I just completed my thirtieth year on staff with this precious faith family. Words cannot express the depth of gratitude and love that I feel for the way God has used you in my life. May God be praised.
One of the truly fascinating storylines of Scripture is God’s identification with the person of the shepherd. This is not a trivial metaphor; it’s an ever-present theme in the revelation of God. He is the Good Shepherd.
This has enormous implications for Greenhouse.
Theologically, we deeply value the full expression of the gifts of God. Ephesians 4 speaks of our need for apostles and prophets and evangelists and teachers and shepherds. And yet. While all five of these functions are necessary for the mission of making disciples, one of them rises to the surface as God’s go-to self-description. Shepherd.
When Jesus restored the apostle Peter to his role of spiritual leadership, He commissioned him with a clear shepherding call to “feed My sheep.” The Good Shepherd unmistakably expects the church to make His job description our job description. Ezekiel 34 clarifies what this looks like in the real world: Seek the lost. Bring back the strays. Heal the sick. Strengthen the weak. Lead the flock. It is enlightening to realize that when we faithfully fulfill the ministry of the Good Shepherd, we always accomplish the ministry of Ephesians 4. How do we help ordinary people become passionate followers of Jesus? By feeding His sheep.
This is a provocative thought for a couple reasons.
On one hand, the shepherd’s call is a humble call. God does not require us to be flashy or clever or famous. There is something wonderful about remembering our roots in a kingdom led by a King who washes feet and remembers the poor and gets His fingernails dirty. I plead with us to recognize God’s bidding to be a humble church. There is something glorious about weeping together in microchurches and praying for the hurting at our altars and serving the vulnerable in our community. In a world where religious institutions sometimes cause more cursing than blessing, I long for Greenhouse to truly love the people of our church and neighborhoods. We need a vision small enough to know every sheep by name.
On the other hand, we need a vision big enough to honor the fullness of the Good Shepherd’s
holy ambition. The same prophetic call to heal the broken within our fold commands us to seek those outside of our fold. God knows the names of people who do not yet know His – and we are His plan to do something about that. This is why Jesus directed His earliest followers to faithfully serve their local town of Jerusalem, but then to follow their shepherd’s lead with a vision for Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. I long for us to faithfully and passionately care for our little flock and our little city – just like a good shepherd would do. But I also ask that we follow through with the shepherd’s heart into all 67 counties of the state of Florida – and ultimately to the unreached corners of the earth. I beg you to join me in praying for both the humility and the vision of the Good Shepherd.
May the peace and joy of Jesus be yours,
Pastor Mike
This spring we had 11 participants join together for a weekend to experience missions in the Middle East! We met with 3 long-term mission teams in Oman, Iraq, and Russia. Our days were filled with conversations with missionaries where we learned more about their countries’ cultures, their own day-to-day lives (joys and hardships), and their ministry in contexts resistant to the gospel. As a team, we cooked a traditional dinner from one of the countries we visited and ate together, visited a local mosque, and took a virtual reality tour of our host teams’ countries! It was a joy learning about other parts of the world in community.
Our participants loved the chance to hear first-hand accounts of what God is doing overseas as well as learn about cultures through food and fellowship in person.
A lot of them were surprised at how connected they felt to our team and the missionaries we talked with throughout the trip! For many of our team, this was their first time talking with missionaries in closed countries and hearing stories of how hungry Unreached people are for an encounter with the Living God.
One of our participants said, “The trip was so impactful to me. I felt like I came out of it with new eyes about how God calls us to partner with Him to share the gospel and how we can even be doing that here in Gainesville.”
Tutoring and mentoring programs transitioned from online to physical spaces
- In 2022, our tutoring and mentoring programs transitioned to fully in-person meetings. The hybrid of virtual and in-person over the last two years limited part of our reach. We saw an increase in the number of students and families we serve through our Community Tutoring program by meeting once again in a physical building.
Support for Positive Behavior Programs
- We partnered and supported two additional local schools to further their positive behavior programs by improving grades, attendance, and behavior.
Community Christmas Party
- A total of 50 adults and children attended the annual Community Christmas Celebration in partnership with the Carver Gardens management team. The event was the first of its kind since the onset of the pandemic. Both parents and children alike were grateful to experience great holiday joy through the celebration.
This year was full of staggering examples of the Lord’s provision! One of our neighbors, *Valerie, a single mom and dear friend, grew her baking business this year and with her profits began donating to Kid’s Church and was able to replace her car after an untimely accident. Watching Valerie’s success and generosity has been a joy to our entire team. Over the summer were able to help our new neighbor, *Chris, start his car detailing business, which has since branched out into minor landscaping as well. Finally, due to the incredible generosity of an individual donor two years ago, we were able to take our second annual Middle School field trip at the end of the year. We went to Busch Gardens this December, and our middle schoolers had a blast. The day was filled with laughter and celebration. Every year this trip is an incredible chance to connect with and love on the older students in our ministry.
Throughout the year our team was blown away by the generosity of God’s people. Members of our team’s extended communities rallied together to financially help out a family whose lights were on the verge of being turned off. Collectively they gave more than three times the amount we were hoping for, which allowed us to bless the family above and beyond their need. A second time, our community gifted a car to a student, *Jaylen, whom we’ve known for years, in celebration of his 18th birthday and high school graduation. In both instances, our communities responded without hesitation to show the love of Jesus tangibly and extravagantly.
We are blessed and honored to get to live and minister in the Pineridge community. The friendships we’ve made with our neighbors have touched our lives and we are consistently humbled by the investment of those who have gone before us to pave the way for the ministry we do today.
-The Pineridge Team
- We had 15 to 25 children at Kid’s Church every week
- Our Monday tutoring team doubled in size, going from three tutors to six
- Many on our team celebrated their 3rd or 4th years spent living in the neighborhood!
- Our team was regularly able to connect and pray for a total of 25 families this year
Our involvement in Holly Heights is twofold: continuing Greenhouse’s Kids Church and delivering food to ten families every week. At Kids Church our focus is to introduce Jesus and demonstrate His love to the neighborhood’s children, most of whom have never attended church or heard of Him before. Through our food ministry, in conjunction with the Bread of the Mighty Food Bank, we pick up, pack, and deliver food to families and individuals in the neighborhood (working poor families, disabled, shut-ins, elderly, veterans, etc., the majority of whom do not have transportation). We delivered approximately 25,000 pounds of frozen meat, fresh produce, bread, etc. this past year. Both of these ministries are great avenues for building personal relationships within Holly Heights and showing the tangible love of Christ in a practical, much-needed way.
There are several hundred multi-family units in Holly Heights, housing families and individuals in similar circumstances to those we serve. Holly Heights is just a microcosm of the many low-income communities in southwest Gainesville. We have one consistent helper and when we’ve had teens from Gainesville Outreach or Greenhouse interns participate with us, the kids absolutely soak up all the attention! We would dearly love more helpers. The “fields are ripe for the harvest!” just around the corner in Gainesville.
-Brent & Jennifer Godshalk
- Meet with 8-12 kids every week at Kids Church
- Deliver food to 10 families every week through our food ministry (500 pounds of frozen meat, fresh produce, bread; Approximately 26,000 pounds of food per year)
We saw a strong resurgence of discipleship groups, microchurches, and microchurch plants starting to happen in new areas and even some new counties. New leaders have emerged and there is a lot of momentum that our microchurch leaders will be bringing into 2023!
Many microchurches worked hard to get primed for multiplication, and we are eagerly looking forward to the fruit of that in 2023.
As a new friend of mine would say, “I know in my knower that Jesus loves me and I want to listen to him and follow His voice.” Hearing Jesus say, “Hey Gene, please pray to the Lord of the Harvest for harvesters” and then hearing Him say, “Look Gene, I have all power, so go make disciples.” My response was, “Jesus I’ll pray and I want to go but what does that look like? Even if I could find a church to hire me, You are the one telling me not to join a church staff and You aren’t telling me to sell everything and move to Africa to be a missionary… so how can I GO?”
Unfortunately, I was at that place for too long. I felt like a second-class Christian, and that the special ones, i.e. First Class, fell into a different category and I, along with everyone else, should just be happy to be on the plane. Letting that lie sink into my spirit caused my love for our Jesus to wane. Feeling inferior and not being on mission is a miserable place to be. If you are in a place where you don’t know what “GO” looks like, then I have some great news for you! I was there too, but now I know that I’m right where Jesus wants me to be! Discipleship Training helped me to hone in on my calling as a workplace microchurch planter and it helped me lay out practical ways to make disciples and be on mission in the season and environment where God currently has me. Since participating in DT, I have planted a microchurch and have seen Jesus move in discipleship and even a salvation in a secular workplace environment!
If you don’t know your current mission, know that if God can put me on mission, He will do the same for you. Take the next step with Discipleship Training and LET’S GO!
From the initial meeting, it became clear the current venue was not going to support this church. Every time we reached near capacity, the Lord opened a door that we didn’t even think was on the table. From Endeavor Health, to the Holiday Inn Conference Room, to the University of North Florida; the Lord has provided. Heading into this past fall, UNF had voted to close the Student Union to renters, the Event Services staff compelled them to continue hosting Greenhouse Jax because of the relationship and friendships that have developed between our church and their team since March. Because of this move by their staff, Greenhouse Jacksonville has been able to lovingly bless and pastor the event services staff at UNF in a very intimate and intentional way.
We are beyond thankful to God for all that happened in 2022 and are expectant for the ways He will move throughout 2023!
This June marked our second anniversary as Greenhouse Church Tampa and the party continued as we welcomed Pastor Mike, Dani & Caysen Lane into our Tampa family!
This year we have seen nothing short of God’s handiwork. From watching our campus grow by more than 125% in 6 months to expanding our microchurch coverage into 3 counties and watching as more of our people step into their God-given call, we are excited for what the future holds.
As we asked God to speak fresh vision and direction over our church for 2022, we sensed two directives – to stir up EVANGELISM, and mobilize the INTERCESSORS.
We began with prayer and intercession, ramping up our efforts in pre-service prayer, morning prayer at our HUB office space and the formation of our intercessory prayer team. As we started to gain increasing traction and momentum in prayer, we began to see God move in amazing ways!
Our online attendance metrics continued to SOAR, as we saw more people than ever visit Greenhouse South Florida online. We then watched many of these visitors, including a significant uptick of those de-churched and unchurched, as they took the next step from online to in-person and joined us for service at Western High. And finally, we celebrated with all of heaven as many of these same visitors had radical encounters with Jesus, surrendering to His lordship and going “ALL IN” through baptism! God did indeed stir up evangelism in our church family, as we experienced a 36% jump in baptisms from the year prior.
Internationally, we watched as God continued His great work in Greenhouse Guyana, moving them into their own HUB space with in-person weekly services happening each Sunday and microchurch meetings throughout the week. And, we marveled as our church family gave more to missions than EVER before in the history of our church!
All of this is exciting, but not enough. We don’t just want attendees – we are called to make DISCIPLES. We are praying that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of our church family this year would be activated to GROW as a disciple (living in the green), as well as to MAKE a DISCIPLE – baptizing & teaching them to obey! We sense God stirring our hearts to REACH our community here in South Florida by MOBILIZING our community of disciples here at GH South Florida.
We sense God calling us to plant microchurches in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County, pioneering new works that are consistently bathed in intentional, strategic and ongoing intercessory prayer.
We are so grateful to God for what He has done in and through our church family this year, and are looking forward with hope-filled anticipation to what He has in store for the future. His Kingdom COME His will be DONE, right here in South Florida, as it is in Heaven.
After a 3 year hiatus due to the pandemic, we were able to bring back our South Florida Breakthrough Weekend this past November! We had 35 participants, and just over 50 servers. The weekend was incredible and powerful, culminating in multiple baptisms. We look forward to our next South Florida Breakthrough this November, and would love for you to join us!
There is absolutely no avenue or space that the Gospel can not infiltrate. There is so much darkness online, however, that’s where the Gospel specializes in being the light.
“Church Online” has been much more than a video stream. It has been a real, powerful expression of church for so many people. We have seen Church Online serve those who are in regions where the Gospel is illegal. We have seen it serve those who are traveling outside of Gainesville for work. We have even seen it serve those who love a church like ours but can’t find something similar in their area.
All in all, we have seen disciples be raised because of this medium and we couldn’t be more excited.
- We have gotten back doctor’s reports about Colon cancer shrinking after a live host prayed for someone online.
- We have heard of cysts disappearing after a chat host prayed online.
- We have been a community to those that have lost loved ones.
- A chat host’s testimony, “I finally feel like I belong somewhere. I never thought liking computers so much would end up serving a purpose in the local church. I get excited everytime I get to pray with people online. I’m shy, but I love to type prayers. I love being on this team”
- We have added a post service altar time where we pray live with people. We interact with them as they comment.
- We have successfully created a training manual for our hosts to create a space where disciples can be made in the online format.
In the book of Acts, the early church demonstrated a lifestyle of prayer and missions in the context of local church life. The centerpiece of their activity was prayer, and the outflow was a strong community and mission. We have received a clear mandate from the Lord to be a presence-centered and prayer-based church that ministers to Jesus in the “first love” reality, walk humbly, and see the kingdom of God advance as we stay committed to the Great Commission.
This past year we have seen our prayer momentum grow as we intentionally committed to bathing all we do in prayer. Our rallying cry as a faith family is, “Until we connect with God, everything else is a distraction.” Partner with us as we continue to build a house of prayer that fuels all of our Kingdom activity from Gainesville to the nations.
Patrick McConn stepped into a new role as Worship Director and our worship staff has grown as Gina Umoh, Jonny Taylor, Sierra Bacha, and LJ Harrison joined our team over the summer. Before their arrival, three others from our worship team, Ben Pepper, Seth Thomas, and Sam Orozco-Torres, stepped up in temporary roles to help our team navigate the first half of the year.
The contributions of this entire team helped revamp how our worship ministry has functionally served our volunteers and church family.
Over 120 different volunteers served with our worship team throughout 2022, leading numerous worship experiences for our Greenhouse family and beyond. These include our weekly worship and prayer meetings, 21 days of prayer and fasting, five Easter services, and our Christmas services which featured the first worship choir in over three years.
We also hosted and led worship for the first ever Microchurch Conference with Microchurch planters from across the globe, as well as the 2022 Pen-Florida District Council, where we collaborated with other district worship teams to make much of Jesus.
We also partnered missionally with our Greenhouse Ministries for the Greenhouse Launch Camp, Gainesville Outreach, College Weekend, two KAIROS youth retreats, and three Breakthrough weekends.
Collectively, our worship teams led approximately 230 hours of diverse, spirit-filled worship experiences through the 2022 calendar year.
Our team also released a new single, “All I Am (Desperate Cry),” in February of 2022, which helped increase the reach of the songs God has birthed out of our Greenhouse Movement worship teams.
We are so excited about the work that God is doing in and through our incredible team of Greenhouse Worship staff and volunteers, and we eagerly look forward to all that the Lord has in store for 2023.
In May, we had the privilege of leading worship for the opening night of the Peninsular Florida District Council, hosted here at Greenhouse Church. Minutes before loading the stage for the session, one of our team members learned that a close friend had just been in a severe head-on collision with two other family members in the car.
The entire team gathered around in fervent, reverent prayer to plead for the lives of our friends. Then, filled with the Spirit and the peace that can only come from the Lord, our team stepped out to lead hundreds of pastors from around the state into one of the most sincere, awe-filled corporate worship gatherings we have experienced.
That night, we learned that all three passengers miraculously survived, including a person ejected from the vehicle. We prayed as a team, worshiped as a team, and then we celebrated as a team.Greenhouse Worship Team.
Greenhouse Worship Team
I invited an Iranian friend to church who was interested and asked if I could pray for her about her situation. The worship started and after 2 or 3 songs she sat down with tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong, she said, “There is no need to pray later.God just answered my reason for prayer in that song.” She is now following Jesus.
Emma Franks
The worship team sets the atmosphere to usher in the Presence of God. There is a special quality that the team brings to the Praise and Worship… and the only word that I can use for this quality is LOVING. The LOVE for Jesus is very evident and is welcoming to the attendees of all levels of faith. The faces of the attendees are transformed to serene and joyful during the Worship service, as they are transported spiritually into a place of true worship and connection with God.”
Judith George
Our ministry grew in numbers but so did our awareness of the needs in our families! In the 2022 year, we continued developing our own curriculum! This curriculum followed alongside topics being preached to our adults, but was uniquely and creatively broken down in a way that allowed children to understand it and apply it to their lives. Families who continued to watch church online, experienced the same joy and shared content as the children attending in person! This integration allowed children to discuss the content with friends, even if they weren’t able to attend church on Sunday.
We introduced our first ever Launch Camp Kids in the summer of 2022. We had over 130 children attend! During that week, our kids recognized the importance of their spiritual gifts and spent 5 days actively operating in them. As the summer progressed, our ministry witnessed children encountering the Holy Spirit through our Immerse Conference. They learned about the power of prayer and how much the Father loves the sound of their little, but mighty voices! And in the fall, for the first time ever, we hosted a Kids GLC – Greenhouse Little Camp during the Greenhouse Leadership conference! We had over 40 kids attend and focused on being planted in God’s word, having roots that go deep, and bearing fruit!
As a ministry, we’ve seen our numbers grow substantially in the past year! Included in those numbers, are the incredible foster and adoptive families regularly attending our services. What a joy it has been to witness so many of our families say yes to literally doing justice in Gainesville by taking in orphans, committing to being a voice for the voiceless, and as we’ve walked alongside and loved these families, we were granted the opportunity to witness two sibling groups find their forever homes! We recognize that not every child is the same. Whether it be a foster child, child with special needs, or just a child in need of a buddy, our ministry desired to create an environment of consistency and love. We created a Special Needs Ministry within our Greenhouse Kids Ministry. This ministry consists of trained volunteers that serve as buddies for any child that wants one. This gives children the opportunity to experience Jesus in whatever way they need!
As for some other family events, after being such a hit in 2021, Splash Sunday and Harvest Fest made their returns in 2022, with Harvest Fest hosting over 1000 people! Families enjoyed bounce houses, food trucks, hayrides, trunk or treat, dunk tanks and so much more! As a ministry, we are eager to make more disciples in the year 2023.
Ever since coming to Greenhouse, the word of God has had a bigger impact on my life. I read more of the bible than ever before, and have been able to discover my gifts.
I like that I get to use my gifts to help others. I feel like I’m closer to Jesus since coming to GH Kids.
Building friendships and helping others has been one of the best parts, and is helping me learn to be a leader like the Bible talks about.
This year our student leaders reached out to more students than ever before and were such catalysts for change. We saw the fullness of the APEST come alive amongst our students which led to such a transformation within our ministry. From middle to high school our students tapped into worship, prayer, prophecy, and more. They served with such passion and found new joy in their identity as believers of Jesus.
We have been experiencing Gainesville to the Nations through the attendance of many international students. One of those students came for a year and gave her life to the Lord after coming to Greenhouse Youth for some time and then moved back to her home country.
There she got plugged into a local church and became a youth leader to help bring them to know the same love she has. We have been ignited by hearing stories as these of teenagers encountering the radical love of Jesus Christ and being forever changed. Heaven has been coming down and we are so excited to see what is going to happen next!
On January 2nd of 2022, I was in an awful car crash where a drunk driver hit the drivers side of my car, and my car was totaled. I ended up unconscious for a few minutes and during that time I saw a vision of a man in sandals and robes telling me to hold on and that I was going to be ok. Previously from a different faith background in Jainism, I had a little idea of Jesus, mostly through what the media had told me. Every night after for 3 days I had dreams of what I now know to be Jesus healing the man with leprosy, talking to the woman at the well, and praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Having battled severe anxiety and depression for 7 years of my life, and being treated for it for 5, I went to my psychiatrist wondering if these dreams were some sort of physiological trauma response to the events of the car crash. As I was in perfect health, my secular psychiatrist suggested I just try going to a church service and see if that puts my mind at ease, because I was sure the man I was seeing in my dreams was Jesus. I was too nervous to go to a Sunday morning service, and a friend brought me to Greenhouse Youth instead. That first Wednesday night I ended up in tears of joy, because during worship was the first time in years that my mind wasn’t riddled with anxieties, fears of a panic attack, suicidal thoughts, etc. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to simply let your mind go empty and feel at peace with who you are. I knew I had to chase after whatever caused that feeling because I hadn’t felt it in so long.
I started the One Story that Leads to Jesus bible plan that most of the youth group was doing, and became hungry for a relationship with Jesus. As soon as I delved into the word I saw a release of fears and depression, and although it wasn’t “cured” overnight, I see Jesus working through those struggles and healing that pain every day even now. Within two weeks of that first service I gave my life to Jesus and got baptized at youth.
For starters when Kairos started, I had zero expectations of anything happening in terms of an encounter with God. It was the second night and I just broke down crying and for the first time in my life (18 years) I actually heard God.
I heard him say friendships (something I’ve been dealing with for a while) and I knew then that God had been listening even though I thought that he sometimes wasn’t. And then the night after that I just broke down and cried again and I heard him again and I just broke down again.
And after that prayer/worship session I had never felt more peace, joy, happiness in my entire 18 years of living on this earth. And then shortly after I wanted to go baptized and ever since then (after Karios and my baptism) I’ve been on fire for the one and only Jesus Christ.
In 2022, we saw loads of students respond to the Gospel, go all in with Jesus through baptism and embrace the power of community in mircochurches. In addition, 2022 entailed exciting changes and new callings. For the first time in Greenhouse College history, we are holding our own exclusive mission trips in 2023 with the vision for students to go onto the mission field long-term.
We’re praying every student will be sent as a disciple maker following graduation to other parts of the state and world beyond. We want our ministry on the college campuses to explode out of our intimacy with Christ. Our dream is for GH College to be known for heavy harvest, deep discipleship and many missionaries.
The Summer Internship is a 6-week intensive discipleship experience prioritizing scripture memory, evangelism, God-seeking, and fellowship. This year we had a class of 12 students who were taught how to live, learn and reproduce what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. During the internship students served in local community outreaches, and led microchurches with over 50 college students involved weekly.
Following the summer internship, the students in Gainesville began to lead college microchurches, other church ministries and serve on staff in the Fall. We’re so grateful for the amazing things God is doing through this class.
“Going to college I really didn’t want to get distracted, I wanted to continue growing in my faith and pursue a real relationship with Jesus. When I finally got to college I realized that everyone was doing their own thing and all my roommates went out all the time and I would stay at the dorm trying to hold onto my faith and I realized that I needed community. The first College service I went to was great. I loved the music and Pastor Mike preached on remaining in the faith and deciding constantly to choose Jesus over everything.
After that service I decided to make an effort to get into community so I went to the Jennings Microchurch and it has been the biggest blessing. In this microchurch, I got to be around other college students who had a passion for Jesus and were experiencing the same things as me. We encouraged each other, were vulnerable with each other, laughed, played games, and it really felt like a family. This made my transition to college easier because I had a safe place where I could be vulnerable with likeminded people and have them all point me back to Jesus.
Greenhouse college has been a great blessing to me as I’ve learned what being a humble servant looks like, and to have a heart for the lost. Overall I have grown in my faith beyond what I thought and I am grateful that God has provided such a loving, humble, family for me.”
Adah Nelson.
Our mission efforts last year to reach this city’s most vulnerable was a beautiful representation of God’s heart.
We’ve been working alongside Parklands Nursing Home for the past 6 years and this past year we saw many seniors receive God’s joy, peace and abundance through our House Church and Faithful friends ministry. Windsor Assisted Living seniors have been attending our Sunday house church with fervency and passion to love & learn about God. Their desire to keep growing and not stay stagnant is remarkable.
Our desire to be a church that honors and remembers seniors locally & globally expanded last year with deepened relations with the Ruth Center in Thailand and senior adult missionaries in the Middle East.
- Senior’s Day was a huge win. Over 100 seniors got plugged into GH and 30 seniors signed up for more information about being “sent” locally, globally or to another county
- Hosted 2 Widows banquets to bless, honor and radically love those most precious to us.
- In March we had Greenhouse senior adults attend our virtual missions trip to the Middle East.
- Our Senior ministry partnered with UF Health Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases here in Gainesville. We hosted a Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence seminar in hopes to spread awareness on how Parkinson’s disease impacts older adults in minority populations, specifically African Americans, who are often underdiagnosed and untreated.
- Over 20 seniors attended our in-person Senior Day trip to the museum to deepen connections and live life together.
We had 367 people in-person and over 50 online attendees from all over Florida, the US, and other countries come together to seek God, grow in leadership and disciple making, and learn ways to pursue their individual callings. Special guests Nona Jones, the Brian Sanders, and Jaye Thomas joined in alongside our gifted staff presenters to give their expertise on various topics from missions and justice to making disciples, emotional health, and so much more.
We also unveiled our strategic plan to plant green, multiplying microchurches in all 67 counties throughout the state of Florida! The leadership base was mobilized and we are so excited to see what God has in store with this vision in 2023!
The Greenhouse School of Ministry is taking an exciting turn in 2023! After a lot of prayer and strategic moves that we are making as a church, we have decided to shift in the way GSM is going to function to better equip all our Greenhouse congregations, members, and beyond.
We are going to be decentralizing the GSM courses so that our best resources are now available to anyone. This allows our content to be radically accessible and empowering to anyone in the Greenhouse family who is wanting to dig deeper in a variety of subjects. The videos can be used for personal edification, in microchurch settings as a curriculum, and will also be used to help train and empower potential church planters and missionaries being sent! We want to give access to some of our best online courses to anyone who has a hunger for more. With this new model, the reach of this high-quality content can explode across the nation and the world.
For those who want to take it to the next level, we have also partnered with Trinity Bible College for those seeking to pursue ministry credentials, undergraduate, and graduate degrees. Even our “Overview Bundle” of GSM classes count for 12 college credit hours towards a Trinity undergraduate degree! There are also opportunities to go on mission trips that count as college credit through Trinity.
For more information on our in-house courses or partnering with Trinity Bible College, check out www.greenhouseschoolofministry.org
The first semester alone has pushed me and made me rethink my healing process that the Lord has brought me on this year. It has allowed me to partner with pastors I look up to on bringing up this next generation and it’s shown me how to pull closer to the Lord. I’ve grown up in the church but GSM has truly shown me what it’s like to BE the Church and not just be WITH the Church.
We witnessed the move of God in powerful ways through those who attended Breakthrough this year. Many of the people who participated were touched by the Lord in a significant way. We saw prayers answered, healings occur, salvation and water baptisms. The joy of seeing people connect with one another and experience the presence of the Lord time and time again is what Breakthrough is all about.
Breakthrough Weekend starts on Friday night and concludes on Sunday morning. We have high expectations that Breakthrough Weekend will continue to provide an opportunity for those who attend to experience the Lord in a supernatural way.
- I love the way each session builds on one another, unwrapping and priming us to fully receive His love and Spirit!
- Everything was amazing. The fellowship, prayer, wonderful speakers. The atmosphere felt saturated with God’s presence.
- Being able to see God through everyone, it was not only about their niceness. You could see and feel the human touch.
- I was able to reconnect with God on a deeper level than I have recently.
- I really did get my breakthrough.
Thank you for opening your homes to plant microchurches. Thank you for serving children and youth at our hub and in neighborhoods throughout our city. Thank you for taking part in a harvest among the college students around us. Thank you for giving more to missions than we have ever given in the history of our church. Thank you for sharing your time, talents and treasures for the sake of justice and righteousness on this earth. In a world where unprecedented numbers of people have (often understandably) disengaged from the church, thank you for persevering with this fallible but hopeful faith family we call Greenhouse.