Good evening, everyone.
If you would, come on in and have a seat. We've got to get started here in just a minute. We want everybody into the auditorium here. Go ahead and get your seats if you would. There'll be time for talking and visiting again after we're done in here. We're going to have some refreshments and time to fellowship and talk about the great memories and things like that. There'll be plenty of time for that tonight.
We're glad to see all of you here as we come together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lakeshore Christian Church. Isn't that great? Yeah! Whoo!
Now, there are going to be a lot of good things we're going to be talking about tonight. You've got a little bit of a, it's not really a program, it's just kind of a brief timeline of some events that happened during that time, but we're going to be talking more about different things going on during those time periods as we go.
We've got people joining us online, too. Welcome to all of you that couldn't be here with us in person, but you're able to connect with us on the live stream. We're glad that we could do that as well.
Well, we're going to start tonight with something very, very special and dear to all of us, I know. We are so thankful that Beverly Edwards' family thought to do this when they found out Beverly was sick with cancer. They had Beverly sit down with Peggy Thigpen. Both of them were part of founding the church and getting everything started with the church and have been with us the whole time, which is really, really special.
And so we've got a, we had to edit it down some for tonight, but we've got a brief portion of that video. Now the family's got the full-length thing with all the talking on it and everything like that. So if you want to get a copy of that, I'm sure we could get that for you. But we wanted to show at least a little bit as Beverly and Peggy, this was before Beverly passed away, they sat down and talked about getting the church started in those early days.
So we wanted to start out with letting you just hear directly from them on those memories they had of the early days. Let's watch that together.
Oh, my goodness! I say all the time, and it's true, every one of us is standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. We couldn't do what we're doing. We couldn't be here. We couldn't be the church we are without those first people who really helped get the whole thing started.
In that video, we didn't have it in that edit, but in that video, Peggy made a point to say, "Well, we're just ordinary people, right? Just doing ordinary things." But I mentioned to her again tonight, that's the only kind of people God's got to use, right? Ordinary people. We're all ordinary people, and ordinary people with God at work through us can do extraordinary things.
So I want to recognize a couple of groups here right now before we move forward anymore. I want members of Beverly Edwards' family, would you all please stand wherever you are right now and let us thank you? Thank you so much!
Yeah, and then I know with Peggy's family, we have a lot of members of her family here with her too. We made them sit on the front row. That's not their normal way of doing it, I know, but we had them come up on the front row. Would you all please stand and let us thank you as well?
Now, of course, over the years, they had other members of their family that were part of that. Some have passed on to their reward, some have moved to other places and could be back with us, but we're so thankful for those that could be here. I know we have others here that were early on a part of what was going on here at Lakeshore too. We want to thank you all for being here tonight to help us celebrate this special occasion.
But there's one person I especially want to honor and recognize right now. This is unique because not only was she a founding member, but she's been actively involved in supporting and serving the entire 50 years of the church. She's the only one still here that was here at the very beginning that's been here the whole time through the whole 50 years, and that's Peggy Thigpen.
Peggy, would you stand? I want you to come up here. All right, yeah, come up here. There we go. We got to get you in the spotlight. I know you don't want the spotlight, but we're going to put you in the spotlight.
Peggy, we wanted to, the elder team on behalf of the whole church family wanted to present to you the certificate of appreciation awarded to Peggy Thigpen. Thank you for over 50 years of dedication, sacrifice, service, and support of the mission of Lakeshore Christian Church. Your hard work and commitment is truly appreciated, and the impact can only be measured in eternity. God bless you. Thank you. I love you. Thank you very much.
At this time, I'm going to lead us in a word of prayer, and we've got a beautiful combination praise team leading us in our music tonight. We are especially happy to welcome back someone who was a leader for us here for our music ministry for many, many years, Greg Campbell, his wife Dania, and their family. Let's welcome them back. Thank you!
Let's have a word of prayer together, and then I want you to sing and praise God and thank Him for these 50 years.
Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this celebration tonight, for all who have contributed to the work that's been done here, for the impact that this church has had here in this community and around the world. We thank you that we can celebrate you in song, and we ask you to bless this time as we sing these praises to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, we do want to walk down memory lane a little bit tonight. You have a little bit of a, like I said, a timeline that we printed out. But I want to share some of the highlights of those early years as far as events that we marked and we go back and find the records of that we could mark that time with.
On November the 20th, 1974, the church was officially incorporated. Now, there was prayer going on before that. There was already Bible study going on before that. But that's when the church officially was incorporated, on November the 20th, 1974. That's why we picked this night, this weekend, to have this 50th anniversary celebration. It's so close to that actual date of the incorporation of the church.
Now, a lot of you know I'm a Georgia Bulldog fan, and many of you here are Tennessee Vol fans. And I picked the night of their game. But it was the actual closest weekend to the anniversary date, so that's what we went with.
The first meeting was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tad Krajewski. Nineteen were present there that day. On November the 24th, 1974, the church was officially incorporated. On November the 24th, 1974, Tom Rutledge, a student at Johnson Bible College at that time, now Johnson University, preached that day.
Then Dr. Owen Crouch, that was mentioned earlier, a retired minister, came on Sunday mornings following that to lead in the teaching of the church. Then, as they grew, as Peggy and Beverly were talking about, they moved into a local elementary school that's still in the area, Lakeview Elementary School, where they got permission, the first church in Metro Nashville, to be able to go and meet in a school.
They met there with Danny Thurston as the first paid minister. And then at different times, Herb McCoy would fill in. He was the police chaplain for Metro Nashville Police, and he would fill in and teach and preach some as well.
In June of 1975, the church contracted to purchase six acres of land at 3325 Anderson Road. We have a record of when that purchase was made, the contract was entered into to purchase that land. They sold bonds and all to help pay for the building as they prepared to build the building. They were raising money for that.
And even the teenagers got involved. They were very instrumental, by the way. You teenagers today, listen, they had a huge impact. They brought friends. They helped sell the bonds. And the adults did that as well. They all invested in that process of not only getting the land but then getting ready to purchase, to buy what was needed, the materials and everything, and contract to build that building.
In May of 1977, Dr. Vernon Eaton and his wife, Denny, and their family came to serve at Lakeshore Christian Church. I believe we have a picture of that family. There they are. Yeah. Dr. Eaton and his wife, Denny, and their family served here for eight years and were very instrumental in growing the church, making sacrifices. They were very instrumental in making sacrifices to build the church. They worked on it themselves, along with the other members, doing a lot of the work to build the building.
They had a tremendous impact on the church and the families in the church, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to them. Now, their daughters we contacted and talked to, and they were planning to be here tonight, but illness has prevented them from coming. But we wanted to recognize them. I think they're connecting online, so let's give them a round of applause if they can hear online.
It was during his term here as pastor that they were able to build that first building in '77 and got into it and occupied it in '78. That's when they began meeting there regularly in that original building. I think we got a picture of the original building too. We got that. That's it there, right? That's over on Anderson Road. It's still there.
I'll tell you a little bit more about the transition from the original building to the original building. It happened there as we go through the rest of the night. After that, Vernon and Denny left. They went to go teach at another Bible college, then later on went to England as missionaries and then came back and worked at Johnson Bible College and now Johnson University.
In fact, Mike Swartz was telling me, our Smyrna campus pastor, that while he was in school at Johnson, he had Vernon as a teacher there while he was there. So Vernon and Denny have gone on to their reward now. I was privileged to be able to get to meet them and talk to them and get to know them some and thank them for all the great work that they did here at Lakeshore. So we're so appreciative and indebted to that family.
After that, there were other ministers that came through. When they left, Bob Gray and his wife Pam in '87 and '88. Then after that, Mike Southerds came to serve the church. Mike left to establish another church, Priest Lake Fellowship, which is still here in the area today in '88 and '89.
When Mike left, there was a period where they didn't have a full-time minister for a little while while they searched for one. Elders filled in, deacons filled in, and others filled in to help cover that time leading up to the 1990s, which is the time we're going to sing some songs from now.
And again, let's welcome Greg and Stania Campbell back too. They were brought in during that time to help lead our music and arts ministry here.
That first Sunday in March was the first Sunday I preached as the official pastor here at Lakeshore Christian Church. My family and I moved here just a little bit before that and started preaching there the first Sunday in March. We were at that original building still at that time in the chapel there.
I have to say that I've been here a little over 33, almost 34 years now, and I could not have made it without my beautiful bride, Suanne. I want her to stand up, and I want you to thank her. She's done so much as a part of the ministry alongside me and kept me going all those years, and I'm so thankful for all that she has done and so many others.
You know, I've been here a little over 33, almost 34 years now, and I could not have made it without her. When we got started in '91, that first Sunday I preached, we had 47 people there that day. That was a preacher's count, so there may not have been that many. You know how preachers can sometimes exaggerate the crowd.
There were a lot of reasons for that. They'd been without a pastor for a while. They had a group that had left to help start Mount Juliet Christian Church. We've got the McGuires here tonight; they were a part of that. We're so thankful that they were able to help out with planting that church in Mount Juliet.
Then Mike Southerds left and started another congregation as well, and so there were some that went to help start with that one. But we started with a solid core group that was dedicated and committed to reaching the lost people in our community, and God began to bless the growth of the church. We were very grateful for that.
He was using very ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and people began to come more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more people came to know Jesus.
So we immediately were very soon after that, in October of '93, we built that gym building. It was not connected to that original building, but it was right there on that property, right behind it. We immediately had to move worship services into that gym building. That wasn't the original plan, honestly. We were just going to use it as a fellowship hall and classroom space and all that, but because of the growth, we immediately had to move services into that area and just set up the chairs in the gym and start doing worship services in there.
Then we kind of remodeled the original building and used it for other activities as well, and God continued to send more people. It was during that time too that as we grew, it meant we needed more staff to be able to minister to that number of people because originally it was just me and Suanne for a while, and then we started adding more staff.
I'm so thankful that some of those early staff members are here as well. David and Valerie Peterson came on board with us. They are here. Would you stand, David and Valerie and their family? There they are over there. Thank you!
And you all know him well because he's still here, but Mike and Amy Sharer came on board really soon after that as well. Yeah!
We have had other people serve on staff during that time, during those years as well that are here. So if you would, if you served on staff with us here at Lakeshore during those years, would you stand? We're glad you're back with us tonight. I want to recognize all of you as well.
I saw Marie Ray was here, Melanie Baker, Kathy was on staff with us for a while. You were Thigpen at No Robins at the time, right, when you came on staff with us? But you'd gone to Johnson and came back to serve with us. We're so thankful for that as well.
Every one of you made an impact, had a role that you played in helping bring people to Christ, and we're so thankful for that as well.
One of the strengths of Lakeshore has been unity and consistency over time, and it blessed me as the lead pastor here to have the supporting staff around me that made me look so much better because of the great work that they did.
I want to recognize we are one of the few churches you'll ever see that have had a lead pastor that's been here over 30 years, but we've got five people that have served over 20 years and are still here serving on our staff. That's almost unheard of at any church, but I want to recognize them and their families.
Michael and Amy Sharer, would you guys stand? Where are you all at? Here they are! All right, they've been here over 28 years.
Mike Schwartz, Becky, and their family, would you guys stand? They've been here over 23 years. Yeah!
Mike Sharer first came to be a youth pastor with us. He's transitioned over the years to different roles. Mike Schwartz first came to be a middle school pastor with us, and now he's transitioned. He's now a Smyrna campus pastor and doing a great job with that.
Then we have Walter Rouse, our church administrator, and his wife Lucy, over 22 years on staff here at the church.
I want to recognize another one that's really near to my heart because she's my daughter. Our daughter Heather came to work with me, and I gotta tell you, as a pastor, to have kids love the church where you serve and want to be a part of it and actually are willing to be on staff at that church, it's one of the greatest honors any pastor could ever have.
Our daughter Heather has served there. There was a little break there, but over the years that we've been here for over 23 years, almost 24 months, she has served as my administrative assistant until two weeks ago. She and her family have moved to St. Augustine, Florida.
I've got nobody to blame but ourselves. We took our kids there on vacation for many, many summers over the years. That's where my wife grew up, and we go back there on vacation a lot, and they fell in love with the place and decided to move there.
But Heather never likes to do this, but I'm going to ask Heather to come up on stage with me for just a moment because I want to recognize and appreciate her too.
She honestly hates the spotlight, but we're going to put her on the spot anyway. No, no, no, you've got to come up. Come on. I knew she'd try to do that.
Heather, I want to present this to you. She flew back up from St. Augustine, by the way, to be here with us this weekend.
On game day!
On game day, yeah. I will take credit that all our kids are Georgia Bulldog fans too. But anyway, Heather, in appreciation for over 23 years of service on staff at Lakeshore Christian Church, thank you for your years of dedication and service. We love you. Thank you.
On a lot of the dates and things that we've talked about, they have been pictures of buildings and building additions because we did do a lot of building additions through the growth times and all.
We're going to talk more about that here in just a moment. We added on to that Anderson Road building twice. We expanded the parking lot three times. We added on portable classrooms as well, just to try to accommodate the growth and the space that we had there.
But eventually, we knew, in order to continue to reach lost people, we had to relocate because we were in a neighborhood. We had landlocked and just really could not continue to expand.
So I made the terrible mistake of letting our youth pastors go look for a building. And they found this building, which was, this section was empty. It had been a former media play retail store. I think we've got a picture of, there we are. Yeah. Look at those youngsters.
Keep that picture up for just a minute. You see the word "media play" on the front of the building? The word "play" is right now in our indoor playground in this building. We took those letters off and wanted to repurpose them and use them in our playground here. So that was a cool little touch to honor the history of what this building had been.
On August 15, 2007, we purchased this former media play building, the whole building. There were other businesses here in this building as well, but we purchased the whole building, over 72,000 square feet. But the middle part was the empty part that we were going to use for the church.
In order to do that, we had to sell the other property to make it work financially for us to do that. In January of 2008, we closed on the sale of the Anderson Road location, and we sold it to Priest Lake Community Baptist Church. They still have their church there today, and we were so glad it continued to be used as a church.
We love Priest Lake Community Baptist and the work we've done together with them in the selling of their property and then work in the future after that. We appreciate them so much.
Well, when we did that, we had this empty space, but they needed to get into that building when we sold it to them. So we had to go back to a school again. We ended up moving to a school in the community. It was a newer school, Thomas Edison Elementary School.
It was a school that we started meeting in there. We did portable church there in the school for a year while we built out this facility here to be used for the church use that we now have at this location.
We had our first service here in this room, in this campus, on Easter Sunday, April the 12th, 2009. We didn't have our occupancy permit at the time. I hope the building people aren't here. Maybe we can be grandfathered in with some leniency at this point.
We went ahead and had our first service in here then. Then we actually had a dedication of that campus once we got the occupancy permit on May the 31st, 2009. We're so thankful that we were able to make that move.
Now, I want you to know we've showed pictures of buildings, and we talked about dates and times of expansion and things like that. It was never about the buildings. It never has been about the buildings. The buildings were just necessary tools to use because God was using ordinary people that made up this church family to reach lost people for Jesus.
During that period, just that I've been here, we've baptized over 1,200 people into Christ during that time. Thank you!
The growth that we experienced during that time was, again, just families bringing families. But I want to tell you something that really, I think, also made this one of the strongest, most consistent, impactful churches.
When we were outgrowing that property on Anderson Road, we brought in some church growth experts to help us decide what to do next. All of them told us, "Here's what you need to do. You've got to relocate, and you need to get out of Antioch. You need to go to another area if you want to keep growing your church."
Here's what was happening. Antioch was transitioning, and it was becoming more and more diverse as a community. When that happens in most communities, most churches go somewhere else.
When that happens in most communities, a lot of people move out of those communities because they want to go to a community where everybody's more like them, right? We all feel a little more comfortable sometimes with that.
But the leadership of this church, and I'm so grateful for our leadership, we prayed, and we sought, and we fired the church growth experts. Because we believe God called us to this community to reach lost people here, diversity and all.
They couldn't, I don't think they were able to make it tonight. They hope to try to make it tomorrow. But I want to mention, they're connecting online, they said, if they couldn't be here tonight, Art and Joe Laird. Art is now an elder emeritus for us. He served as an elder for a long time, but his health would not allow him to keep serving.
They were the first African-American family to come in and be part, consistently part of the church here at Lakeshore, which just began that process of this church embracing the diversity of the community here.
So we're so thankful for that. We now have not only all races and most ethnicities here at Lakeshore, we have over 22 countries of origin in our church family now.
I got to save some of the rest of this, okay, until we sing some more songs. So I'm going to stop there for right now. That brings us up to dedicating this campus on May 31st, 2009.
We brought about 500, 600 people from the other campus to this campus, and God continued to grow our church family after moving in here.
So let's bring the praise team back out, and let's sing some more praise to God for all that He's done.
Let's thank this amazing praise team one more time. It was a combination of praise team from Smyrna campus and the Antioch campus, and we're so thankful.
I want to mention too, we could not do what we do without our staff and our volunteers that serve so faithfully, and so many have served sacrificially in so many ways, and we want to thank all of you for doing that.
I especially want to recognize tonight before we close, our current elder team that's serving in a leadership role here. Again, I serve with them as one of the elders, but it's a team of visionary men who are helping to lead this church into the future now.
Mike Edwards, would you stand where you are? Mike has been with Lakeshore over 40 years.
Then we have Hugh Coleman. Would you stand, Hugh? Hugh and Phyllis right over here. Great to have them. Thank you!
Jeff Schicks, his wife Sue. Where are you guys? Right there.
Dean McConaughey. Where's Dean? He's back there running the cameras for us, Dean. There's Dean. Yeah.
I don't know if Oscar was able to be here tonight. I think he told me he would be able to be here tomorrow for our services. I don't think he, he's not here tonight. Okay.
But let's thank all those elders again. Thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
One of the ways we began to learn and God has shown us that we can multiply our influence is through ministry partners that we partner with, not trying to do everything yourself as a church.
We've partnered with a lot of great ministries here in the area: The Branch of Nashville, Ezell Harding Christian School, Thrift Smart, Core in Haiti, the work that they do in Haiti. We've partnered with ministries in the Dominican Republic. We've partnered with White Mills Christian Camp.
We've partnered with an outreach to the homeless that we're continuing to do here. Recently, we've partnered with Mechanics on a Mission, which is a great partnership. In the past 14 months, we've been able to give six cars away to people who needed transportation.
In addition to that, we've partnered with Point University, as well as we've partnered with all of our Bible colleges. But Point University, we've recently partnered with in a special way with what is called the Gap Scholarship Program.
I'm going to ask you, if you would, to pull up that slide. I believe we've got a slide that tells about the Gap Scholarship. What this is, is the church contributes a certain amount of money, and it provides up to seven people to be able to go to college online at no cost to them at all.
Thanks to the generosity of some families here at Lakeshore, we've been able to fund that for the first year. Right now, we have six and are about to have our seventh one already enrolled. Life got in the way; they didn't get to get their college degree, and now they're going to be able to do that thanks to the provision of the Gap Scholarship that we've partnered on.
Now, we need to fund it moving forward. So, if you have a heart for that, you'd like to help with that, there's a QR code. Put that slide back up, please.
There's a QR code on that slide. We also have some cards out at the information counter with that QR code on it so that you can... Oh, that one doesn't have the QR code. Got the wrong slide. Disregard that last remark.
We've got cards on the information. I told them if nothing went wrong, I'd be totally surprised. So, we've got cards on the counter. Have the QR code on it if you'd like to make a donation. You can also just go to lakeshorechristian.com, click on the Give tab there, and you can select Point Scholarship if you want to make a contribution to that scholarship.
We would like to fund that for those people to be able to complete their degree program through the Gap Scholarship Program. So if you can make a donation in any amount, we appreciate that very much, and we appreciate all of you.
I do want to recognize too very quickly members that have been and are still here and have been here more than 10 years. Would you please stand? You've been part of our Lakeshore family for more than 10 years.
All right, all right! Keep standing for just a minute. Now, if you've been here over 15 years, keep standing. If you've been here over 15 years, yeah!
If you've been here over 20 years, keep standing. If you've been here... I'm going to jump to 30. Over 30 years, please keep standing.
And then I know we've got some 40 and 50 now, so we're so thankful for all of you. Here's what I want you to know: no church anywhere that you are a part of can accomplish long-term goals for the kingdom of God that impact eternity like we have without people who have consistently stayed and committed through all the challenges and all the changes, all the transitions you have to go through.
If you grow and you grow and you grow and you grow and you grow and grow a church, it changes everything about the church, and change is hard. So I just want to thank those who stuck it out through all the transitions and the changes to allow us to do the great stuff that God is doing through this church.
Let's thank them all one more time.
So I'm going to close with this passage as a vision for the future for Lakeshore and for all of you, whatever church you're connected to. I want you to have this as your prayer and goal for the church that you are in and part of right now.
Then we're going to close with a word of prayer, and we've got a fellowship time. I especially before we close want to thank one of our longest-standing partners in ministry here, Homestyle Bakery, has done so much for our church, and they've provided some cupcakes and snacks and stuff, and we've got some drinks and all out there.
But I want to close with this verse.
Hebrews 11 is known as the faith chapter, right? It tells a like a roll call of the faithful. By faith, they did all these things: Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and it just goes on listing Moses and everybody that all the great things they did by faith.
But we've got this great cloud of witnesses of those people, but also the people who came before us here at Lakeshore. They're a part now of that cloud of witnesses who, by faith, stepped out and did sacrificial things for the kingdom.
So here's what I want to say. Therefore, Hebrews 12:1, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.
For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for those who have not grown weary, who did not lose heart, who have continued to step out in faith day after day to allow you to transform them and work through them to bring others to know and follow Jesus.
I thank you for everyone that's had a part of that at Lakeshore Christian Church for these past 50 years and for the years yet to come. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Thank you all very much.
on Nov 17, 2024
