The following post is from John Daugherty, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla. This post is the first of a four part series on his church’s journey.

One Sunday after preaching a series related to building the kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven, a member of the church choir came to me and suggested I needed to meet another pastor in town.  David Pleasant was the pastor of Elevation Ministries, a newly formed congregation who had chosen for the “church to leave the building.”  Elevation Ministries was contemporary in expression of music and charismatic in expression of praise and the Holy Spirit.  I confess it was with some caution I made the initial contact.

What led the singer to suggest our meeting was that Pastor David and I expressed very similar language and vision for kingdom building.  I have become more and more convicted that what Jesus taught was not church growth and church development, but kingdom building.  Christ’s focus was on the kingdom of God; he commanded that we seek first that kingdom.  We are to follow him and that’s what he was about – building the kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.  “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” is how the Lord’s prayer reads in Matthew 6:10 (KJV).  The local church is an expression of that kingdom in a way others can see and come to know that kingdom.

When I called Pastor David and introduced myself, his first reaction was, “Am I in trouble?”  I assured him not with me and started to explain why I was calling and proposed a time to meet.  Our first meeting was cordial and cautious on both our parts.  We shared vision, we shared interpretations of giftedness of God’s Spirit in believers; we allayed many potential concerns and misconceptions.  We immediately began to sense a potential for some kind of joint efforts in the future, just not sure what.

I need to digress a bit here and tell some of the Elevation story.  Over a period of time, prior to the launch of Elevation Ministries, Pastor David had been struggling with a growing sense of call to start something new and a church effort not constrained by denominational restrictions.  There was no disagreement or falling out with their denomination; in fact, David was a leader in the state of Florida and nationally in the denomination.  But God had been leading David to establish a church that would be freer and more independent than he was allowed in the denominational structure.  He had been pastoring a church in Fort Myers for several years before he announced his sense of call and his intention to follow that call.
Much to his surprise, a good many of his leaders and other members had been sensing a very similar calling and were actually affirmed by his announcement.  At their last meeting with the church before launching off, David and his leaders led in the receiving of a significant offering for the church – “every cent stayed with that church.”  He and the others left to start something new with nothing, no money or equipment that belonged to the church.  They left the church strong financially and intact.  And they began meeting as Elevation Ministries in a school auditorium in the Fall of 2009.

As David and I ended our meeting I made this statement:  “We have the gift of space and building resources; you have the gift of people and youth.  Surely, we can find a way to bless one another by partnering in some way.”  And we left it at that for the moment in the Fall of 2010.  We committed to pray, to talk with our leadership, and to wait for some leadership from the Lord.

In the next installment I’ll talk about the first attempts of working together and sharing facilities.