As you are most likely aware, we have seen dramatic growth at Highlands since we started meeting at the new building on June 11th. This has been a blessing and a challenge. A blessing because more people are making Highlands their church home, and growing as disciples through the preaching of God’s word and an array of new local Care Groups and Bible Studies. However, the challenge quickly has been realized – how do we diligently shepherd families with one shared leadership structure across multiple campuses?
When we launched the Highlands Campus, another related question frequently came up – “When will they be independent?” Our answer was, and is, “When it makes sense to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ.” The Elders and Pastors have been praying through that question recently and have begun to feel that the time may have arrived to make plans for the Highlands Campus to be planted as an independent church in the Vernon community.
To that end, the Elders have formed the Highlands Transition Team (“HTT”) to identify and investigate all the issues, questions, and challenges involved with moving forward with the Highlands Campus as an independent local church.
Much like the Highlands Campus Expansion Research Team did previously, the HTT will then make a formal recommendation to the Elders to proceed (or not) with making Highlands an independent church – complete with all the supporting data, plans to resolve open questions, and a draft timeline. When the elders are in agreement with the plan, we will present it and vote on it during a member meeting, probably sometime in mid 2018.
The following people are the members of the HTT – please pray for us as we spend much of 2018 prayerfully wrestling through these things – and may our God be greatly glorified as we seek to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ!
Len Baxter
TJ Walsh
Glenn Van Der Ploog
Rob Downs
John Lisa
Paul Fehrenbacher
Pastor Mike Ruel
