7 Questions - Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg; Ellis and Daniel

Tampa St. Pete - 7 Questions

Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg: Ellis and Daniel

History: Daniel heard God say come to Tampa Bay. He started with no money and just talked to pastors. They met within a month. In 4 months they had a group of pastors ready to reach Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg.

The secular community saw the city as Tampa Bay, not divided. It was initially called the Bay of the Cross, was then renamed to the Bay of the Spirit.

In 6 months they went from 3 meetings to many meetings. They started doing nothing but meeting and praying for one year.

Then they had churches adopting “prayer squares” to saturate prayer for and in the city. The idea was to build on the prayer. They received 20 billboards to let people know they could get prayer. This happened in the years 1998-1999.

They tried a national strategy but they learned that they
need to stick with the grassroots movement because that’s what the local
pastor’s have bought into.

They did a stadium event called Raise the Roof. Unity allowed them to share the Gospel with the city regularly. They do a care fest in multiple cities to bless their communities.

They have some overarching things: Carefest, Raise the Roof.

Yet the pastors have a heart for their local area so they
need to do things small as well.

What is right?

Mobilizing the Church to evangelize the community outside of their doors.

Interfacing with city officials, mayor’s office and the church. They can do care fest and other things.

Good race relations with the pastors in the community.

Core group of pastors.

What is wrong?

We do not have a complete commitment of all the pastors.

Lack of Finances

What is confused?

Churches do not see the need for reaching the city.
Attitude: Let’s just pray in stead of acting.

They don’t see the need for unity in reaching the city.

What is missing?

We do not have an understanding of what the city needs. They will invite the mayor and other officials to discover their needs. They have heard some needs but they need more specifics. Ellis’ church adopted a
neighborhood where they pray and serve.

We do not have a buy in from the business community.

Where are we failing?

Pastors are not fully bought into the vision. This is
getting better but not yet satisfactory.

Where are we succeeding?

They do events well: Wild Jam, Care Fest, Raise the Roof,
MLK celebration (Celebrate the two Kings), Back to School Bash,
Make a Difference Day (One day renovation of home).

Where do we have leverage?

A network for mass distribution and credibility
from events.

Q and A:

What is the scope?
The big pastors don’t show up but there are about 200 pastors involved in leading these city wide events. When a big event happens the big pastors show up.

2.5 million people in Tampa Bay
area.

Individual Churches are the distribution system for food
outreaches etc. They don’t warehouse. Groups of churches will do events or individual churches will do an event. The food comes in and the partners take the food and give it out and then report back on who and how they distributed.

It seems that the big idea (somebody cares) unifies the churches to accomplish these things. Compassion Resources who do things all year are lifted up by the local churches, not replacing them.

Daniel and his group are able to give lift to what is happening to bless the city already. They are not competing. He is a neutral convener to solve the cities issues.

They have different levels of participation (member, partner
and fellowship churches) allow people to select their own level of involvement.

Google is nothing, it just connect you to every valuable thing on the web. Daniel’s ministry is the same. They are an intermediary, connecting people with resources to opportunities and needs.

Ellis’s church has access to things that a young church usually can’t have by partnering with Daniel’s network. Ellis’s church can get 1200 pounds of food for $100/month. They can now do things on a global scale and a local scale.

Who makes up the group? In St. Pete there are pastors and other ministry leaders in the local church. Not yet business leaders. Daniel can involve businesses as well as churches because the events are blessings but not churchy. People like positive events.

Are there visible impacts on the city? When Ellis’s church started outreach in 1998 it has taken 6 years to see fruit. What people see the church as has changed. In St. Petersburg many pastors fall into disrepute. Many people think the church is led by hypocrites. Now the light that the church shines on the neighborhood is changing the people’s perceptions. Daniel sees pockets of areas like Eabor City where you can see dramatic change. The atmosphere in Tampa has changed. At first pastors were disbelieving and discouraged and had no sense of unity for the city. Now people look at the city as a whole. The church had to change it’s perception first and then the people’s perception changed.

Networks are neutral and can be used for many purposes. Now that the network is built, the church can respond in a crisis with great effectiveness.

Do you see people who don’t want to be left behind? In pockets. People who are apprehensive see the unity of Ellis and Daniel and they become more willing. Trust is build person to person.

Last week Daniel met with a Baptist pastor who finally got the vision to reach the city with his church.

Ellis’s church shuts down to do outreach events. They all join in to make these things happen.

What is a unity covenant?

The pastors created a covenant of 9 tenets to guide how they would behave toward each other. But they were not focused enough on fulfilling that covenant in depth of relationship. Now the pastors our bringing the covenant up to see that it is fulfilled. Daniel is not in the way of the pastors for them to take ownership.

In Tampa there is a big church that is anti-charismatic and that hinders unity. 20 minutes away there are churches in the same denomination that do not have this same barrier.