WORSHIP: Journey meets Sundays at 9:30 AM at the Campo YMCA at the corner of Bloomingdale and Culbreath. We start with some eye opening coffee and fresh donuts, then right into our contemporary, upbeat praise & worship! Pastor Dan's opening prayer and inspiring message follow. See our CALENDAR for the current message summary. You can also listen to our past messages in our Podcast!
B.U.C.s Brothers Under Christ will meet this Saturday, January 17th at Starbucks on Lithia Pinecrest from 8-9 AM. Grab a cup of coffee and we will have a short Bible Study. We will get you out by 9 AM.
STEDENT MINISTRY (grades 6-12): Do you have questions about the Bible that you didn't find in Church? This is a weekly youth group that meets to discuss the Bible in a fresh and contemporary way to help our students stay strong in the environments. Meets every Sunday from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at the home of Pastor Dan. We would love to see you there!
S.W.A.T. Students With A Testimony *TAKING A BREAK* This is a new outreach intended to offer a faith based 'hang out' for students and young adults. S.W.A.T. meets every Wednesday at the Klein's to play some of the top Xbox 360 games out there, including Halo 3. Please note- not all games are rated 'E' for everyone- so please contact us if you have any questions! Pizza and drinks provided. Be there at 6:30PM.
We will soon have two more studies beginning soon. Please email Pastor Dan for more info. Times and themes will be posted asap.
For more info on any of our small groups, please call Pastor Dan at 661-3177 or email Reaching_Out@Verizon.net.
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If you live in the Brandon area, we have a free gift for you. It is simply our way of saying thanks for visiting one of our services. Please join us whenever you are able and we will give you a free copy of "How Good is Good Enough" by bestselling author Andy Stanley.
New Church Has "Fresh" Approach
Casual Worship Offers Relevant Answers By Yvette C. Hammett, The Tampa Tribune
VALRICO - Sunday is th only day Kelley Klein doesn't mind getting up early. By 7 a.m., she and her husband, Tim, are at the Campo Family YMCA socializing, working and preparing for worship.
"If I couldn't wear flip-flops and jeans, I probably wouldn't be there," said Klein, 26, who recently had her feet tattooed with the verse, "Walk in Faith, Not by Sight."
At The Journey Church, Klein said, "everybody just seems like they care. Everyone is very accepting of everyone else.
Dan Reid, lead pastor for the new church, which meets weekly in the YMCA gym, calls it a ministry reaching out in a fresh way.
He is officially kicking off the new church on Easter with a series of sermons called GPS, designed to help people find direction in their lives. Retired NBA star Jim Price also will be there to share God's influence on his life and sign a few autographs.
Reid started a ministry here about two years ago and had a following of about 60 people. His group recently merged with Connection Church, a congregation of about 50, to form The Journey.
"We are under the Southern Baptist Convention, but we don't look like typical Baptists," Reid said over a strawberry lemonade at the Bloomingdale Starbucks, sunglasses perched atop his spiked hair.
He has done the coat-and-tie ministry in a 1,200-member church in Texas, he said. From there, he moved to the Pacific Northwest and started a church based on small-groups ministry, where he stayed for four years. Then, the Tampa native said, he got a calling from God to come home and start a new church.
Reid still uses small-groups ministry, where members of the congregation meet to discuss their lives and their beliefs, rather than holding traditional Sunday school.
"Our goal is to be authentic and fresh," he said. "We want to fashion something fresh and relevant that answers questions facing people in their lives. We are more than institutional church."
Bill Kagey, who headed the Connection Church and is handling The Journey's youth ministry, said the congregation is made up of people who "have a heart in the community, mature believers. But there are others still seeking answers."
The Kleins, who started out with Kagey, fall into the latter category. The two were baptized last year in the YMCA pool.
"We moved here last March and looked at a bunch of different churches," Kelley Klein siad. "We looked for a smaller church. We didn't want to have to swim through people.
"We're young and didn't grow up with hymn books," she said. "We didn't grow up Christian.
Now, Tim Klein takes on the responsibility each Sunday of transforming the YMCA gym into a house of worship. Kelley Klein sings with the praise and worship team.
Someday, Reid said, there will be a building fund, perhaps a land donation.
For now, though, it's all about the community.
"We want people to come just as they are, without having to fit into a mold," Reid said.
So far, The Journey's membership has done two outreaches, passing out water bottles near the YMCA and planning a project with Habitat for Humanity.
"We just want to be Jesus in our community," Reid said. "We hope to plan one outreach at least once a month."
For now, the congregation will continue meeting at the Campo YMCA, he said. "The YMCA's been great to work with, and we don't need to make any fast moves."
The Journey Church meets each Sunday at 10 a.m. at the YMCA, 3414 Culbreath Road, near Bloomingdale Avenue. For more information, go to www.journey7.com.
