What a Win looks like...

I was so impressed with a new church launch in our state I thought you all needed to hear about it and rejoice with us. I also want to hear what else is going on that we can celebrate over. Is there a great church plant, new extremely successful idea, church turn around story or something that as a fellowship we can say "That was a WIN!"? So comment your wins.

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Doug Vagle- Sartell, Minnesota

Over the past 2 months we have seen God do "Immeasurably more than we could ever hope or imagine!" My wife Peggy and I have been dreaming together about what the infant stages of our new church would look like since God called us on this new journey last December. Our grand opening was exactly 9 months and one day from when the dream was conceived in our hearts and we gave birth to a church on September 9th! In March we started meeting with 4 families from the area that were a part of our core group. God began opening doors for our ministry team to come together. Our core group grew as well as our pastoral ministry team. We were able to start our preview service with my wife and me, a family life pastor, a kids pastor and a worship pastor! I literally still can't believe the amazing team God has brought together. We had 5 preview services leading up to our Grand Opening. We did no advertising at all and things functioned so well. We recruited and trained workers, got the bugs out, and averaged 88 people each Sunday which blew us away for August in MN.

We started our advertising campaign 2 weeks before Grand Opening. Our first mailer went in a local business packet to 7800 homes around Sartell. Our website started to get hundred of hits and my phone started ringing! Our second mailing was a direct mailer that went to 10,000 homes with in 3 miles of the location we were meeting at. Another week of phone calls and our website counter began to climb over the 1500 mark(300 was just from me)! All along we were praying for 300 for our Grand Opening! I decided to get more food and plan for 400 so we wouldn't run out IF it happened. We set up for 300 adults and our kids church was ready for 100. I knew we were in trouble when 5 minutes before service...every parking spot was filled. The facility owner's wife ran out to the road and started parking people on the grass. When that was full the rest of the cars parked in the school lot across the street! We packed people in....literally standing room only. We had conservatively more that 350 adults. Our kids church had 110 registered elementary kids....nursery had 18 babies plus all of the workers! We ended up with conservatively over 500 people! We went through every scrap of 400 pounds of pork and turkey, 650 buns, people ate everything.....but God stretched it so everyone ate! We had 89 LOCAL first time visiting families! 58 families said they came because of the mailing.

We have had 3 regular Sundays since that amazing day! We have averaged a strong 160 that hasn't dipped! People are excited and getting involved in our Life Groups. I could spend an hour telling you of individual stories I have heard. In 4 weeks we have seen 23 people saved and 14 of them have been 1st time commitments to the Lord! Our teams feet haven't touched the ground for a month and we are all so amazed at what God is doing! My wife and I are having the time of our lives! All of the things we dreamed about have actually happened......and we are shocked and amazed! God truly can do exceedingly more than we can think of imagine! That's our story and we're stickin to it!!!!!!!
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What does a win look like for you?