The scope

 

Here is a picture of what we are dealing with in our church planting endeavor.  A very critical part of this first year of an internship at North Cincy Community Church is to discern where the Lord would have us start a new church. At least once a week Erin and I, with the kids in tow, drive around to various areas of the metropolitan area seeking to get to know this city where the Lord has placed us.  We have enjoyed the exploration, but it is much more than exploration.  In it we are asking the Lord to burden our hearts with a certain area of the city and we would love for you to pray that with us.  Areas that have been put forth as good possibilities by the church planting team and others would be:  Hamilton, Fairfield, Fairfield Township, West Chester, Maineville/Loveland, and others.  All of these are outside the loop of I-275 and there are places still inside the loop:  Blue Ash, Milford, Colerain and more.  In some ways the thought of this is overwhelming and I struggle to pray about it because of the sheer magnitude, but prayer is exactly the task in which I should labor.  

As I have written before, the metropolitan Cincinnati area has a population well over 2 million people and our new church plant would be only the 6th PCA church in the area (including Northern Kentucky and one church that is in very poor health).  Granted there are great evangelical churches in Cincy, but they are nowhere near reaching the population and there are still many places where the Gospel is not at all heard.  

Please be in prayer for us and if you are from Cincinnati or know people who live here please let us know--we would love to talk sometime about this city.  The verse that drives me in this whole daunting call to church planting is John 10:16 where Jesus proclaims this:   

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  

I believe there are people here that the Lord is preparing to hear the saving message of the Gospel and I want to be involved in proclaiming that message to them.