway - a great, visible location. One half is land for expansion. The other half has a 31,000 square foot building with 550 parking spaces. The building is only a few years old and could be renovated to meet our needs. It has great potential as a first phase. We’ve already had three architects look over the whole area and give us feedback, cost estimates, and one has even sketched out for us a master plan, which includes a 2000 seat worship center, a next generation building, ball fields, etc. That’s a pretty exciting prospect for a campus in that part of the city. We had a great meeting with city officials on Tuesday. They agreed to let us expand the existing curb-cut and gave us some things to think about where the land is concerned.

We should be making an offer next week. Please pray for favor with decision-makers at Chrysler Corporation and the owners of the land next door. That’s the next step. It’s exciting. I’ll keep you updated…