The Branch

By Andrew Covington

This time last year, I, like many other pastors received “the call” that I would be moving. My new appointment at Griffin First would include leadership as Associate Pastor and the Lead Pastor of The Branch. I found myself in a very tough predicament when I arrived because Griffin First is a great church and The Branch is a great contemporary worship offering. How do I take something that is already great and grow it? 

After many hours of prayerful consideration, holy listening, and assessment, the team at The Branch made to decision to "Re-Vision."
 
The Branch had grown and thrived under a dynamic vision and we were in a place to build on that vision. Simply put, we were at a crossroads where we could continue and maintain our worship experience, or we could go to God on a journey of revision to lift ourselves to heights greater than we could imagine.  


 
Last fall, our team engaged a professional from the John Maxwell Team to work with us in a process allowing us to set goals and identify priorities for the future. In January, we began the working of living into our revision and the results are amazing. Our plans including updating our physical worship space, creating dynamic new teams to engage new worshippers and our community, investing in our worship team, adding new technology tools, and reworking our worship planning process to be more collaborative. We have seen worship attendance grow with new first-time worshippers and those who had become disengaged.
 
Maybe you are in the same place. Maybe you are in a similar predicament as so many of you are serving in great churches. If so, I invite you to wrestle with the idea of revision and look toward a future greater than you can imagine! 
 
If you would like to know more about the process here at Griffin First, get in touch!  I’d love to have a cup of coffee and talk about our ongoing process to continue to revise and grow!
 
Rev. Andrew Covington is Associate Pastor at Griffin First UMC. Contact him by email at andrew.covington@ngumc.net. And check out The Branch on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheBranchGriffin/.