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The History of Church at the Bay (pt.2)

September 5, 2008 in The History of CATB with Comments Off


Continued from Wednesday…
After our launch we have been running hard. Over the next few years here are some important markers

  • Christmas week 2005 we baptized 16 people! Go God!
  • February 2006- we launched Home Teams and added a second service
  • March 2006- 1st Membership Class. Nearly 100 attend and about 75 decide to Partner with The Bay
  • September 2006- we added a Saturday Night service. We were now doing 3 services (*in hind site, and it is always 20/20 or better), we would wait to add a 3rd service until we got in a room that would seat 400 people
  • 2007 blazed by
  • We added a 2nd Saturday Night service in February 2008 (*see earlier comment)
  • August 2008- we made the move to The Gym!

A quick review of life change indicators (aka- making Tampa a hard place to get to Hell from)

  • Over 400 people have indicated they made a first time commitment to Christ
  • We have baptized over 150 people
  • Over 300 adults have connected in Home Teams
  • We have partnered with 4 churches to help them launch
  • We have served the poor through our Home Teams
  • … and God has blown us away.
To HIM be all the glory HONOR and PRAISE


A few people want the Friday 4 Links… So here they are:

We celebrate the Lord’s Supper this Sunday…

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The History of Church at the Bay (pt.1)

September 3, 2008 in The History of CATB with 4 Comments





I thought I would spend a little time talking about how CATB got started. Many people have heard parts of the story, but not the whole, so I thought (over the next view blogs) I would retell the story. CATB turns 3 years old the 2nd Sunday in September. Here are some bullet points:

  • May 8th 2005- 11 people meet in our home to pray and seek God for CATB. We shared in the Lord’s Supper together and dreamed about what the future might hold.
  • 1st Preview Service – June 12th- Total attendance was 277 (that was including 70+ volunteers from Church at the Springs, Ocala)
  • 2nd Preview Service- July 10th- A hurricane hit the day before, we had 202 attending with over 50 volunteers from CATS, Ocala.
  • 3rd Preview Service- August 14th- 276 attending with 40+ volunteers from CATS. We also enlisted a launch team of 75 people during the preview season in preparation for Launching.
  • September 11, 2005- we launched with 580 people attending. Of the 580 about 200 were well wishes from around the state of Florida (we had a youth group of 140 from Church by the Glades that made up the majority of our well wishers).

During the fall it seemed like a parade of people. Many checked us out and a few stayed. Our attendance settled in at around 250 people.

It was a real challenge during those early months of developing systems and leaders to run them. We had to create plans for things like:

  • Set-up and tear down
  • A band and vocalists
  • Children’s Ministry
  • Greeters
  • Follow-up for decisions made

God was so good- we saw over 50 people make 1st time decisions for Christ.

If you were at CATB during that season- write a comment of what you remember…

Watch this blog as I continue to unpack the 1st 3 years of CATB…