12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the flagship church of the Wesleyan denomination with over 16,000 now attending each Sunday on four campuses, will dramatically expand its ministries in 2015, beginning this Sunday.
According to senior pastor Kevin Myers, they expect to start the five new locations with an average of 300 people worshipping at each location.
Keith Farner of the Gwinnet Daily Post interviewed Myers about the massive expansion. His full story and photos of new ministers can be found here.
“We’re pretty amped up about bringing that into the heart of the community and into the lives of people,” said Myers. “It’s kind of like when you have a great win in your life, you want somebody else to win. When things are exciting and going well for you, you want to see that happen in somebody else’s life.”
Each campus will have a full-time campus pastor, full-time worship leader/youth pastor, part-time administrative assistant and part-time children’s ministry director, Farner reports. The church also plans to add three to five positions to its central support staff because of the expansion. Plans for the expansion began about 20 months ago, Myers said.
All of the new locations will have services at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Sundays, and two of them will also have 1 p.m. services. The church conducted a soft launch for the campuses this past Sunday as about 3,000 staff and volunteers ran through activities for a typical Sunday.
12Stone Church began in 1987, but grew slowly at first. It didn’t become a megachurch until about fifteen years later. In the years since then, it has been one of the fastest growing churches in the nation.
According to Farner, 12Stone has also committed to partner with Habitat for Humanity to build a house in the area near each new campus, which means a total commitment of about $500,000, or $100,000 per house.
MOBILE USERS: Click here to view the Gwinnett Daily Post photos.
