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10 months ago at the end of a 10 day fast, our lead pastor, Pastor Stovall Weems, launched an initiative known as Multi-Gatherings/ Extension Services.  Today, we announced to Celebration St. Johns Campus that we have accepted his invitation to take the lead staff positions over all the Extension Services and Hosts of Celebration Church. It’s a great honor and an exciting time, as this movement promises to be an incredible venue for God to reach people in rehab centers, hospitals, military bases/vessels, jails, prisons, colleges, schools, and more.

The beginning of this season signals an end to our season as campus pastors in the St. Johns community.  Rachel and I will continue to attend St. Johns Campus as our ‘home campus’, but will also be rotating to our other campuses and extensions on weekends to oversee and provide support to our extension services and hosts.

Our church is bringing new leadership to St. Johns with our great friends Pastors Dennis and Debbie Heald.  Amongst other endeavors, Dennis has long played a leading role in men’s ministries at Celebration, specifically overseeing the parking/ushers/security teams at multiple campuses – all the while gathering men, discipling them, and bringing unparallelled strength to the church men’s ministry.   Debbie has been on staff for over 5 years, with concentrations in women’s ministry (Shine), youth ministry, and college ministry.  She’s been the fuel that kept the youth motor running at all campuses, and she’s equally excited to take on this new role.  They will be great representatives of our Pastors Stovall and Kerri at the campus.

So we can’t wait to take the church to the 4 corners of creation!  It’s been a strong desire in my heart that God planted in me during 1 Prayer last year that God would multiply the number of churches/plants out of the special work He is doing at Celebration.   The Extension Services are a large part of that dream, as they are the first step in a community group becoming a ‘campus’.  The idea of an extension service is to take the church to people rather than trying to get people to church…a ‘reverse bus ministry’ so to speak.   So far, we’ve had 2 extension services morph into full fledged campuses.   Here’s a description of Extension Services from www.stovallweems.com.

Rachel and I started an extension service in the St. Johns County jail the first week the dvd’s of the weekend service were duplicated.   I was touched by how the prisoners loved the worship music, sang along, closed their eyes, and authentically connected to God.   The message portion by Pastor Stovall was also crucial, because the temptation in jails is to focus exclusively on heaven/hell….but rarely on how to follow Jesus in your family, marriage, friendships, career, etc.

That one service with 8 boys has grown to over 100 inmates spanning 4 facilities and 6 services… in our ‘free time’ -outside of working in the day to day campus operations.    We believe that in this next season, God will really stir up and equip people in the Extension Service/multi-gathering movement going on here.   Already in the past 2 weeks, we’ve had numerous inquiries about Orlando, UCF, FSU, Valdosta, Palm Coast, Palatka, Starke, and Tampa.  Rachel and I will be following up on these as this transition occurs.

Rachel and I have been at the St. Johns Campus of Celebration Church since it’s launch in 2005.   The friendships/relationships and family we have gained over this time are a real treasure to us, which we will continue as we are ‘one church, with many campuses’.   We are very grateful to serve with you.   For those involved in extension services/gatherings, we cannot wait to meet you all, encourage you, and grow the kingdom together.

-John and Rachel