ground-breaking for So. IN campus of SE Christian tomorrow

In this AM's C-J, we read about the ground-breaking for the Southern Indiana campus of Southeast Christian Church. The event is tomorrow at 4 PM and will feature shovels, bottled water and ice cream.

My good friend, Rusty Russell, will be the pastor of the campus which is expected to open next Fall. The key word there is "pastor". The preaching will still come from the main campus (DVD recording with high-tech reproduction and presentation). So, Rusty will have the opportunity to focus on the far more intimate details of shepherding his "flock".

It will be a terrific opportunity for many of the 1200 Southeast members who live in Indiana-- a location closer to home (especially on weekdays when we can avoid traffic) and a place in which we can invest more into our communities. In particular, Tonia and I look forward to more aggressively inviting people to church again and being involved in small groups on this side of the river. (It's only a 20 minute drive on Sundays, but it seems prohibitively painful-- since it's across the Ohio Ocean.)

My prayer is that Southeast, in its new location, will continue to reach out to the unchurched and "cultural Christians", attract the "over-churched", and challenge the "churched" to become apprentices of Jesus.